Question | Answer |
IRQ 0? | System Time |
IRQ 1? | Keyboard |
IRQ 2? | Cascade - not really used, connects to other IRQ chips |
IRQ 3? | Com 2+4, Serial port controller |
IRQ 4? | Com 1+3, Serial port controller |
IRQ 5? | LPT2 - Sound |
IRQ 6? | Floppy Controller |
IRQ 7? | LPT1 - printers and parallel port |
IRQ 8? | RTC - Real Time Clock |
IRQ 9? | Cascade same as 2 |
IRQ 10-11? | Available |
IRQ 12? | Mouse on PS/2 |
IRQ 13? | Math co-processor |
IRQ 14? | Primary ATA |
IRQ 15? | Secondary ATA |
IRQ Priority? | 0-2, 8-15, 3-7 |
What stores resources of last successful boot? Where? | CMOS, ESCD (Extended System Configuration Data) |
Differences between Warm and Cold boot? | COLD= completely off to on, entire boot process WARM= properly reset running system, no POST required |
What is shadowing? | BIOS programs are loaded into main memory (RAM) |
What is Flashing? | Overwriting of existing firmware or data on ROM. |
v90 / v92 modem differences? | v90= supports up to 56Kbps, earlier v92= faster speed, shorter handshake (remembers previous settings), call-waiting |
What is UART? | Universal Asynchronous Reciever/Transmitter, converts parallel data in your computer to serial form. 16550A. |
Most PC modems hardware of software? | Software |
Can you get 56k in reality on phone line? Why/Why not? | No, voltage limitations, interference, poor quality (crosstalk), long cable lengths. |
What are the proprietary modem slots? | ACR, AMR or CNR...ACR looks like backwards PCI. |
Modem speeds to v. standards? | v.32=14.4k, v.34=28.8k-33.6k, v.90-92=56k |
Difference between UART and modem? | UART allows computer to talk to the modem |
Name of the telephone jack connector? | RJ-11 |
What is POTS? | Plain Old Telephone Service |
What is modulator/demodulate? | Modulating= converting digital data to analog, Demodulating= analog to
digital. |
What is OCR? | Optical Character Recognition, converts scanned images of text to word documents |
What is interpolation? | sharpen the scanned image (and advertise higher scanning resolution than it's hardware is capable of) |
What is TWAIN? | software that designed to be a universal translator between the imaging device and the scanner applications |
What is CCD? | Charged Coupled Devices, contains photosites that maps the scanned area and is charged with electrons based on reflected light. |
What are the 3 types of scanners? | Flatbed, Sheet-Fed, Hand-Held |
What interfaces do scanners user? | SCSI, USB, FireWire, Serial, Parallel |
What is DPI? | Dots Per Inch, measure printing dot density |
What is Bit Depth? | Colour Depths (24bit, 36bit) |
How does scanning work? | Light shone on document, reflected off concave mirrors to make image smaller and through a filter and a lens into the CCDs which maps the scanned area. |
What is DB-25? | Parallel port for scanners/printers |
What is ESD? | Electro Static Discharge |
What does ESD cause? | Complete failure and degradation |
What are the 2 types of screws used? | m3 fine thread(optical+floppy), 6-32 coarse thread(case, expansion slots, HD) |
What screwdriver do we use? | Philips #2 |
What is CAV? | Constant Angular Velocity, constant spin velocity, DTR varies, lower near the center |
What is CLV? | Constant Linear Velocity, varies the rate of spin to have constant DTR |
What is SMART? | Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology, monitors hardware problems |
What are the 3 areas of optical disk layout? | Lead-In, Data, Lead-Out |
How do you replace SRAM? | Replace the CPU |
What is MIDI? | Musical Instrument Digital Interface, shitty music. |
Main difference between PCI and PCIe | Parallel vs. Serial |
What are the various Form Factor? (7) | At, Baby AT, ATX, Micro-ATX, Mini-ITX, NLX, BTX/Micro-BTX |
What is the most common home motherboard? | ATX |
What is the motherboard used for mini tower? | Micro-ATX |
What is the motherboard used for home theater? | Mini-ITX, passively cooled |
What is the motherboard used to server? | NLX, riser card slot |
What motherboard has I/O ports on the wrong side? | BTX |
What are the different names used instead of motherboard? | Planar, main board, system board |
Physical Size of hard drives? | 3.5inch and 2.5inch |
What are some of the major rotation speeds of Hard Drives? | 3.6k, 5.4k-7.2k, 10k, 15k |
What is a sector? | Smallest unit of space on HD that can be allocated (512 bytes, advanced can be 4KB) |
What is a cluster? | Group of sectors (2-64), smallest amount of space that can be used for any read/write |
What is a track? | Concentric circles on the platter |
What is a cylinder? | Group of tracks of the same diameter on different platters. |
What are the common interfaces on a HD | SATA, SCSI |
How does the master/slave system work with SATA? | SATA doesn't use master/slave |
Pins on SATA / PATA? | SATA = 15, PATA = 40 |
2 types of filters found in a HD? | Barometric, Recirculating |
What does the voice coil motor do? | Moves the read head. |
RAID 0? | Data Striping, no fault tolerance |
RAID 1? | Disk Mirroring, all data saved 2x |
RAID 2? | does not exist |
RAID 3? | Data Striping With Dedicated Parity Drive |
RAID 4? | Data Striping With Dedicated Parity Drive, larger stripes |
RAID 5? | Data Striping with Rotating Parity, most common |
RAID 6? | Data Striping with Dual Rotating Parity, can recover from 2 failed drives |
What is nested raid level? | Combination of Raid 0+1, mirrored + striped, minimum 4 drives |
RAID LVL = Minimum Drives | Max Data Storage | 0=2|n, 1=2|n/2, 3+4+5=3|n-1, 6=4|n-2 |
PC Card Type I? | 3.3mm, usually flash, not very common |
PC Card Type II? | 5.0mm, often NIC, most common |
PC Card Type III? | 10.5mm, mini HD, quite rare |
What has replaced PC Cards? | ExpressCard |
What is a Hot Spare? | An extra HD that is running and ready to start working if one goes down. |
How many pins in DDR for laptops? | DDR1+2= 200, DDR3= 204 |
What is Nickel Cadmium? | "Battery memory", old, bad |
What is Nickel Metal Hydride? | not as bad memory, still older, not as bad |
What is Lithium Ion? | Newest, best, high voltage till steep drop near end of life. |
What is Speedstep? | When unplugged it uses less power in laptop |
When can you upgrade the video card in a laptop? | MXM, mobile PCIe module, easy upgrade video card |
What is the most expensive part of the laptop? | screen |
Differences between laptop and notebook? | Notebook = worse processor, no optical disk drive, smaller, no SSD, less RAM, different OS |
What is thermal compound? | Arctic Silver, allows transfer of heat from CPU to heatsink |
2.8GHz using 400 bus speed? | 2800 / 400 = 7 .... so 7 is the multiplier (X) |
How to overclock? | Changing the bus speed is the best way. |
How do you get thermal info outside of OS? | BIOS (CMOS) |
What a passive cooling? | No fan |
RED BOOK? | audio |
YELLOW BOOK? | stamped |
ORANGE BOOK? | burn |
What Region code is Canada? Everyone? | Canada = 1, Everyone =0 |
What is the CD X speed? | X = 150 |
What is DVD X speed? | X = 1350 ( 9 * CD X) |
CDRW X/Y/Z ? | X= Read Y= Write Z= Rewrite |
What is Packet Writing? | turned the rewritable disk into a live CD (like a folder) |
Difference between bluray and dvd? | laser, capacity, speed, layers |
Why do Parallel ATA HD have jumpers? | to set master and slave |
What Parallel bus still used by most motherboard? | PCI, white colour |
What is Bus Mastering? | Transfer data between 2 devices without CPU |
Which expansion bus used exclusively for video cards? | AGP |
What is most common expansion slot used today? | PCIe-16 |
Can you use a PCIe card in PCI slot? | NO, serial and parallel, PCIx + PCIe yes |
Can all AGP cards be used in all AGP slots? | no, some have different connectors? |
Backlight? | CCFL (Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamps), LED (Light Emitting Diode) |
What is a Pixel? | Smallest portion of the screen that can be colour |
What is Native Resolution? | Ideal resolution for monitor |
Backlight? | CCFL (Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamps), LED (Light Emitting Diode) |
What is Contrast Ratio? | How close to absolute black it can get? |
What is response time? | time to go from off to on to off |
Passive vs Active Matrix | Passive = older and not as good, less transistors. Active Matrix= newer, more transistors, TFT= thin film transistor |
Advantages of LCD? | Cheap, power, size, weight, no flicker, low radiation |
Disadvantages of LCD? | Dead pixel, ghosting, no absolute black |
What is a Dead/Defective pixel? | it's stuck to a certain colour |
Where does a breakout box sit? | 5.25 bay |
Difference of pins wide and narrow SCSI? | wide = male, narrow = female |
How do you terminate a SCAM? | It terminates itself |
What is WWN? | World Wide Name, used for SAS |
What is ZIF? | Zero Insertion Force, pins on socket, not on the processor, has a lever |
What is LIF? | Low Insertion Force, pins on processor |
What is PGA? | Pin Grid Array, symmetrical linear pins |
What is SPGA? | Staggered Pin Grid Array, every other row of pins is shifted |
What is OTP? | Opposite Track Path, middle>>edge>>middle |
What is PTP? | Parallel Track Path, middle>>edge middle>>edge |
What is USB1? | Full Speed, 1.5Mbps |
What is USB2? | High Speed, 480Mbps |
What is USB3? | Super Speed, 5Gbps |
What is a surge suppressor? | Combats surges/spikes |
What is a line conditioner? | Combats brownouts |
What is BPS? | Backup Power Supply |
What is SPS? | Standby Power Supply, switches to battery when needed |
What is UPS? | Uninterruptable Power Supply, power always going through battery, wears out faster. |