Glossary Terms - Maintaining Equipment & Software Flashcards
Booting
(Derives from the ‘Boot Strap Code’ that referred to a small piece of programming code built into computers that instructed the machine on what to do when turned on)
Boot now generally refers to the processes automatically attempted when power is provided to a computer.
Conditioner, Power
A device which reforms the quality of mains electrical power entering the building; it can be very useful in prolonging the life of electrical devices such as power supplies.
Device
Any piece of hardware attached to a computer system; it normally has a corresponding piece of software called a driver.
Driver
A piece of software which facilitates the commutation between a peripheral device and the operating system.
FDD
Normally refers to a 3.5 inch floppy disk drive.
HDD
The hard disk drive is a type of secondary storage in a computer system and acts as long term storage.
IDE
Integrated Drive Electronics
This is the most common way of attaching a hard disk to your system; it is the default drive interface on most PC systems.
Other interfaces for drives include SATA, SCSI and USB.
Motherboard
The main system board of a computer; holds input/output interfaces, the CPU and the BIOS/CMOS system.
POST
Power on Self Test
An in-built diagnostic program that is run when a device is turned on.
It will often report errors as flashing lights or beeps deepening upon the device. Most computing devices have a POST procedure.
This is used to check if the hardware is working as expected.
RAM
Random Access Memory
The main system memory.
It’s a form of primary storage and is volatile.
SLA
Service Level Agreement
A contact between a client who requires a service and a service provider. In the IT industry, SLAs are a common occurrence as they define the obligations of the service provider and the value of that service to the client.
Surge Protector
A device that is designed to protect a device from peaks of over-voltage. They are normally plugged into a power point and then the device us plugged into it.
The surge protectors often damaged in the process of protecting the device from a power surge.
UPS
Un-interruptible Power Supply
A device used to provide short term power in the event of a blackout. This gives time for saving data and shutting-down safely.
The capacity of a UPS must be carefully matched to the power requirements of the system attached to it.
USB
Universal Serial Bus
A common interface used to connecting a range of devices to the motherboard.
BIOS
Basic Input/Output System
The built-in software that determines what a computer can do without accessing programs from a disk.
On PCs, the BIOS contains all the code required to control the keyboard, display screen and disk drives.
They are typically placed in a ROM chip on the motherboard.
Boot Drive
The hard drive which has the OS installed on it.
Once the BIOS has performed the system checks, it looks for the boot drive so that the OS can be loaded.
CPU
Central Porcessing Unit
The brains of the computer where most of the calculations take place.
Expansion Slot
A connector on the motherboard that allows an expansion card to be plugged in to allow additional functionality to a computer, such as a sound card.
Software License
A software license is an agreement for an organisation to operate software.
Optical Drive
A disk drive which reads and/or writes to a disk where the information is stored.
PCI
Peripheral Connect Interface
The most common type of slot for all expansion cards like RAM connectors and GPU slots.
ROM
Read Only Memory
Memory chips which are primary storage and usually store critical programs such as BIOS. It is non-volatile meaning that the contents are not lost when power is turned off.
Components
The parts that make up a computer system. They can be hardware (processor, memory, video card etc.) or software (OS).
Computer System
The complete computer, consisting of a system unit, keyboard mouse, monitor and any other peripherals such as a printer that are attached.
