Hardware (Chapter 1) Flashcards
What are two common types of laptop batteries?
Lithium-ion (Li-ion) and Lithium-ion polymer (LiPo)
- Designed to be fully charged
- No “memory effect”/decreasing of capacity
- Different form factor for each laptop (battery is unique)
What type of memory does a laptop use?
SO-DIMM (Small outline dual in-line memory module)
- Used in laptop and other mobile devices
- Non-module laptops don’t allow upgrades and are soldered to the board
What hard drive form factor do most laptops use?
2.5” (3.5” is for desktops)
What are the benefits of an SSD?
- Fast, less latency
- All memory, no moving parts
- Quiet
- Is an upgrade from virtually any HDD
What is the form factor of SSDs in modern laptops?
M.2
- No cables required
- Easy installation (modular/insert into slot)
What are three ways to migrate data from an HDD to an SSD?
Install an OS on the SSD
- Move files between drives, then install required applications (time consuming)
Create an image or clone of the HDD
- No OS installation required
- Move the image to the new SSD with imaging software (sometimes included with the SSD)
Drive-to-drive image
- Image directly from one drive to another
What wireless standard do laptops have?
802.11
- mini PCI or mini PCIe slots for expansion/replacement of LAN or PAN
What kind of short-distance communication do some laptops have?
NFC (Near-field communication)
- 4 centimeters or less
- Transfers data or authenticates
What is an LCD and what benefits does it provide?
Liquid crystal display
- Lightweight
- Low power requirement
- Relatively inexpensive
What is are some disadvantages of LCDs?
- Poor black levels
- Requires a separate backlight which are difficult to replace
What is OLED and what characteristics does it have?
Organic light emitting diode
- Does not require a backlight
- Thinner and no glass required
- Very good color representation and has more contrast than LCDs
- Slightly more expensive
How are Wi-Fi antennas physically configured in a laptop?
Bluetooth and wireless antennas are routed to the top of the laptop display, the highest point of the device
- This can create challenges when replacing or repairing displays; antennas must be reconnected
What are the two different types of backlighting used by LCDs?
LED backlit (MOST COMMON)
- Uses LEDs around the edge of the screen with an array of them behind it
- Used on newer laptops
CCFL - Cold cathode fluorescent lamp (OBSOLETE)
- Higher power requirements
- Thick
What is a digitizer?
Converts analogue (touch) to digital input
What does a laptops power adapter do and why might it need to be inverted?
A power adapter/inverter AC from the wall to DC power.
An inverter might be used to convert it back to AC for the display backlight (CCFL).
What motherboard components operate in the Northbridge chipset?
CPU, memory, PCIe
Most performance aspects determined by this.
On what signal pathway do the CPU, RAM and PCIe communicate?
The FSB (front-side bus)
This has been phased out. CPU has own integrations.
Connected the the Northbridge, what chipset supports slower peripherals (USB, serial ATA, parallel ports)?
Southbridge
On a motherboard, what is data sent through between components?
Bus
The wider the bus, the more data that can be processed per unit of time (ex. GHz)
What kind of bus does nearly every board today use?
Serial bus
What PCIe link width (lanes and connector size) is most commonly supported?
x16
x32 is UNCOMMON
What is virtual memory?
A spot reserved on the harddrive to act as additional memory. The swap, or paging file, is called PAGEFILE.SYS in Microsoft OSs.
What is cache memory?
Very fast form of memory between the CPU and RAM. It predicts what the CPU will ask for and prefetches the information before being asked.
Whats are the different designations of CPU caches?
L1, L2, 3
–L1 is the smallest and fastest
–In multi-core processing, each core has its own dedicated L1 and 2 caches
–L3 cache is larger and slower and is usually shared among all cores
What is a PGA socket?
Pin-grid array
Pins are on the CPU, socket has holes
What CPU socket type utilizes a land-grid array?
LGA 1200
The pins are located on the motherboard socket and the lands are on the CPU.
What component uses SATA?
Hard drive
What is the main purpose of BIOS?
Boots the system, allows OS to interact with hardware directly instead of with drivers
What is the successor to BIOS?
UEFI
(Unified Extensible Firmware Interface)
Its much more extensible than BIOS
What two passwords can BIOS/UEFI set?
User password (to boot)
Administrator password (to access settings)
What is TPM?
Trusted Platform Module
–Used in BIOS to boot to the OS only if the boot drive is verified
Swapping hard drives trips this (ex: Bitlocker)
If a TPM chip isn’t present, what can be used in its place?
HSM (hardware security module) that creates, manages and stores encryption keys
What is Secure Boot?
It ensure that the PC boots using only software that is trusted by the manufacturer. These signatures can be updated.
What is POST?
Power-on self-test
What troubleshooting step can resolve unrecognized hardware (after installing drivers)?
BIOS flash/update
–Only certain types of hardware benefit from this such as CPU, RAM or drives
If you brick the computer during a BIOS update, what can be done?
Replace the BIOS/UEFI chip. If this isn’t possible, a motherboard replacement may be necessary.
Most newer systems have proctions in place.
What settings does the CMOS store?
Date, time, driver and CPU settings, etc.
How does CMOS interact with the BIOS?
Loads user settings after BIOS starts with default settings
What connector is used to power the motherboard?
24-pin connector
What MB form factor is low-power and small?
ITX
Whats the primary MB form factor used in desktop PCs?
ATX
Includes two form factors: Standard and Micro
What USB related security setting can be set in BIOS?
USB ports can be disabled in BIOS to protected against viruses
What are the two major categories of CPU ISAs (Instruction Set Architecture)?
CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computing)
RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computing)
What is the relationship between busses and CPU platforms (x64, x86)?
The type of software/OS it can run directly correlates with the width of the bus and CPU. CPUs that are designed to work with 64 bits of data from the bus at a time can run either x64 (64-bit) or x86 (32-bit) versions of Windows, but not vice versa.
What architecture do 32-bit processors use?
x86
This derrived from old Intel CPU naming convention
What processor architecture uses RISC?
ARM
(Advanced RISC Machine)
It competes against Intel and AMD x64 CPUs
Are RISC chips inferior to CISC?
Not necessarily. They just do calculations differently. They are also smaller and produce less heat, making them useful in mobile devices.
They do however use more memory because it takes more code to complete a task.
What are the functional characteristics of a CPU core?
They’re a set of instruction pathways that operates as its own independent processor (ex. multi-core processing).
What term defines the speed of a processor?
Clock speed
What is the string of instructions that a CPU runs known as?
Thread
Hyper-Threading Technology is a trademarked name by Intel that is a form of what?
Simultatneous multi-threading (SMT)
Multithreading runs more than one thread at once (surprise!)
What is Hyper-Threading Technology (HTT)?
A CPU divides up its physical cores into virtual cores that are treated as if they are actually physical cores by the operating system.
How can you determine if an LED backlight has failed?
Use a flashlight to look closely for a faint display
What is the purpose of the CPU cache?
To improve performance by predicting then prefetching what the CPU will ask for next.
What are the characteristics and of relationship between the L1, L2, and L3 CPU caches?
- L1 – Smallest and fastest
– In the processor die itself - L2 – Larger and a bit slower than L1
–Each core generally has its own L1 and L2 - L3 – Largest and slowest
–Shared between all cores
What replaces the two-chip chipsets on newer motherboards?
The platform controller hub (PCH)
What is the largest and smallest form factor of the ITX family?
Largest: Mini-ITX (6.7” x 6.7”)
Smallest: Mobile-ITX (not for PCs, 2.4” x 2.4”)
The ITX form factor is actually a family of 4 varying SFF.
T/F: Mini-ITX boards are compatible with ATX cases.
True.
The rear interfaces are in the same location as those on an ATX.
What are headers?
Buttons and lights that are easily accessible by the user. Usually located outside of the case on the top or front (i.e. power button, power LED, USB ports).
What is TPM?
Trusted Platform Module
Mobo chip that seals booted hardware to the system. It prohibits boot after hardware is changed/removed in the system. Trips BitLocker.
Think platform = hardware
If your motherboard does not have TPM, what can be used instead?
HSM (hardware security module)
Creates, manages and securly stores encryption keys. Can be a USB or PCIe device.
What is Secure Boot?
Security feature designed to prevent malicious software from loading when the system starts. Makes sure files have not been tampered with.
What are the different PCIe slot lengths?
Notice that x8 is closer in length to x16
Identify USB 2.0 vs 3.0 headers on a motherboard.
Identify the ATX power connector.
24-pin connector
Identify the CPU power connector.
8 plus 4-pin connector. 2nd one is optional for overclocking.
Identify the motherboard audio connector.
9-pin with one key.
What is the data width of DIMM?
64-bit
Dual, meaning the electrical contacts are different on each side of the stick.
What is the visual difference between DDR3, 4, and 5 memory modules?
The placement of the notch
They will only fit in their respectable slot.
DDR5 key is right in the middle
What is a key characteristic of DRAM (dynamic random access memory)?
It must be constantly refreshed, otherwise the memory disappears.
What makes SDRAM synchronous?
Its synchronized with the clock speed so other components will know when to expect the data transfer.
Classic DRAM didn’t wait for a clock signal.
What does DDR stand for?
Double Data Rate
Each version of DDR increases the maximum amount of RAM possible on a single module.
Whats the difference between a PCI and PCIe slot?
PCI has a fixed width of 32 bits, PCIe is 64 bits.
How does a serial bus compare to a parallel bus?
Serial comms send data bit by bit over a single channel.
Parallel comms send mutliple bits at the same time over multiple channels.
What size is a standard desktop hard drive?
3.5”
Is SATA a form factor?
No. Its the data transfer protocol. SATA can be used with form factors M.2, 2.5”, 3.5”, or mini.
What purpose does the memory controller serve and where is it located?
Acts as a buffer between memory and the CPU
Used to be located on the Northbridge chipset, but is now located in the CPU (on-die)
What is SRAM (static) and how is it used?
Static RAM
–Keeps bits until they are overwitten
–Very fast volatile memory mainly used by the CPU’s cache
–Is physically large
Identify single and dual channel RAM installation on a motherboard
What generations of Intel CPUs use the LGA 1700 socket type?
12th Generation and newer
Previous gens used LGA 1200
What are the numbers of pins present on DDR through DDR5 RAM?
184, 240, 288
None are backwards compatible
What is the maximum amount of RAM supported by DDR4 and DDR5?
–DDR4: 64GB
–DDR5: 128GB
On modern mobos, what components use a parallel bus?
The CPU and RAM. Everything else uses serial which has evolved to be fast and reliable.
What are the three types of LCD technology?
TN: Bad color and viewing angles, best response times and refresh rates
IPS: Best color reproduction, less reponse than TN (great for graphic designers)
VA: Best contrast ratios, good response times (jack of all trades)
Can you use non-ECC and ECC memory interchangeably?
No. Some motherboards do not support ECC.
