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A+ > Chapter 1 - Motherboards, Processors & Memory > Flashcards

Chapter 1 - Motherboards, Processors & Memory Flashcards

1
Q

tell me 2 other names for the motherboard

1-5

A

system board

mainboard

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2
Q

what is the form factor that is designed to work in standard ATX cases and smaller cases?

1-7

A

micro ATX

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3
Q

I will list the types of ITX. tell me their dimensions.

Mini ITX
Nano ITX
Pico ITX
Mobile ITX

1-7

A

170 x 170
120 x 120
100 x 72
60 x 60

all in millimeters

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4
Q

what is a chipset?

1-9

A

collection of chips or circuits that perform interface and peripheral functions for the processor.

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5
Q

what is the Northbridge?

what are the 3 primary responsibilities of the Northbridge?

1-9

A

subset of motherboard’s chipset that performs the management of high-speed peripheral communications

communications with integrated video
processor to memory communications
managing the Southbridge

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6
Q

what is the frontside bus?

1-10

A

the communication between the CPU and memory

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7
Q

what is the backside bus?

1-10

A

goes between the CPU and the level 2 or 3 cache memory

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8
Q

what is the Southbridge responsible for?

1-10

A

support for the onboard slower peripherals like parallel ports, serial ports, serial and parallel ATA

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9
Q

tell me the 5 main types of expansion slots

1-10

A 
PCI
AGP
PCIe
PCI-X
CNR
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10
Q

PCI expansion buses operate at what 2 speeds?
What are their bit rates?
What happens if you mix the 2 together?

1-10

A

33 and 66 MHz
133 and 266MBps
all adapters will slow to 33MHz

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11
Q

what 2 voltages are PCI slots manufactured for?

1-10

A

3.3 volts and 5 volts

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12
Q

tell me the speed range on a PCI-X slot
what’s the max throughput, considering it has a 64 bit bus?

1-11

A

133MHz to 533MHz

4.3 GBps

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13
Q

what is the AGP slot for?

1-13

A

graphics card

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14
Q

what is a lane?
what uses lanes?
what is a link?

1-15

A

a lanes is a switched point-to-point signal path between any two PCIe components
PCIe
a single lane or combined collection of lanes that the switch interconnects between devices

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15
Q

there are 7 different link widths supported by PCIe. tell me what they are.

which ones are most common? (three of them)

1-15

A

x1, x2, x4, x8, x12, x16, x32

x1, x4, x16

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16
Q

what are CNR expansion slots for?

1-17

A

its the Communications and Networking Riser slot, was a replacement for Intel’s AMR slot, allowed motherboard manufacturers to implement a motherboard chipset with certain integrated features (like adding dolby digital surround to a standard sound chipset for example)

17
Q

what’s another name for virtual memory?
where is it found?

1-19

A

the swap file, called pagefile.sys

dedicated section of the hard drive

18
Q

what is the best example of firmware that you can think of?

1-24

A

a computer’s BIOS routine

19
Q

what does POST take care of? (4 things)

1-26

A
  1. verifies the integrity of the BIOS itself
  2. verifies and confirms the size of primary memory
  3. analyzes and catalogs hardware
  4. manages passing of control to the specialed BIOS routines
20
Q

when you flash the BIOS, what are you doing to it?

1-27

A

giving it an upgrade

21
Q

what does DIP stand for?

1-28

A

dual inline package

22
Q

what is hyperthreading?
what is another name for a core?

1-32,33

A

a form of simultaneous multithreading

a die

23
Q

what is CPU throttling?

1-34

A

reducing the operating frequency of the CPU during times of less demand or during battery operation

24
Q

what is parity checking?

1-38

A

a rudimentary error checking sceme that offers no error corrections

25
Q

why is ADRAM asynchronous?

1-42

A

because it operates independent of the CPU’s clock

26
Q

SDRAM shares a common clock signal with the computer’s bus clock. if the bus is 8 bytes wide and the clock signal is 100 MHz, what is the throughput for SDRAM?

1-43

A

throughput is bytes per second

in this case, it would be 800 MBps

27
Q

tell me the 5 most popular implementations of DRAM.

1-42

A 
SDR SDRAM
DDR
DDR2
DDR3
DRDRAM
28
Q

Different CPUs have different RAM requirements. When Intel made the i7-990X Extreme Edition six-core processor, they did away with the FSB. How did they do that, what remains, and what is it called?

1-46

A

they moved the memory controller out of the Northbridge and into the CPU.

what remains is what Intel calls the QPI

the QPI is a PCIe-like path that uses 20 bidirectional lanes to move data very very fast between the CPU and RAM

29
Q

tell me the 4 most popular form factors for primary memory modules.

1-49

A

DIMM
RIMM
SODIMM
MicroDIMM

30
Q

is dual channel optional or required with DRDRAM?

1-51

A

required

31
Q

ideally, how should the air flow through the system?

1-57

A

from the front to the back, first across the hard drive, then across the CPU, video card, NIC and motherboard simultaneously, then out the rear exhaust fans

32
Q

tell me the 6 types of advanced CPU cooling methods

1-61,62,63

A 
liquid cooling
heat pipes
peltier cooling devices
phase-change cooling
liquid nitrogen and helium cooling
undervolting
33
Q

what does CMOS stand for?

1-28

A

complementary metal oxide semiconductor

34
Q

what do parallel components need to be able to communicate?

1-9

A

a bus

35
Q

what is up-plugging

1-16

A

the ability to use a higher-capability slot for a lesser adapter

36
Q

give me 3 form factors for motherboards

1-6,7

A

ATX - advanced technology extended
Micro ATX - works in ATX and smaller
ITX - made by VIA, low power, small form factor

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