IT Vocab PC 7 Flashcards
Popular motherboard form factor that generally replaced the AT form factor
Advanced Technology extended
the physical size of the motherboard as well as the general location of components and ports
form factor
Reading and writing
mirroring
Model name of the second-generation, 80286-based computer. Bought the BIOS, CMOS, and expansion bus into industry standard
Advanced Technology (AT)
The process of fixing the BIOS on a motherboard; a lot of system stability problems and provides better implementation of built-in technology
Flashing
Program used by the operating system to control communications between the computer and peripherals
device drivers
Electronic chips, specially designed to work together, that handle all of the low-level functions of a PC
chipset
Set of wires going to the CPU, governed by the expansion bus crystal, directly connected to the expansion slot of varying types
expansion bus
Part of a motherboard chipset; handles all the inputs and outputs to the many devices in the PC
Southbridge
Used in a common method for numbering boot devices
channel
Registered Jack connector
RJ-45
Bag made of antistatic plastic into which electronics are placed for temporary or long-term storage. Used to protect components from electrostatic discharge
anti-static bag
Connectors on a motherboard that enable users to add optional components to a system
expansion slots
a crystal that provides the speed signals for the CPU and the rest of the system
system crystal
Small electrical connections embedded in a circuit board
traces
technology unique to a particular vendor
Proprietary
A family of motherboard form factors which is quite small
ITX
PCI made it into laptops in the specialty format
Mini-PCI
Fixed speed in revolutions per minute at which a given HDD’s platters spin
spindle speed
Describes a failure in which a component or whole system will not boot; usually related to a manufacturing defect of a component
catastrophic failure
Chip specially designed to control low-speed, legacy devices such as the keyboard, mouse, and serial/parallel ports
Super/IO chip
AMD product that consolidates the GPU and CPU into a single chip
Accelerated Processing Unit (APU)
Chip that connects a CPU to memory, the PCI bus, Level 2 cache, and high-speed graphics. Communicates with the CPU through the frontside bus
Northbridge
User Account, created when the OS is first installed, that is allowed complete, unfettered access to the system without restriction
administrative account
Copper etched onto a non-conductive material and then coated with some sort of epoxy for strength
printed circuit boards (PCBs)
Two or more drives in a group that are used for striped volume
stripe set
