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Information Technology > Hardware Basics > Flashcards

Hardware Basics Flashcards

1
Q

A group of 8 bits is referred to as?

A

a Byte

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2
Q

How many possible values can a byte have?

A

256 (2^8)

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3
Q

What is Character Encoding?

A

The assignment of binary values to characters so that humans may read them, like a dictionary

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4
Q

What is the oldest character encoding standard?

A

ASCII

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5
Q

What is the most prevalent character encoding standard used today?

A

UTF-8

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6
Q

What do Logic Gates do?

A

Allow transistors to do more complex tasks

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7
Q

Which direction is Binary read in?

A

Right to Left

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8
Q

What number in Decimal Form does 10000000 represent?

A

128

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9
Q

Why did UTF-8 replace the ASCII character-encoding standard?

A

UTF-8 can store a character in more than one byte

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10
Q

What is the highest decimal value we can represent with a byte?

A

255

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11
Q

What are the 5 critical components of a computer?

A
  1. CPU
  2. RAM
  3. Hard Drive
  4. Motherboard
  5. Power Supply
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12
Q

What is an External Data Bus (EDB)?

A

The EDB sends data throughout the motherboard

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13
Q

What sizes does the EDB come in?

A

8 bit, 16 bit, 32 bit, 64 bit

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14
Q

What are Registers?

A

Registers store data that the CPU can use. When the CPU does computation, it stores information in registers first

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15
Q

Does data get sent from RAM over the EDB? Why or why not?

A

No, there’d be too much data

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16
Q

How many lines of data can be sent through the EDB at a time?

A

One

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17
Q

What is the Memory Controller Chip (MCC)?

A

The MCC is a bridge between the CPU and the RAM. The CPU requests data from the MCC, which retrieves it from RAM and sends it back to the CPU via the EDB

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18
Q

What is the Address Bus?

A

The Address Bus connects the CPU to the MCC. When the CPU requests data from the MCC, it sends the location of that data (the location being in the RAM) over the Address Bus to the MCC

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19
Q

What is Cache?

A

A faster source of data than RAM

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20
Q

How many cache levels are there and what are they referred to? Which is fastest?

A

L1, L2, L3. L1 is smallest but the fastest

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21
Q

What is the Clock Wire?

A

When you send or receive data, it sends a voltage to that clock wire to let the CPU know it can start doing calculations. For every tick, the CPU does one cycle of operations. When you send a voltage to the clock wire, it’s referred to as a clock cycle.

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22
Q

What is an Instruction Set?

A

A list of hard coded instructions the CPU is able to run

23
Q

What are the two major types of CPU sockets?

A

Land Grid Array (LGA) and Pin Grid Array (PGA)

24
Q

What does DRAM stand for?

A

Dynamic Random Access Memory

25
Q

What does DIMM stand for?

A

Dual Inline Memory Module

26
Q

What does SDRAM stand for?

A

Synchronous DRAM

27
Q

What makes SDRAM different from DRAM?

A

SDRAM is synchronized to the computer’s clock speed, allowing for the faster processing of data

28
Q

What does DDR SDRAM stand for?

A

Double Data Rate SDRAM

29
Q

How many versions of DDR are there?

A

4, including: DDR1, DDR2, DDR3, DDR4

30
Q

What does the Chipset on the Motherboard do?

A

The Chipset decides how components talk to each other on the machine and manages data between the CPU, RAM and peripherals

31
Q

The Chipset on the Motherboard is made of how many subchips? What are their names?

A

The Northbridge and Southbridge

32
Q

What does the Northbridge on the Motherboard do?

A

It interconnects stuff like RAM and video cards. Sometimes it is directly integrated into the CPU

33
Q

What does the Southbridge on the Motherboard do?

A

Maintains the Input/Output controllers like hard drives and USB devices

34
Q

What do Function Slots on the Motherboard do?

A

Expand the functionality of the computer

35
Q

What is the standard for an Expansion Slot today?

A

Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCI Express or PCIe)

36
Q

What is the most common form factor for Motherboards?

A

Advanced Technology eXtended (ATX)

37
Q

What form factor is used for smaller Motherboards? What sizes does it come in?

A

Information Technology eXtended (ITX). The sizes are mini-ITX, nano-ITX, and pico-ITX

38
Q

How many bytes are in a kilobyte, kilobytes in a megabyte, megabytes in a gigabyte, and gigabytes in a terabyte?

A

1,024 units

39
Q

What are the two basic hard drive types used today?

A

Hard Disk Drives (HDD) and Solid State Drives (SSD)

40
Q

What interface do most HDDs use?

A

SATA, which uses one cable for data transfers

41
Q

What interface was created to improve the speeds of SATA drives?

A

NVMe slots

42
Q

What are the two types of electricity?

A

DC and AC

43
Q

What kind of voltage do computers use?

A

DC

44
Q

What do Power Supplies do?

A

Convert AC power to DC power for computers to use

45
Q

What does USB stand for?

A

Universal Serial Bus

46
Q

What are the current versions of USB?

A

USB 2.0, USB 3.0, USB 3.1

47
Q

What does BIOS stand for and what does it do?

A

BIOS stands for Basic Input Output Services and is software that initializes the hardware in the computer and gets the operating system up and running

48
Q

Where is the BIOS stored?

A

On the motherboard in a special type of memory called the Read-only Memory chip (ROM chip)

49
Q

What is needed for the CPU to communicate and use connected peripherals? Where are they stored?

A

Drivers, and they are located in the Hard Drive

50
Q

What other kind of interface besides the BIOS is used?

A

Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI)

51
Q

What is POST? When is it run?

A

the Power On Self Test, performed by the BIOS, determines what hardware is on the computer and occurs before the BIOS initializes that hardware. A beep usually indicates the test was successful

52
Q

What does the CMOS battery do?

A

It stores basic data about booting the computer like the date, time, and how you want it to start up (BIOS settings)

53
Q

What is reimaging? How is it typically done?

A

Reimaging is wiping and reinstalling the operating system. This is usually done by connecting an external hard drive and booting from that drive

54
Q

What two ways prevent electrostatic discharge when building a computer?

A

Touching a non-powered, metal component of the computer and wearing an anti-static wristband

Information Technology (16 decks)

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