Lesson 24 - Troubleshoot Peripherals

Question 1

What are the four primary peripheral bus technologies supported by Mac computers that are running macOS Sierra?

Answer 1

These are the four primary peripheral bus technologies supported by macOS Sierra: 
• Universal Serial Bus (USB)
• FireWire
• Thunderbolt
• Bluetooth wireless

Question 2

What must occur for a Mac to communicate with a Bluetooth peripheral? Where can you configure this?

Answer 2

Bluetooth devices must be paired for communication to occur. Bluetooth preferences in the System Preference app are responsible for pairing a Mac with Bluetooth peripherals. You can quickly open Bluetooth preferences from the Bluetooth status menu.

Question 3

What’s a device driver? Which three primary types of device drivers are there?

Answer 3

A device driver is software specially designed to facilitate the communication between macOS Sierra and a peripheral. Device drivers can be kernel extensions, framework plug-ins, or standalone apps.

Question 4

How does macOS Sierra support third-party devices without needing third-party device drivers?

Answer 4

macOS Sierra uses built-in generic drivers based on each device class. For example, generic drivers for scanners and printers can be used instead of official third-party drivers.

Question 5

What can you infer about a connected peripheral if it doesn’t appear in the System Information app?

Answer 5

If a connected peripheral doesn’t appear in System Information, the issue is probably hardware related. Troubleshoot accordingly.