Introduction to the Personal Computer System Flashcards
What is Form Factor?
Physical Design and Look of a computing device
What does computer chassis, cabinet, tower, housing or box refer to?
Computer case
What is an AT Power Supply used for?
Advanced Technology Power Supply is for legacy computer systems now obsolete
What is an AT Extended Power Supply used for?
Updated version of AT but still considered obsolete
The ATX12V Power Supply, what is this used for?
Most common power supply on the market today. It includes another power supply for the CPU
What is the EPS12V Power Supply used for?
Was originally designed for network servers but now commonly used for high-end desktop models
What are the facts about 20-pin or 24-pin slotted connector?
Used for motherboard. 20-pin connector has two rows of 10 pins. 24-pin connector has two rows of 12 pins
what is a SATA keyed connector
Connects to disk drives, the connector is wider and thinner than a Molex connector.
What is a Molex keyed connector
connects to hard drives, optical drives or other devices
What is the Berg keyed connector?
Connect to legacy floppy drives and is smaller than a Molex connector
What is the 4-pin to 8-pin auxillary power connector used for?
Connector has two rows of two or four pins and supplies power to different areas of the motherboard and CPU.
what are the facts about 6 to 8-pin PCIe power connector?
Connector has two rows of three or four pins and supplies power to internal components (e.g. graphics card).
What is the +12V Wire on a power connector used for and what color is it?
it is the Yellow wire and used for Disk drive motors, fans, cooling devices, and the system bus slots
What is the -12V Wire on a power connector used for and what color is it?
it is the Blue wire and used for some type of serial port circuits and early programmable read only memory (PROM)
What is the +3.3V Wire on a power connector used for and what color is it?
it is the Orange wire on a power connection, it is used for most newer CPUs, some type of system memory, and AGP video cards and is not on the AT power supply
What is the +5V Wire on a power connector used for and what color is it?
it is the Red wire which is used for motherboards, baby AT and earlier CPUs, and many motherboard components
What is the -5V Wire on a power connector used for and what color is it?
It is the white wire and used for ISA bus cards and early PROMS
What is the 0V Wire on a power connector used for and what color is it?
It is the black wire and used to complete circuits with the other voltages
What is the equation for voltage?
V= IR, Voltage = Current x Resistance
What is the equation for power?
P = VI, Power = Voltage x Current
What should you pay attention to when purchasing a power supply?
The wattage, so that it has more than enough power to handle the current components
What is a Voltage selector switch?
It sets the input voltage to the power supply to either 110V / 115V or 220V / 230V. A power supply with this switch is called a dual voltage power supply.
Can you open a power supply?
No, DO NOT open a power supply. Electronic capacitors located inside of the power supply can hold a charge for extended periods of time.
What is the BIOS and UEFI?
The Basic Input and Output System (BIOS) is used to help boot the computer and manage the flow of data between the hard drive, video card, keyboard, mouse and more. UEFI enhances the BIOS and specifies a different software interface for boot and runtime services but still has to rely on the BIOS for system configuration, POST and setup.
What is the Chipset and what is it used for?
Consists of the integrated circuits on the motherboard that control how system hardware interacts with the CPU and motherboard. It also establishes how much memory can be added to the motherboard and type of connectors on the motherboard
What does the North Bridge do?
Controls high speed access to the RAM and video card and how fast the CPU communicates with all other components in the computer.
What does the South Bridge do?
Allows the CPU to communicated with slower speed devices including hard drives, Universal Serial Bus (USB) ports, and expansion slots
What are the specifications for an ATX Motherboard
The most common motherboard form factor, it is 12in x 9.6in and accommodates the integrated I/O ports.
What are the specifications for an Micro-ATX Motherboard
A smaller form factor designed to be backward compatible with ATX. These often use the same North-bridge and South-bridge chipsets and power connectors as a full-size ATX board, but have fewer expansion slots. 9.6in X 9.6in
What are the specifications for an Mini-ITX Motherboard
Designed for small devices such as thin clients and set-top boxes. Uses very little power, so fans are not needed to keep it cool. It only has one PCI slot for expansion cards. Measured at 6.7in X 6.7in
What are the specifications for an ITX Motherboard
This form factor has gained popularity because of its very small size. Comparabel to Micro-ATX measuring at 8.5in X 7.5in
What is PGA?
Pin Grid Array architecture are when the pins are on the underside of the processor which is inserted into the motherboard CPU socket using Zero Insertion Force (ZIF).
What is LGA?
The pins are in the socket instead of on the processor.
What is RISC?
Reduced Instruction Set Computer, an architecture that uses a relatively small set of instructions very rapidly.
What is CISC?
Complex Instruction Set Computer, an architecture that uses a broad set of instructions, resulting in fewer steps per operation. When the CPU is executing one step of the program the remaining instructions and data are stored in high-speed memory called cache.
What is Hyper-Threading?
An intel performance enhancing feature for intel CPUs. It enables multiple pieces of code (threads) to be executed simultaneously.
What is HyperTransport?
An AMD performance enhancing feature for AMD CPUs. It is a high-speed connection between the CPU and the Northbridge chip.
The power of the CPU is measured by what?
The speed and amount of data that it can process. The speed of a CPU is rated in cycles per second called Megahertz or billions of cycles per second called Gigahertz.
The Front Side Bus determines what?
It determines the amount of data that a CPU can process at one time. It is also considered a CPU bus or the processor data bus. Current processors use a 32-bit or 64-bit FSB.
What is Overclocking?
It is a technique used to make a processor work at a faster speed than its original specification. It is not recommended to do because it can result in damage to the CPU
What is Throttling?
A technique used when the processor runs at less than the rated speed to conserve power or produce less heat. This is commonly on laptops and other mobile devices.
multicore processors
Conserve power and produce less heat than single core processors. Ram is shared between the cores because the cores reside on the same chip. This is recommended for applications such as video editing, gaming, and photo manipulation.
What is a NXbit?
Also called the execute disable bit, is a feature that needs to be supported and enabled by the OS, it protects areas of memory that contain the OS files from malicious attacks by malware.
What is the difference between Active and Passive Cooling.
Active solutions require power and passive solutions do not.
What should computers with extremely fast CPUs and GPUs use for cooling?
Water-cooling system
What is a byte?
A grouping of digital information and represents information such as letters, numbers and symbols. A byte is a block of eight bits stored as either 0 or 1 in the memory chip.
What is a ROM?
An essential computer chip and is read-only memory. Rom chips are located on the motherboard and other circuit boards and contain instructions that can be directly accessed by a CPU. These instructions include basic operation s like booting the computer and loading the OS
What is a PROM?
Programmable ROM. information is written to a PROM chip after it is manufactured. PROM cannot be erased or re-written
What is an EPROM?
Erasable PROM. Information is written to an EPROM chip can be erased with exposure to UV light. Special equipment is required.
What is an EEPROM?
Electrically EPROM. Information is written to an EEPROM chip after it is manufactured. EEPROM chips are also called Flash ROMs. EEPROM chip can be erased and re-written without having to remove the chip from the computer.
What is DRAM?
Dynamic RAM is a memory chip that is used as main memory. Must be refreshed with pulses of electricity in order to maintain data within the chip.
What is SRAM?
Static RAM is a memory chip that is used as cache memory. Does not have to be refreshed as often as DRAM. It is located in the CPU.
What is SDRAM?
Synchronous DRAM is DRAM that operates in synchronization with the memory bus. The memory bus is the data path between the CPU and the main memory.
What is DDR SDRAM?
Double Data Rate Synchronous Dynamic RAM is memory that transfers data twice as fast as SDRAM. Transferring data twice per clock cycle.
What is DDR2 SDRAM?
Double Data Rate 2 SDRAM improves performance over DDR SDRAM by decreasing noise and crosstalk between the signal wires.
What is DDR3 SDRAM?
expands memory bandwidth by doubling the clock rate of DDR2 SDRAM. It consumes less power and generates less heat than DDR2 SDRAM
What is DDR4 SDRAM?
Double Data Rate 4 SDRAM quadruples DDR3 maximum storage capacity, requires 40% less power due to it using a lower voltage and has advanced error correction features.
What is RAM?
Ram is volatile memory, which means contents are erased every time the computer is powered off. More RAM increases the memory capacity of the computer to hold and process programs and files.
What is DIP?
Dual Inline Package is an individual memory chip. A DIP has dual rows of pins used to attach it to the motherboard
What is SIMM?
Single Inline Memory Module is a small circuit board that holds several memory chips. SIMMs have 30-pin or 72-pin configurations
What is DIMM?
Dual Inline Memory Module is a circuit board that holds SDRAM, DDR SDRAM, DDR2 SDRAM, and DDR3 SDRAM chips. There are 168-pin SDRAM DIMMs, 184-pin DDR DIMMs, and 240-pin DDR2 and DDR3 DIMMs.
What is SODIMM?
Small Outline DIMM has a 72-pin and 100-pin configurations for support of 32-bit transfers or 144-pin , 200-pin and 204-pin configurations for support of 64-bit transfers. This smaller, more condensed version of DIMM provides random access data storage that is ideal for laptops, printers, and other devices where conserving space is desirable.
What is L1 Cache?
is internal cache and is integrated into the CPU
What is L2 Cache?
is external cache and was originally mounted on the motherboard near the CPU. L2 Cache is now integrated into the CPU.
What is L3 Cache?
is used on some high-end workstations and server CPUs
What is Nonparity?
Nonparity memory does not check for errors in memory
What is Parity?
Parity memory contains eight bits for data and one bit for error checking. The error-checking bit is called a parity bit.
What is ECC?
Error Correction Code memory can detect multiple bit errors in memory and correct single bit errors in memory.
What is Thunderbolt Card?
Connect a computer to peripheral devices.
What is PCI?
Peripheral Component Interconnect is a 32-bit or 64-bit expansion slot. It is found in many computers. And found on most motherboards
What is Mini-PCI?
A smaller version of PCI for laptops. Form factors include: Type 1, Type 2 and Type 3.
What is PCIx?
PCI Extended is an updated version of the standard PCI. It uses a 32-bit bus with higher bandwidth than the PCI bus. It is four times faster than PCI
What is PCIe?
PCI Express uses a serial bus that has higher throughput and many other improvements over the older expansion slots. PCIe has x1, x4, x8 and x16 slots which vary in lenght from shortest to longest.
What is HDD?
Hard Disk Drives are magnetic disk devices used for a long time. Capacities go from gigabytes to terabytes. Their speed is measured in RPMs and the faster the speed the faster data can be found. Common speeds are 5400, 7200 and 10,000 RPM
What is CD-ROM?
CD read-only memory media that is pre-recorded and has a capacity of 700MB
What is CD-R?
CD recordable media that can be recorded one time. Capacity is 700MB
What is CD-RW?
CD rewritable media that can be recorded, erased, and re-recorded. Capacity is 700MB
What is DVD-ROM?
DVD read-only memory media that is pre-recorded. Capacity is 4.7 GB (single layer) and 8.5 GB(Dual Layer)
What is DVD-RAM?
DVD rewriteable media that can be recorded, erased, and re-recorded. Capacity is 4.7GB(single layer) and 8.5GB(dual layer)
What is DVD+/-R?
DVD recordable media that can be recorded one time. Capacity is 4.7GB(single layer) and 8.5GB(dual layer)
What is DVD+/-RW?
DVD rewriteable media that can be recorded, erased, and re-recorded. Capacity is 4.7GB(single layer) and 8.5GB(dual layer)
What is BD-ROM?
Blu-ray read only media that is per-recorded with movies and games or software. Capacity is 25GB (single layer) 50GB (dual layer)
What is BD-R?
Blu-ray record-able media that can be recorded one time. Capacity is 25GB (single layer) 50GB (dual layer)
What is BD-RE?
Blu-ray rewritable media that can be recorded, erased, and re-recorded. Capacity is 25GB (single layer) 50GB (dual layer)
Serial AT Attachment
is a 7-pin data connector.
SATA 1
Allows for maximum data transfer rate of 1.5 Gb/s
SATA 2
Data transfer rate of 3Gb/s
SATA 3
Data transfer rate of 6Gb/s
IDE/EIDE and PATA
Integrated Drive Electronics, Enhanced Integrated Drive Electronics and PATA are legacy drive connection methods
USB 3.0 and USB 3.1
Are colored blue, USB drives are also hot-swappable, which means that there is no need to reboot a computer when adding or removing a drive.
RAID
when storage devices are grouped and managed to create large storage spaces. Provides a way to store data across multiple hard disks for redundancy and or performance improvement.
Parity
Detects data errors
Striping
Writes data across multiple drives
Mirroring
Stores duplicate data on a second drive
RAID 0
Minimum of 2 drives, data striping without redundancy, highest performance. No data protection, failure of one drive results in loss of all data.
RAID 1
Minimum of 2 drives with disk mirroring, high performance, high data protection because all data is duplicated. high cost of implementation because an additional drive of equal or larger capacity is required.
RAID 2
minimum of 2 drives, with error-correcting coding, this level is no longer used. Same performance can be achieved at a lower cost using RAID 3.
RAID 3
Minimum of 3 drives, byte-level of data striping with dedicated parity, for large, sequential data requests. Does not support multiple, simultaneous read and write requests
RAID 4
Minimum of 3 drives, block-level data striping with dedicated parity, supports multiple read requests, if a disk fails the dedicated parity disk is used to create a replacement disk. Write requests are bottlenecked due to the dedicated parity drive.
RAID 5
3 minimum drives, combination of data striping and parity. Supports multiple simultaneous reads and writes, data is written across all drives with parity, data can be rebuilt from information found on the other drives. Write performance is slower than RAID 0 and 1
RAID 6
minimum 4 drives. Independent data disks with double parity, block-level striping with parity data distributed across all disks, can handle two simultaneous drive failures. Lower performance than RAID 5, not supported on all disk controllers
RAID 0+1
minimum of 4 drives. Combination of data striping and mirroring. High performance, highest data protection. High cost of overhead because duplication of data requires twice the storage capacity.
RAID 10
4 minimum drives(must be even numbered). Mirrored set in a striped set. Provides fault tolerance and improved performance. High cost overhead because duplication of data requires twice the storage capacity
USB 3.1
10Gb/s external connection maximum bandwidth
Thunderbolt 2 :Channel 1 and Channel 2
takes two 10Gb/s bi-directional channels and combines them into a single 20Gb/s bi-directional channel. They both use the Mini Display Port adapter, while Thunderbolt 3 requires a USB-C connector.
DVI Specifications
Digital Visual Interface. Is usually white and consists of 24 pins (3 rows of 8 pins). 4 pins for analog signals, a flat pin called a ground bar. DVI-D handles digital signals only and DVI-A handles analog signals only. Uses dual-link interface that creates two groups of data channels that can carry more than 10Gb/s of digital video information
Display Port Connector Specs
20 pin connector which is used for audio, video, or both. It is designed to connect with high-end graphics-capable PCs and displays as well as home theater equipment. Supports video data rates up to 8.4 Gb/s
Mini Display Port specs
A smaller version of the Display port. It is used in Thunderbolt 1 and Thunderbolt 2 implementations.
HDMI specs
High Definition Multimedia Interface was developed specifically for high-definition televisions. Two types of HDMI cables are full size Type A cable that is the standard cable used to connect audio and video devices. Mini-HDMI Type C connector is smaller than Type A. Both connectors have 19-pins
VGA connector specs
Is a analog connector. It has 3 rows of 15pins. Also known as DE-15 or HD-15 connector
RCA Connector Specs
have a central plug with a ring around it and are used to carry audio or video. They are in groups of 3, where the yellow connector carries video and a pair of red and white connectors carry left and right audio.
BNC Connector specs
connect coaxial cables to devices with a quarter-turn. BNC is used with digital and analog audio or video.
Din-6 specs
Connector has 6-pins and is commonly used for analog audio, video and power in security camera applications
Composite, RGB, and S-VIDEO
are legacy monitor connections.
PS/2 Port specs
connects keyboard or mouse to a computer. these are 6-pin mini-DIN female connectors.
Audio ports
are analog audio devices that connect to a computer. These include a line in port and line out microphone port. Digital input and output ports transfer pulses of light over fiber optic cables
Game Port/MIDI
Game Port has 15pins considered D-SUB female connector that is located on the back of the computer. A midi connector has 5 pins.
USB Ports
Universal Serial Bus. USB is hot swappable meaning you can connect and disconnect the device while the computer is powered on. A single USB port can theoretically handle 127 seperate devices with the use of a USB hub. USB 1.1 transmission rate is 12Mb/s and maximum length is 9.8ft. USB 2.0 transmission speed is 480Mb/s and have a maximum length of 16.4ft. USB 3.0 transmission speed is 5Gb/sand maximum length is 9.8ft and is backwards compatible with previous versions of USB.
Firewire
high speed and hot swappable interface for peripheral devices. 1 port can support up to 63 devices. Uses the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 1394 standard (a.k.a. i.link).
IEEE 1394a
a.k.a. firewire 400 supports data rates of up to 400 Mb/s maximum of 15ft in length of cable and uses 4-pin or 6-pin connectors.
IEEE 1394b
a.k.a. firewire 800 allows for greater range of connections, including CAT5 UTP and optical fiber. Depending on the media used, data rates are supported up to 3.2 Gb/s for distances of 328ft.
eSATA Data cables
connects SATA devices to the eSATA interface using a 7-pin data cable. No power flows through the data cable so a separate power cable is needed to provide power to the disk.
Digitizers
Device that allows a designer or artist to create blueprints, images, or other artwork by using a pen-like tool called a stylus on a surface that senses where the stylus tip is touching it.
DLP
Digital Light Processing (DLP) projectors use a spinning color wheel with a microprocessor-controlled array of mirrors called a digital micro-mirror device (DMD). Each mirror corresponds to a specific pixel. Creates a monochromatic image of up to 1024 shades of gray in between white and black.
Monitor Resolution
Refers to the level of image detail that can be reproduced.
Pixel
The term pixel is an abbreviation for picture element. Pixels are tiny dots that comprise a screen. Each pixel contain red, green and blue.
Dot Pitch
is the distance between pixels on the screen. A lower dot pitch number produces a better image
Interlace/Non-Interlace
Interlaced monitors create the image by scanning the screen two times. The first scan covers the odd lines, top to bottom, and the second scan covers the even lines. Non-interlaced monitors create the image by scanning the screen, one line at a time from top to bottom
Horizontal, vertical and color resolution
The number of pixels in a line is the horizontal resolution. The number of lines in a screen is the vertical resolution. The number of colors that can be reproduced is the color resolution.
What is Aspect Ratio
is the horizontal to vertical measurement of the viewing area of a monitor.
Explain some facts about Native Resolution
is the number of pixels that a monitor has. Native mode is when the image sent to the monitor matches the native resolution of the monitor.
How do you connect multiple monitors to a single computer? Explain Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8.x
you need hardware that has two or more video ports and additional monitors. On Windows Vista you click start go to control panel and then click on personalize, click display settings. On windows 7 you just press and hold the windows button and push on p this will give you the options for dual monitor setup. On Windows 8.x you invoke Widows Charms by swiping from the right of the screen. Choose Devices, Select Second Screen, you should see the two monitor icons. If multiple monitors are not displayed then the screen may not support the option. Click on the monitor icon that represents your main display and make it the main display. Click identify. Windows 7 will display large numbers to identify the two monitors. Drag and drop the monitor icons to match the physical arrangement of the monitors. Choose the desired resolution and orientation then click ok.
what are some Unbuffered Memory facts
Regular memory for computers. Reads data directly from the memory banks making it faster than buffered memory. This makes a limit on the amount of RAM that can be installed
What are some Buffered Memory facts
Specialized memory for servers and high-end workstations that use a large amount of RAM. These memory chips have a control chip that assists the memory controller in managing large quantities of RAM. The control chip slows down the RAM speed.
What are Thick Clients?
Sometimes called fat clients, which are standard computers. They have their own OS, multitude of applications, and local storage. They are stand-alone systems and do not require a network connection to operate. All processing is done locally. Come with Monitor, mouse keyboard, tower with CPU and RAM, it also has a large footprint.
What are Thin Clients?
These are typically low-end network computers that rely on remote servers to perform all data processing. These require network connection to a server and usually access resources using a web browser. Sometimes can be a computer running thin client software or small, dedicated terminal consisting of a monitor, keyboard and mouse. These do not have internal storage and have very little local resources.
