Chapter 6 Vocab

Question 1

What are the 4 types of form factors?

Answer 1

Ax form factor

Micro ATX form factor

Mini ITX form factor

ITX form factor

Question 2

I/O area

Answer 2

Where you put all your input item in the motherboard

Question 3

Ax form factor

Answer 3

Biggest common form factor we have 12” x 9.6”

Question 4

Micro ATX form factor

Answer 4

9.6” x 9.6” looks similar

Question 5

Mini ITX form factor

Answer 5

Small systems the smallest form factor there are smaller systems but you can’t put RAM etc in other smaller ones

Question 6

ITX form factor

Answer 6

not that common at all. Larger of the form factors

Question 7

I/O shield

Answer 7

All mother boards come with one. Shape of I/O shielded —- fixed size

Question 8

What are the OG chipsets?

Answer 8

North bridge and south bridge

Question 9

North bridge

Answer 9

traditional acted as the interface of the CPU, memory controller, high speed expansion buses — fast stuff

Question 10

South bridge

Answer 10

Enter connection to the slower stuff. USB ports

The only chipset now that the CPU took over all the north bridge functions

Question 11

X299 X470 B360N

Answer 11

These are the chipset the motherboard is supporting. You will see numbers such as these on the side of the mother board box.

Question 12

What can the chipset tell you?

Answer 12

How many sticks you can support

How many video cards you can put in your system

How fast your RAM can be

How many and the speed of USB parts you can support

How many hard drives you can install

Question 13

Stand offs

Answer 13

(Included in the motherboards)

Made of metal

If you run electric through that mother board and it contracts metal. You can have a short

By using the standoff you get a small space allowing our motherboard not to contact that metal case and potentially short out

Question 14

CompTIA A+ troubleshooting theory steps

Answer 14

1. Identify the problem
2. Establish a theory of probable cause
3. Test the theory to determine the cause
4. Establish a plan of action to resolve the problem and implement the solution.
5. Verify full system functionality
6. Document the findings , actions, and outcomes

Question 15

Capacitor swelling

Answer 15

Very small circles.

Soul jog is to hold a charge

Lots of them on the mother board

If you notice capacitors are swelling immediately practice proper power handling

Question 16

Form factors

Answer 16

Determines the physical size of the the motherboard as well as the general location of components and ports

Question 17

Chipset

Answer 17

Defines the type of processor and RAM the motherboard requires and determines to a degree the built in devices the motherboard supports, including the expansion slots.

Question 18

The built in _____ determines the core functionality of the system.

A. Chipset
B. Traces
C. Form factors
D. Components
E. Feeling fear

Answer 18

Components

Question 19

Form factors apply to what three parts?

Answer 19

The case
Mother board
Power supply

Question 20

What are the types of form factors?

Answer 20

AT = Advanced technology
ATX = Advanced Technology Extended
ITX = Information Technology Extended

Question 21

At form factor

Answer 21

Now obsolete. Was dominant form factor for motherboards through the mid 90s

They were originally the largest 12” by 13”

Question 22

AT form factor

Answer 22

Now obsolete. Was dominate form factor for mother boards through the mid 90s

They were originally the largest 12” by 13”

Question 23

ATX form factor

Answer 23

Overtook AT in 1998. Full size 12” by 9.6”. Uses standard ATX connections but is 30% smaller than the regular size ATX form factor

Question 24

Proprietary motherboards

Answer 24

Enable companies to create systems that stand out from the rest and pushes you to get service and upgrades from their authorized dealers

Question 25

Riser cards

Answer 25

Aka daughter cards - parts of a motherboard separate from the main one but connected by a cable or some sort —- and unique power connections

Question 26

Chipset

Answer 26

Determines the type of processor the motherboard accepts, the type and capacity of RAM, and the sort of internal and external devices that the motherboard supports

Question 27

Super I/O chip

Answer 27

Handled everything the north and south bridge handled

Question 28

Primary expansion bus communication

Answer 28

Goes through the CPU - handles southbridge functions

Question 29

what is RAID?

Answer 29

Redundant array of independent (or inexpensive) disks and is very common on motherboards.

Question 30

Mirroring

Answer 30

A type of RAID The process of using two drivers to hold the same data which is good for safety because if one driver dies, the other still has all the data.

Question 31

Stripping

Answer 31

A type of RAID making two drivers act as one drive by spreading data across them, and which is good for speed

Question 32

Expansion bus crystal

Answer 32

controls the part of the external data bus connected to the expansion slots

Question 33

Peripheral component interconnect (PCI)

Answer 33

Bus architecture this was the new data bus, most manufacturers dropped their other buses

Question 34

PCI/Express (PCIe)

Answer 34

Is still PCI but it uses a point to point serial connection instead of PCIs standard parallel communication Doesn’t wait for other devices directly linked to CPU to send bits to

Question 35

What is a lane

Answer 35

Each of the pairs of wires between a PCIe controller and a device

Question 36

What’s does a transfer rate

Answer 36

Describes the # of operations happening per second

Question 37

Encoding scheme

Answer 37

The way the data is broken down and reassembled

Question 38

Installing expansion cards

Answer 38

1st - you need to know that the card works with your system and your OS 2nd - you have to insert the card in an expansion slot properly and with out damaging the card or the motherboard 3rd - you need to provide drivers for the OS proper drivers for the specific OS 4th you should always verify that the card functions properly before you walk away from the PC

Question 39

Device drivers

Answer 39

Software support programs loaded automatically by the OS or manually from a USB drive or form an optical disc provided by the card manufacturer

Question 40

Windows hardware compatibility program

Answer 40

Rigorous testing program for hardware manufacturers.

Question 41

Unsigned drivers

Answer 41

Some older versions of windows had support for these automatically enabled

Question 42

Driver rollback

Answer 42

All windows offer the feature to roll back to previous drivers after an install or driver upgrade If you install a driver that makes your computer not operate well you can roll back to the previous driver

Question 43

Beta drivers

Answer 43

Unpolished drivers Can call system instabilities If you use Beta, make sure you know how to uninstall and roll back to previous driver

Question 44

Catastrophic failure

Answer 44

Pop-loud noise. Acrid smell of ozone and then you have a dead computer

Question 45

Burn in failure

Answer 45

Can happen from manufacturing defects and any system that gets a shock of ESD

Question 46

Component failure

Answer 46

Happens rarely and appears as flaky connections between a device and motherboard or as intermittent problems.

Question 47

Ethereal failure

Answer 47

Most difficult of all 3. Stuff doesn’t work all the time. PC reboots itself. You get blue screen of death (BSoD) in the midst of heavy computing.