Lesson One: PC Components

Question 1

What is a mini-ITX tower case?

Answer 1

It is a 6.7 inch square, has only one expansion slot, and is common in SSFs.

Question 2

What is an mATX tower case?

Answer 2

It stands for micro-ATX. It is a 9.6 inch square and has up to 4 expansion slots.

Question 3

What is a PCI Bus?

Answer 3

PCI = Peripheral Component Interconnect. Only one component can use it at a time. Bus mastering is when a device can control the bus to transfer data without the CPU getting involved.

Question 4

What does SFF mean?

Answer 4

Short form factor. Considered “super slim line”. Typically used for home media centers.

Question 5

What is a bus?

Answer 5

An electrical pathway on a motherboard or through cabling. Has tiny wires called traces. Carries data (information being processed) and address (location information).

Question 6

What is NVRAM?

Answer 6

Non-volatile RAM. This can hold memory even if power to the chip(s) has been turned off.

Question 7

What is CMOS?

Answer 7

Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor. Used to store system configurations. Powered by coin lithium battery.

Question 8

What is a motherboard?

Answer 8

Allows all of the PC components to speak to each other. Also called a mobo, system board, or main board. Has stand-offs from the case (either brass or plastic). Defined by form factor, which describes the shape, type of case, and layout (ATX, mATX, mini-ITX) that it can be used with.

Question 9

What is an ATX tower case?

Answer 9

Advanced Technology Extended. A full size case, usually 12 inches by 9.6 inches. Has up to 7 expansion slots.

Question 10

What are northbridge and southbridge?

Answer 10

System memory processors. Northrbridge links the CPU and RAM, southbridge links everything else. Currently the bottleneck for performance.

Question 11

What is a chipset?

Answer 11

Manages data transfers between the CPU and RAM, storage, and I/O devices. Soldered onto the motherboard. Affects choice of processor, amount/type of memory, and types of system bus.

Question 12

What are the 4 types of tower case?

Answer 12

Full: extra room for multiple HDD/SSD, power supplies, etc., commonly used for PC servers
Mid: some extra slots, commonly used by high end users
Mini: usually 1 slot per peripheral, commonly used for the average office/home PC
Slim Line: requires low profile cards, no extra slots

Question 13

What is a system case?

Answer 13

Used to house PC components. Also called a chassis, box, main unit, or base unit. There are two types, tower case and SFF (short form factor).

Question 14

What is a daughter board?

Answer 14

Any circuit that plugs into another circuit (adapter cards).

Question 15

What is a DIMM?

Answer 15

Dual inline memory module.

Question 16

What is an RTC?

Answer 16

Real time clock.

Question 17

What is an internal (or local) bus?

Answer 17

It connects core components like the CPU, RAM, system controllers, etc.

Question 18

What is an external (or expansion) bus?

Answer 18

It connects peripherals (outside of the case) and adapter cards (inside the case).

Question 19

What is the motherboard reset jumper?

Answer 19

It allows you to reset a system’s configuration. This can be used to try and help a failed firmware update, forgotten password, etc. It should be a last resort.

Question 20

What is PCIe?

Answer 20

Peripheral Component Interconnect Express. Uses point-to-point serial communications. Each component can have another component on a dedicated link, which uses any lane (two wire pairs, bi-directional).

Question 21

What is a storage bus?

Answer 21

A special type of external/expansion bus that communicates with storage devices. HBA - host bus adapter.

Question 22

What is a riser card?

Answer 22

Used in slim line cases to put items parallel to the motherboard.

Question 23

What is on-die?

Answer 23

Subsystems that require a lot of bandwidth are incorporated onto the same chip as the CPU (systems memory controller, graphics controller, etc.)