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Flashcards in 901-1 Deck (58)
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1
Q

Explain the process of flashing the BIOS

A

Download the newest version of the BIOS, and the current version being used from the manufacturers website.
Burn copies to a cd and boot to CD.
This process depends on the manufacturers steps to flash

2
Q

What component information can be found in the BIOS

A

RAM
HDD
Optical Drive
CPU

3
Q

What configurations can be made in the BIOS

A
  • Boot Sequence
  • Enabling and Disabling Devices
  • Date/Time
  • Clock Speeds
  • Virtualization Support
  • BIOS Security *
4
Q

What security features can a BIOS have

A
Passwords
Drive Encryption
TPM - Trusted Platform Module
LoJack
Secure Boot
5
Q

What is the POST

A

Power on Self Test

runs to determine if the computer keyboard, random access memory, disk drives, and other hardware are working correctly.

6
Q

What components can be monitored within the BIOS

A
Temperatures
Fan Speeds
Intrusion Detection
Voltages
Clock and Bus Speed
7
Q

In computers, what does a bus refer too

A

A communication system that transfers data between components inside a computer, or between computers.

8
Q

What is the internal data bus?

A

The internal bus connects all the internal components of a computer, such as CPU and memory, to the motherboard. This bus is typically rather quick and is independent of the rest of the computer operations.

9
Q

What other names is the internal bus known as?

A
  • internal data bus
  • memory bus
  • system bus
  • Front-Side-Bus,
  • Local Bus
10
Q

What is the back side bus

A

was a computer bus used to connect the CPU to CPU cache memory, usually L2.

11
Q

What speeds do PCI slots run at?

A

133 MB/s (32-bit at 33 MHz – the standard configuration)
266 MB/s (32-bit at 66 MHz or 64-bit at 33 MHz)
533 MB/s (64-bit at 66 MHz)

12
Q

What speeds to PCI-X slots run at

A
Essentially all PCI-X cards or slots have a 64-bit implementation and vary as follows:
66 MHz 
100 MHz 
133 MHz 
266 MHz 
533 MHz
13
Q

What is the importance of PCIe

A

PCIe can scale from one to 32
backward compatible
higher maximum system bus throughput

14
Q

What speeds does PCIe v. 1.x achieve

A

v. 1.x (2.5 GT/s):
250 MB/s (×1)
4 GB/s (×16)

15
Q

What speeds does PCIe v. 2.x achieve

A

v. 2.x (5 GT/s):
500 MB/s (×1)
8 GB/s (×16)

16
Q

What speeds does PCIe v. 3.x achieve

A

v. 3.x (8 GT/s):
985 MB/s (×1)
15.75 GB/s (×16)

17
Q

What speeds does PCIe v. 4.x achieve

A

v. 4.0 (16 GT/s):
1. 969 GB/s (×1)
31. 51 GB/s (×16)

18
Q

What speeds does PCIe v. 5.x achieve

A

v. 5.0 (32 GT/s):
3.9 GB/s (×1)
63 GB/s (×16)

19
Q

What is mini-PCI

A

a small version of the PCI Express peripheral interface for laptop computers and other portable devices.

20
Q

What is the Northbridge responsible for

A
  • connected directly to the CPU via the front-side bus
  • responsible for tasks that require the highest performance
  • Manages communications between RAM, and PCI Express, CPU, and the southbridge
  • Integrated Graphics
21
Q

What is the Southbridge responsible for

A

Intel = I/O Controller hub
AMD = Fusion Controller Hub
- not directly connected to the CPU
- handles all of a computer’s I/O functions, such as USB, audio, serial, the system BIOS, the ISA bus, the interrupt controller and the IDE channels

22
Q

What is the CMOS battery and what is its purpose

A

complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor
Mac equivalent to CMOS is PRAM
CMOS is usually powered by a CR2032 cell battery

23
Q

What power connections will you find on a motherboard

A

ATX uses a 20-pin connector or 24 pin connectors
four pin ATX 12 volt connector
auxiliary 6-wire connector
Molex connector used for many different components

24
Q

What other small pins will you find on the motherboard

A
Fan connectors
USB 
Power/Reset
Drive activity
Audio
25
Q

What features does DDR SDRAM have

A

strict control of the timing of the electrical data and clock signals
transferring data on both the rising and falling edges of the clock signal
data being transferred 64 bits at a time

26
Q

How do you calculate the maximum transfer rate of RAM

A

Memory bus clock rate × Data Rate × 64 (#of bits transferred) / 8 (number of bits/byte)

27
Q

What features does DDR2 SDRAM have

A
  • higher bus speed and requires lower power by running the internal clock at half the speed of the data bus
  • total of four data transfers per internal clock cycle
  • latency is greatly increased as a trade-off
28
Q

What features does DDR3 SDRAM have

A
  • total of eight data transfers per internal clock cycle
  • transfer rate of (memory clock rate) × 4 (for bus clock multiplier) × 2 (for data rate) × 64 (number of bits transferred) / 8 (number of bits/byte)
  • 8 GB Maximum
  • uses less power.
29
Q

What is SODIMM

A

small outline dual in-line memory module

often used in systems that have limited space

30
Q

How many pins do SODIMM have

A
100
144
200
204
260
31
Q

What is DIMM

A

Dual Inline Memory Module, it’s a module containing one or several random access memory

32
Q

What is ECC RAM

A

Error Correcting Code RAM, can monitor and correct most common kinds of internal data corruption
maintains a memory system immune to single-bit errors

33
Q

Can Non-ECC RAM fix errors?

A

With parity yes.

34
Q

What RAM configurations are there

A
Single Channel (2)
Dual Channel (4)
Triple Channel (6)
35
Q

What is unique about Buffered RAM

A

have a register between the DRAM modules and the system’s memory controller

36
Q

Contrast Buffered and Unbuffered

A
Buffered = servers
Unbuffered = home users
37
Q

What expansion cards can be found in a pc

A
Sound/Video
Network
USB/Firewire/Thunderbolt
Storage
Modem
Cellular Cards
Video Capture Cards
Riser Cards
38
Q

What is a USB Host Controller

A

Circuit built into the chipset to control every USB device

Max. 127 devices

39
Q

What is the USB Root Hub

A

Part of the controller that makes the physical connection

40
Q

What speeds do USB 1.1 transfer at

A

1.5 Mbps @ low speed

12 Mbps @ Hi-speed

41
Q

What speeds do USB 2.0 transfer at

A

480 Mbps

42
Q

What speeds do USB 3.0 transfer at

A

5 Gbps

43
Q

What speeds do USB 3.1 transfer at

A

10 Gbps

44
Q

What is the rule of thumb when it comes to the length of USB cables

A

Stick to a max length of two meters

45
Q

What are the characteristics of firewire

A
6 pin powered connector & 4 pin bus powered connector
1394a = 400 Mbps
1394b = 800 Mbps
Max 63 devices
Max length = 4.5 meters
46
Q

What is thunderbolt

A
A mix of copper and fiber cables
3 meters max with copper
60 meters max with fiber
1 @ 10 Gbps
2 @ 20 Gbps
3 @ 40 Gbps
47
Q

What is bit rate

A

The amount of bits transferred to the mp3 decoder in 1 second.

48
Q

What are the characteristics of a Serial connection

A

7 wires with 1 meter max
Transfer @ 1.5 Gbps/3 Gbps/5 Gbps
Drive speeds are calculated at 80% of pure bandwidth
AKA SATA

49
Q

What are the characteristics of a Parallel connection

A

40 or 80 pins with 18 inch max
Use a molex connector for power
66 Mbps max (80 pin cable)

50
Q

What is AHCI

A

Advanced Host Controller Interface

  • Unlocks advanced features for SATA
  • gives software developers and hardware designers a standard method for detecting, configuring, and programming SATA/AHCI adapters
51
Q

What is NCQ

A

Native Command Queuing, disk optimization feature for SATA drives

52
Q

What is NVMe

A

Makes the drive appear as a spinning drive to map the guts of the SSD; Translator between OS and SSD

53
Q

What is RAID 1

A

Mirroring - Two disks are written to at the same time

54
Q

What is RAID 0

A

Data is spread amongst multiple drives. there is no redundancy and all data would be lost.

55
Q

What is RAID 5

A

Disk Striping with Distributed Parity
Adds extra info so the data can be rebuilt in case of drive failure. Requires 3 drives (2 stripe to each other, 1 used for parity

56
Q

What is RAID 6

A

Disk Striping with extra parity, requires 5 drives and can survive 2 disks failing

57
Q

What is RAID 10

A

Nested Striped Mirrors

Minimum 4 drives, 2 drives configured as mirrors, and data is striped across the two mirrored pairs.

58
Q

What is RAID 0+1

A

Mirror of Stripes

Minimum 4 drives.