Chapter 3 Hardware Flashcards
Of the following fiber connectors, which are used for duplex (two strands instead of one)? (Choose two.)
A) ST
B) SC
C) FC
D) LC
B, D. Both SC and LC connectors are square and can be purchased in single or duplex connectors. SC is square and is a push/pull design. ST have a bayonet connection. FC connectors have a threaded coupling. LC connectors are smaller at 1.25 mm and have a latching mechanism to keep them in place, making them good for rack mount use. SC, FC, and ST connectors are 2.5 mm. There are other connectors on the market, but not on the A+ exam.
Which motherboard form factor measures 4.7″ × 4.7″?
A) Mini-ITX
B) Nano-ITX
C) Pico-ITX
D) Mobile-ITX
B. Nano-ITX motherboards are 4.7″ square,
a mini-ITX motherboard is a 6.7″ square,
pico-ITX motherboards are 3.9″ × 2.8″, and
mobile-ITX motherboards are 2.4″ square.
The DC power supply (DCPS) within a laser printer converts AC power into what three voltages? (Choose three.)
A) +5 VDC
B) –5 VDC
C) +24 VDC
D) –24 VDC
A, B, C. The DC power supply (DCPS) converts house current into three voltages: +5 VDC and –5 VDC for the logic circuitry and +24 VDC for the paper-transport motors.
You need to share printers on your network with multiple client operating systems, such as Windows, macOS, and Linux. Which of the following services will best meet your needs?
A) Bonjour
B) AirPrint
C) TCP printing
D) Virtual printing
C. TCP printing allows clients with different OSs to send jobs directly to printers without worrying about intra-OS conflicts. Bonjour and AirPrint are both Apple services, and virtual printing allows you to print output to documents such as PDF files. Whenever sharing printers for remote printing, be sure to set proper user authentication on the print device.
What are the dimensions of a mini-ITX motherboard?
A) 12″ × 9.6″
B) 9.6″ × 9.6″
C) 6.7″ × 6.7″
D) 3.9″ × 2.8″
C. Mini-ITX motherboards are 6.7” square (or more precisely, 6.69″ square).
ATX motherboards are 12″ × 9.6″.
A micro-ATX motherboard is a 9.6″ square, and
pico-ITX motherboards are 3.9″ × 2.8″.
What hardware device is used to store encryption keys, making them safer because they are never directly loaded into a server’s memory?
A) HSM
B) BIOS
C) ITX
D) TPM
A. The Hardware Security Module (HSM) is a piece of hardware that can be removed and is used to hold encryption keys for a system. It differs from TPM (Trusted Platform Module) implementations in that TPM is a chip on the motherboard, not a separate piece of hardware, and TPM can also be software. TPM is used to encrypt hard drives. The BIOS (or UEFI) is the program the CPU uses to start up the system after being powered on. ITX is a motherboard form factor.
You need to enable clients to scan documents and place them on network accessible storage regardless of the multifunction device’s location worldwide. Which service will best suit your needs?
A) Bonjour
B) AirPrint
C) Virtual printing
D) Cloud services
D. Many modern multifunction devices have the ability to connect to a cloud and email and store scanned documents and images directly from the device without requiring a connected PC. The documents are made accessible worldwide via services such as Dropbox, Evernote, or Google Drive.
What features are included in modern networked MFDs? (Choose all that apply.)
A) Email
B) Scanning
C) Printing
D) Faxing
A, B, C, D. While faxing is not used as often as it once was, it is still a feature available on some MFDs. Email, scanning, and printing are also common features.
During which step of the laser printer imaging process does a fluorescent lamp discharge the photosensitive drum?
A) Cleaning
B) Charging
C) Exposing
D) Developing
A. During the cleaning step, a rubber blade inside the toner cartridge scrapes any toner left on the drum into a used toner receptacle, and a fluorescent lamp discharges any remaining charge on the imaging drum, making it neutral and ready to be charged again by the corona wire (or charging roller).
A customer wants you to upgrade their motherboard so that they can have the fastest video connection possible. They want to know how fast PCIe 4 is. What will you tell them the data rate of a single lane of PCIe 4 is?
A) 250 MBps
B) 500 MBps
C) 1 GBps
D) 2 GBps
D. There are five major versions of PCIe currently specified: 1.x, 2.x, 3.0, 4.0 and 5.0. Each version doubles the data transfer rate of the version before. For the four versions, a single bidirectional lane operates at a data rate of 250 MBps, 500 MBps, approximately 1 GBps, roughly 2 GBps, and nearly 4 GBps respectively. In any version of PCIe, there can be up to 16 lanes, so for example, in theory, a PCIe 4.0 x16 connector could transfer nearly 32 GB/s (1.969 GB/s per lane, x 16 lanes). You might find it helpful in your studies to locate or create a chart of the different versions and bandwidth for x1, x4, x8 and x16.
A designer from the corporate office is visiting your field office. The user tries to print from their MacBook Pro to a networked printer, but it does not work. Local users in the office are able to print to the device using their Windows computers. What would most likely solve the problem?
A) Select the Enable Mac Printing option in the print server configuration settings.
B) Select the Enable Bonjour option in the print server configuration settings.
C) Install a macOS printer driver on the print server.
D) Stop and restart the print spooler service.
C. Print servers need to have the appropriate drivers for all operating systems that will be clients. It’s possible that this print server does not have the macOS driver installed.
You need to perform preventive maintenance on an impact printer. What are two areas you should examine that you would not need to on most inkjet printers? (Choose two.)
A) Ink cartridges
B) Output tray
C) Printhead
D) Tractor feed mechanism
C, D. Impact printers create images by physically striking the paper, which can wear down the printhead. Always check that. Also, impact printers most often use tractor-feed mechanisms to load the paper, and they can wear down or get bogged down by paper debris as well.
Which expansion bus technology uses lanes, which are switched point-to-point signal paths between two components?
A) PCI
B) PCI-X
C) PCIe
D) Mini-PCI
C. PCIe uses lanes. Each lane between any two intercommunicating devices consists of a separate pair of wires, one for each direction of traffic, which dramatically increases speed.
Your motherboard has 3 PCIe x16 v 4.0 slots and the motherboard does not support up-plugging for PCIe adapter cards. Which of the following statements is true?
A) You can’t put an x8 card into an x16 slot.
B) You can put an x8 card into an x16 slot, but it will run at x1 speed.
C) You can put an x8 card into an x16 slot, and it will run at x8 speed.
D) You can put an x8 card into an x16 slot, and it will run at x16 speed.
B. The x8 card won’t completely fill the x16 slot, but it will work at x8 speeds if up-plugging is supported by the motherboard. Otherwise, the specification requires up-plugged devices to operate at only the x1 rate.
An inkjet printer doesn’t seem to be moving the printhead to the right area. What two components within an inkjet printer are responsible for moving the printhead into proper position and therefore could be the problem?
A) Carriage and belt
B) Roller and belt
C) Carriage motor and roller
D) Carriage motor and belt
D. The motor that makes the printhead carriage move is also often called the carriage motor or carriage stepper motor. It has a belt attached to it, the carriage belt, which moves the printhead carriage back and forth.
You need to configure Hyper-V on one of your Windows-based desktop computers with an Intel processor. Which of the following must be true? (Choose three.)
A) The CPU must have SLAT.
B) The CPU must have Intel VR.
C) The processor must be 64-bit
D) You need to enable virtualization in the BIOS/UEFI.
A, C, D. The CPU must support VM Display Mode Extension; on an Intel processor, it’s called Virtualization Technology (Intel VT). The processor must be 64-bit and have second-level address translation (SLAT). Virtualization also requires the Windows Pro edition or better. Virtualization must be enabled in the BIOS/UEFI and may be found under different names depending on the motherboard manufacturer.
You have a peripheral that needs a data speed of 20 Gbps and 9 W of power to be supplied by the connection to the PC. Which PC peripheral connection type is it most likely to use?
A) Thunderbolt
B) USB 3.0
C) eSATA
D) DisplayPort
A. Thunderbolt v1 and v2 both provide 20 Gbps of data bandwidth. Thunderbolt 3 doubles the data rate to 40 Gbps. Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4 can also provide the power the device needs. USB 3.0 can only provide about 5 W of power and is much slower at 5 Gbps. eSATA is also slower and doesn’t provide power, although eSATAp does. DisplayPort is also slower and provides no power, unless it’s DisplayPort over USB.
In a laser printer, what is the function of the transfer corona assembly?
A) It transfers a positive charge to the paper.
B) It transfers a positive charge to the imaging drum.
C) It transfers the toner from the imaging drum to the paper.
D) It transfers the image from the laser to the imaging drum.
A. The transfer corona assembly is given a positive charge, which is transferred to the paper, which in turn pulls the negatively charged toner from the photosensitive imaging drum. This is the transferring phase of the laser printer imaging process.
What type of connector is shown here?
A) Molex
B) SATA
C) PCIe
D) ATX
C. This is an eight-pin PCIe power connector. They also come in 6-pin configurations.
A technician has installed a printer driver on a Windows client computer. What is the best next step the technician can take to ensure that the printer is installed properly?
A) Ping the printer’s IP address.
B) Check the printer status and ensure that it says “Ready.”
C) Stop and restart the spooler service.
D) Print a test page.
D. After installing a new printer, it’s good practice to print a test page to ensure functionality.
A graphic designer in your office needs two displays to do their work. Which of the following should you install to set up their desktop computer for this configuration?
A) A video splitter
B) A second video driver
C) A second video card
D) A video replicator
C. To use a second display on a desktop computer, you need to install a second video adapter or have one video adapter with two display interfaces. Laptops often have an external display interface and are capable of providing video to the built-in screen and an external display at the same time.
You have a motherboard designed to hold DDR3 1600 memory. What will happen if you attempt to install DDR4 2400 memory into the motherboard?
A) It won’t fit.
B) It will operate at 667 MHz.
C) It will operate at 1133 MHz.
D) It will operate at 1600 MHz.
A. DDR3 and DDR4 memory slots are both keyed, but the keys are in different places. DDR3 has 240 pins and DDR4 has 288 pins. Therefore, the memory will not fit into the slots on the motherboard.
A technician needs to install an optical disk system with capacity to burn disks storing about 60 GB of data at one time. What is the minimum technology required to get over this threshold?
A) DVD-10
B) DVD-18
C) Triple BDXL
D) Quad BDXL
C. A Blu-ray Disc Extra Large (BDXL) can store up to 128 GB of data, (Quad BDXL) although most for sale boast only 100 GB of storage (Triple BDXL). Blu-ray is the latest rendition of optical disks, but DVDs are still available, and come in single layer (SL), dual layer (DL), single side (SS) and dual side (DS) formats. DVD-18 (DS, DL) hold approximately 16 GB of data. DVD-10 (DS, SL) can hold approximately 9GB, and DVD-9 (SS, DL) hold approximately 8 GB of storage. DVD-9 and DVD-10 can both be DVD+R or DVD-R format but DVD-18 can only be the DVD+R format.
You have been asked to purchase new RAM for three workstations. The workstations call for DDR4 3600 chips. What throughput will these modules support?
A) 450 Mbps
B) 1,800 Mbps
C) 3,600 Mbps
D) 28,800 Mbps
D. The number designation of 3600 in DDR4 3600 indicates bus speed of 3,600 MHz. To find the throughput, multiply the bus speed by 8. DDR4 3600 therefore is the same as PC4 28,800 with a peak transfer rate of 28,800 Mbps. (3,600,000 cycles per second x 8 = 28,800,000 bits per second. Divide by 1000 to get Mbps = 28,800).