Lesson 6 Chapter 3 - Expansion Buses and Cards

Question 1

What is an expansion bus?

Along with

Answer 1

Along with accompanying wires and support chips, its a pathway that ferries data to and from the devices plugged into the expansion slots

Question 2

Modern motherboards offer two types of expansion slots, what are they?

Answer 2

1. PCI
2. PCIe

Question 3

What does PCI stand for? Released when?

Answer 3

Peripheral Component Interconnect
Released early 1990s

Question 4

What benefit did introducing PCIs (by Intel) provide compared to previous versions? (3)

Answer 4

1. Faster
2. Wider
3. More flexible

Question 5

PCI devices are self-configuring. What does this mean?

Answer 5

PCI devices don’t need to have jumpers configured on the expansion card to use certain system resources resources

Question 6

What is Plug and Play (PnP)?

Answer 6

Plug and Play is the standard that allows expansion cards to be plugged in and automatically self configure

Question 7

What’s the difference between a PCI and PCIe expansion bus?

Answer 7

PCI - Uses parallel connections, data travels on many different wires (1 bit=1 wire) to the same destination and arrives at different times. Causes slowdown.
PCIe - Uses a serial connection, is faster, bits of data travel together

Question 8

How many bytes is a gigabyte?

Answer 8

1 billion bytes = 1 GB

Question 9

How much is a gigatransfer per second? (GTps)

Answer 9

1 billion transfers per second

Question 10

Each newer version of PCIe has increased the ….?

Answer 10

lane speed

Question 11

Define what a lane is

Answer 11

A lane is a pair of wires a PCIe card uses to transfer data to a device (one sends, one receives)

Question 12

How many lanes can each point-to-point connection use?

Answer 12

x1, x2, x4, x8, x12, x16

Question 13

The number of lanes a slot uses is indicated how?

Answer 13

x “by”

Question 14

How do you pronounce “x” as in x1 or x8?

Answer 14

x = by 8, by 1

Question 15

What’s the most common PCIe slot version? What’s it commonly used for?

Answer 15

The most common PCIe slot version is the x16, it’s commonly used for video cards

Question 16

What is the most common general-purpose PCIe slot version?

Answer 16

x1

Question 17

Why is a serial connection (PCIe) better? (3)

Answer 17

1. Each PCIe slot has its own direct connection to the chipset, doesn’t have to share the bus with other devices
2. Doesn’t need to do high-speed checking of data, no overhead
3. All the bits arrive one after the other in a single stream

Question 18

What are the 4 steps to install expansion cards of all kinds?

Answer 18

1. Knowledge
2. Physical Installation
3. Device Drivers
4. Verify

Question 19

A lot of older hardware won’t work with… ? (Step 1)

Answer 19

newer versions of Windows, especially 64-bit systems

Question 20

In Step 1 of installing an expansion card, what are 2 questions you should ask yourself?

Answer 20

1. Is the device compatible with the system and operating system?
2. Are there device drivers available for this operating system?

Question 21

A device is less likely to work with your system and OS if: (2)

old-less common, older

Answer 21

1. You’re running an older or unsupported version of Windows (like 7), or a less common OS like Linux
2. You’re using older hardware

Question 22

An expansion card should always be in 1 of 2 places: (2)

Answer 22

1. In the computer
2. In an antistatic bag

Question 23

When installing expansion cards, remember to hold it by…?

Answer 23

The edges (not the slot connectors or components on the board)

Question 24

If you don’t have an ESD wrap, what else can you do to prevent ESD when installing an expansion card? Do this after what?

Answer 24

touch the power supply after taking the expansion card out of the antistatic bag

Question 25

When installing an expansion card, never… (2)

insert-remove, rock

Answer 25

1. Install or remove the card at an extreme angle, this can damage it
2. Never rock the card side to side, but you can wiggle it front to back

Question 26

How do you secure an expansion card to the case?

Answer 26

With screws (this also grounds the card to the case)

Question 27

There should be no ___ between the mounting bracket on the card and the screw hole on the case.

Answer 27

there should be no gaps between the mounting bracket on the card and screw hole on the case

Question 28

All devices (whether built-into the motherboard or added) require ____ ______.

Answer 28

device drivers (software support programs)

Question 29

If you’re upgrading device drivers, you might have to do what before loading new drivers?

Answer 29

You might have to unload the driver before loading new ones

Question 30

How do you get device drivers? (2)

Answer 30

1. Download from the manufacturer’s website
2. Optical disk included

Question 31

What are 2 ways to remove old drivers? (2)

Answer 31

1. Uninstall in Device Manager
2. Some can also be removed from Programs > Uninstall

Question 32

How do you rollback to a previous driver version? How do you access this feature? (4 steps)

Answer 32

1. Device Manager
2. Properties (for the device)
3. Driver
4. Rollback Driver

Question 33

You should install and update drivers from a Windows account with ____ permissions because….

Answer 33

Admin, because it asks you for a password in order to make changes that affect all users (like installing drivers) to save time

Question 34

How do you verify a device after installing it?

karen

Answer 34

Check the Device Manager

Question 35

What do you do if Device Manager doesn’t show the new device? (3 things to try)

verify, refresh, run

Answer 35

1. Confirm proper installation, and does the device have power?
2. Refresh Device Manager’s hardware list with Action > Scan for hardware changes
3. Try running the Add Hardware Wizard (Start > type hdwwiz.exe)

Question 36

How do you access the Add Hardware Wizard? (what’s the name of the executable to search?)

Answer 36

hdwwiz.exe

Question 37

If the first 3 initial expansion card troubleshooting steps don’t work, it means you have either of 2 problems:

bam, ship

Answer 37

1. Dead or faulty expansion card
2. The card is an onboard device and not a card and must be enabled in the BIOS/UEFI utility

Question 38

What do you do if Device Manager sees a device but there’s a question mark on it with a generic name?

Answer 38

Run the driver installation wizard for the device

Question 39

Besides a question mark, what other error icon might we see if there’s a device driver problem (2)? What might it mean (3)?

Answer 39

1. Yellow triangle with exclamation point - there’s a device driver problem. Missing or corrupt driver
2. A black downward pointing arrow on a white field - device is disabled

Question 40

How do you troubleshoot a device with a “!” symbol? (2 ways)

check, up

Answer 40

1. Open device’s properties in Device Manager, check the Device’s status in the General tab
2. Try updating the driver