Lesson 2: Installing System Devices Flashcards
What is the volate for most homes and offices in america?
Low-line VAC 110-120
What kind of volate do facilities such as data centers typically use?
High-line VAC 220-240
How are watts calculated for electrical components?
As voltage multiplied by current (V*I)
V x I
Is how you calculate watts for electrical components
How is a PSU’s output capability measured?
As it’s wattge rating.
What does power distribution refer to?
How much power is supplied over each rail
What is the most common output raing (rail/rails) for modern computers?
+12 VDC rail
How is DC Direct Current voltage supllied to the motherboard devices at 3.3 VDC, 5 VDC, and 12 VDC?
From power connectors
Do all computer components use power at exactly 3.3, 5, and 12 VDC’s?
No
What are voltage regulators?
They correct the voltage supplied from the PSU to the voltage required by the component.
What was the original ATX connector form factor for the P1 Connector?
20 pin (2x10)
What was the 20 pin (2x10) connector used for?
The original ATX specification
Black wires are what?
Ground wires
What voltage are yellow wires? (20-pin connector)
+12 V
What voltage are red wires? (20-pin connector)
+5 V
What voltage are orange wires? (20-pin connector)
+3.3 V
What ATX Advanced Technology eXtended version do most systems now use?
ATX12V version 2 specification
What form factor does ATX12V Version 2 use?
24 pin (2x12) P1 form factor
What is a 20 + 4-pin P1 adapter cable?
It’s used for capatibility with older motherboards with a 20-pin port
What is unique about Modular PSU’s?
o Power cables are detachable from the unit. It reduces the number of cables to the minimum required and minimizes clutter within the chasis.
o It improves airflow and cooling.
What does a redundant PSU configuration require?
A compatible motherboard
Where are redundant PSU’s more commonly found?
On server systems
Name 3 components that require cooling solutions:
o CPU
o Memory Module
o Graphics Adapters
What is a heat sink made of?
A block of copper or aluminum with fins.
What do the fins do on a heat sink?
They expose a larger surface area to the air aroudn the component to achieve a cooling effect by convection.
How is a heat sink affixed to the surface of the chip?
Using thermal paste to ensure the best transfer of heat by eliminating small air gaps.
What performs a similar function to thermal paste?
A thermal pad.
Is thermal paste or thermal pads more reliable?
Thermal paste
What does a heat sink need to work well?
Good airflow around the PC
Why should you use a fan in a PC?
o Because many comonents generate more heat than can be removed by passive cooling (heat sinks).
o Fans improve airflow which helps to dissipate heat.
What are fans used for? (What parts?)
o Power supply
o Chassis exhaust points
Where will the fan’s power connector be plugged into?
The motherboards fan power port
What three components does an open-loop, liquid-based cooling system use?
o Water loop / tubing and pump push the coolant added via the reservoir around the system
o Water blocks and brackets are attached to each device to remove heat by convection. Attached similarly to heat sink/fan assemblies and then connected to the water loop
o Radiators and fans positioned at air vents to dispel excess heat
What do simpler closed-loop, liquid-based cooling systems install with?
A single component (CPU or GPU) only
What kind of liquid-based cooling system requires draining, cleaning, and refilling periodically?
Open-looped systems
What are the 3 standard form factors for storage devices? (Width)
o 2.5 inches
o 3.5 inches
o 5.25 inches
What size form factor for standard storage devices are provided with removable panels?
5.25 inches
When installing a SSD, what is the main drawback to connecting it with SATA or mSATA power connectors?
The 600 MBps SATA interface can be a bottleneck to the best performing SSD’s which can achieve transfer rates of 6.7 GB/s
What logical interface does SATA use to communicate with the bus?
ACHI Advanced host controller interface
What logical interface does PCIe use to communicate with the bus?
Use NVMHCI non-volatile memory host controller interface
Does PCIe/NVMe or SATA/ACHI offer higher transfer rates?
PCIe / NVMe
What slots can a NVMe SSD be packaged as? 2 answers
o PCIe slot as an expansion card
o M.2 Slot
Is M.2 adapter card form factor bigger or smaller than a PCIe adapter?
M.2 adapter is considerably smaller than a PCIe adapter.
How is a SATA interface SSD usually keyed?
B keyed
How are 2 lane PCIe SSD’s usually keyed?
B / M keyed
How are 4-lane SSd’s usually keyed?
M keyed
How is the performance of an HDD determined?
By the speed at which the disks spin
How is the speed at which HDD disks spin measured?
RPM Revolutions per minute
How many RPM Revolutions Per Minute is considered a high performance HDD?
15,000–10,000
What is average performance (In RPM Revolutions per minue) for HDD’s?
7,200–5,400
A high-performance drive will have an access time below what? HDD
3 ms
A typical drive might have an access time of around? HDD
6 ms
The internal transfer rate of a drive is a measure of what? HDD
How fast read/write operations are performed on the disk platters
What kind of connections do most HDD’s use?
SATA interface
What are the two main form factors of HDD’s? (Sizes)
o 2.5 inch
o 3.5 inch
What HDD form factor is used in desktops?
3.5 inch
The 2.5 inch HDD form factor is usually used in what?
Laptops and as portable external hard drives
RAID’s: redundancy sacrifices some ___ ________ but provides _____ _________.
o Disk capacity
o Fault tolerance
What does a RAID level represent?
A drive configuration with a given type of fault tolerance.
Basic RAID levels are numbered from
0–6
There are also nested RAID solutions, such as
RAID 10 (RAID 1 + RAID 0)
Hardware RAID’s use a _________ __________ installed as a(n) _______ ____.
o Dedicated controller
o Adapter card
How are RAID disks connected?
o To SATA ports on the RAID controller adapter card
o (Rather than the motherboard)
What are the benefits to hardware RAID’s over software RAID’s?
o Hardware RAID’s support a greater range of RAID levels
o Hardware RAIDS are often able to hot swap adamaged disk
What factors influence the decision for the appropriate RAID level?
o Fault tolerance
o Read / write performance characteristics
o Required capacity
o Cost
When building a RAID array, all disks should be
Nearly identcal in terms of capacity in type and performance.
How many disks does a RAID 0 require?
At least 2 disks
How do you calculate the logical volume size of a RAID?
The sum of the drives multiplied by the smallest capacity physical disk in the array
How much redundancy does RAID 0 provide?
None.
What RAID level is also known as Striping without Parity?
RAID 0
What RAID level is also known as Mirroring?
RAID 1
What RAID level duplicates each write operation on the second disk in the set?
RAID 1
What RAID level is the simplest way of protecting a disk against failure?
RAID 1
In terms of cost per gigabyte, what kind of RAID is more expensive than other forms?
o Disk mirroring
o Because the disk space utilization is only 50%
What RAID level is also known as Striping with Distributed Parity?
RAID 5
What RAID level offers the best performance for read operations?
RAID 5
What are the minimum number of drives required for a RAID 5
3 drives, can be configured with more
With a RAID 5 how is the “hard” Maximum number of devices set?
By the controller or OS support
What RAID level is also known as Stripe of Mirrors
RAID 10
A RAID 10 is
A logical striped volume (RAID 0) configured with two mirrored arrays (RAID 1).
How many disks (minimum) is required for a RAID 10?
A minimum of 4 disks and there must be an even number of disks
How are memory card readers connected to the computer?
With a USB controller.
What is the maximum capacity of a CD?
700 MB
Single layer DVD’s have a capacity of what?
4.7 GB
Dual layer double sided DVD’s have a capacity of what?
17 GB
How are optical drives rated?
According to their data transfer speed
Optical drives are always marketed with three speeds:
o Record
o Rewrite
o Read
With virtual memory, the OS assigns memory locations to processes in what size chunks? What are they called?
4 kilobyte
Pages
In a single channel memory controller configuration, the data bus is usually how wide?
64 bits wide
What are the three types of RAM?
Dynamic (DRAM)
Synchronous (SDRAM)
Double Data Rate (DDR SDRAM)
Makes two data transfers per clock cycle
How is DDR memory bandwidth determined
Internal memory device clock speed and memory bus speed (say 100 MHz)
The data rate is double this as there are two operations per clock tick. This is expressed in units of megatransfers per second = (200MT/s)
This would give a DDR-200 designation
How do subseuent generations of DDR technology increase their bandwidth? (DDR3, DDR4, DDR5)
By multiplying the bus speed as opposed to the speed at which the actual memory devices work.
DDR3 Data Rate
800 to 2133 MT/S
DDR3 Transfer Rate
6.4 to 17.066 GB/s
DDR3 Maximum size
8GB
DDR4 Data Rate
1600 to 3200 MT/s
DDR4 Transfer Rate
12.8–25.6 GB/s
DDR4 Maximum size
32 GB
DDR5 Data Rate
4800–6400 MT/s
DDR5 Transfer Rate
38.4 to 51.2 GB/2
DDR5 Maximum Size
128 GB
How would you identify what DDR generation?
The notches (keys) on the modules ege connector identify it.
DDR DIMM’s usually feature what due to high clock speeds?
Heat Sinks
The DIMM’s DDR type must match what
The motherboard
For best performance, DDR modules should be what?
Rated at the same bus speed for the motherboard
How is SODIMM Small Outilne DIMM Fitted?
Into slots that pop up at a 45 degree ngle to be inserted or removed
Dual channel memory requires support from what features? 3 answers
• CPU
• Memory controller
• Motherboard
Are there dual channel DDR memory modules?
No
Triple channel memory
Has 3 65 bit pathways through the bus to the CPU
Quad-channel memory?
Has 4 64-bit pathways
What does DDR5 introduce?
A different type of memory bus
How is a DDR5 configured?
• Each memory module has 2 chanels of 32 bits.
• When installed in a dual channel memory controller config, this becomes four 32-bit channels.
• This architecture distribues the load on each RAM device better.
Where is ECC RAM Error correcting code RAM used?
Workstations and servers that require a high level of reliability.
How does ECC RAM work? Error correcting code RAM
For each transfer, performs a hash calculation on the data value and stores it as an 8-bit checksum.
The memory controller performs the same calculation and should derive the same checksum.
What does a checksum require? (ECC RAM)
An extra processor chip on the module and a 72-bit daa bus rather than the regular 64-bits.
How much data error can an ECC RAM detect and still function normally? (Error correcting code RAM)
1 bit
What happens if ECC RAM detects errors of 2, 3, or 4 bits? Error Correction Code RAM
It will detect them but it cannot correct them. It will generate an error message and halt the system.
How are most types of ECC Supplied?
RDIMMS Registered DIMM’s Dual Inline Memory Modules
Most types of non-ECC memory modules are what?
UDIMMs unbuffered dual inline memory modules
What must support ECC operation for it to be enabled?
Motherboard and CPU memory
Can UDIMM and RDIMM be mixed on the same motherboard? Unbuffered Dual inline memory module and registered dual inline memory module?
No. Most motherboards support one or the other but not both. If both are supported, only one can be used.
What does the x86 instruction set (CPU architecture) define a CPU as?
IBM PC compatible.
Who are x86 instruction sets manufactured by?
Intel and AMD Advanced Micro Devices
How many bits is an x86 instruction set?
32-bits wide
Has been extended for 64-bit operation as. The x64 set.
What is an alternative to the standard x86 / x 64 CPU architecture?
ARM Advanced RISC Machines
What does ARM produce?
Designs that hardware vendors customize and manufacture. (As opposed to CPU’s like AMD and Intel)
Name 4 places ARMs are used (Advanced RISC Machines)
Apple hardware
Most android smartphones and tablets
Many chromebooks
Some windows tablets and laptops
How do ARM designs compare to x86?
ARM Advanced RISC Machines use fewer, far less complex instructions than is typical in x86
What benefits do ARM designs offer compared to x86 (Advanced RISC Machines)
Allow much better power and thermal efficiency, meaning longer battery life and use of passive (fanless) cooling.
What kind of instruction set does x86 / x64 use?
CISC—more complex instruction set computing.
Does RISC or CISC make better use of CPU registers and Cache?
RISC
Name one way to make execution more efficient by improving the operation of the instruction pipeline?
Do the most amount of work possible in a single clock cycle. (Achieved by SMT)
How do most applications run processes?
They run a single process in a single thread.
What benefit does SMT Simultaneous MultiThreading offer by allowing threads to run through the CPU at the same time?
It reduces the amount of “idle time” the CPU spends waiting for new instructions to process.
What is achieved through virtualization software?
Computer can be made more efficient by configuring multiuple operating systems at the same time.
A CPU with virtualization support is required to run what?
A virtual machine
SLAT Second Level Address Translation is what?
A feature of virtualization software designed to improve the management of virtual memory.
SLAT extensions are known as what by Intel?
EPT Extended Page Table
SLAT extensions are known as what by AMD?
RVI Rapid Virtualization Indexing
Using PGA Pin Grid Array name 2 ways a CPU is placed into a socket / 2 things to look out for.
Placed into the socket and secured with a locking lever
Care must be taken to align Pin 1 on the CPU with Pin 1 on the socket correctly to avoid bending or breaking pins.
How should you remove a heat sink and fan assembly?
Use a gentle twist to remove it to avoid it sticking to the CPU
If reinstalling the same heat sink, clean old thermal grease from surface and apply a small amount of new grease in an X pattern.
What happens if you apply too much thermal grease to a heat sink?
The excess could damage the socket if it overruns.
Motherboard compatibility is generally limited to the same generation of what?
CPU’s which must be supportde by both the physical form factor of the motherboards CPU socket and the the motherboards chipset.
What kinds of computers are often multi-socket?
Servers
