F1KF 11: Install & Maintain Computer Hardware
Russell Taylor
 F1KF 11: Install & Maintain Computer Hardware
 About Upgrading
 Making cost-effective choices
 About Fault Fixing – Diagnosis / Repair
 Using Utilities
 Using the right one at the right time
 What To Expect: 3 Outcomes
 Outcome 1 – 20 Multiple Choice Questions
 Outcome 2 – Practical: Set up an operational computer
system with a range of computer hardware
 Outcome 3 – Practical: Maintain and upgrade an
existing computer system.
 Closed Book
 Supervised
 Individual Work
 An objective test consisting of 14 questions
 Over 60% must be correctly answered = 9 questions
correct.
 Maximum of two attempts only
 Outcomes 2 and 3 are assessed by a set of practical
tasks and a candidate logbook to record all practical
tasks successfully completed by the candidates.
 Open Book: access to books, handouts, notes or any
other learning material
 Suitable lab equipment available to all candidates
 Upgrade a current PC to improve performance
 PC Spec:
 Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz, 800 MHz FSB, using an LGA775 Socket
–type Motherboard
 2GB RAM
 Standard Video-card
 52x DVD R/W Drive
 160GB Serial HDD
 Optical Mouse
 Standard Keyboard
 17" LCD Monitor
 MS Windows XP Pro
 Standard Sound Card
 The Motherboard's FSB (Front Side Bus) speed is an
important indicator of a Computer's speed.
 It is a bi-directional bus (i.e., interface) that carries all
electronic signals to and from the CPU to the
components - Hard Disk, Main Memory, etc.
 The faster the FSB, the faster your Computer! FSBs
today come at speeds of 667 MHz, 800 MHz as well as
1 GHz
 Current technologies here are ISA and SATA, with
Hard Disk speeds being 5400 RPM, 7200 RPM and
10000 RPM.
 Of the two technologies, SATA is faster.
 Details about Memory technologies would take too long to
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explore!
EDO, SDRAM, PC100, PC133, PC800 RDRAM and DDR
DRAM are memory technologies, past and present.
As far as your purchase decision is concerned, the higher
the speed (Memory speed is internally measured in
nanoseconds, and the speed it communicates to the FSB is
measured in MHz) of the Memory, the faster your
computer.
Current Memory technology is DDR SDRAM and speeds
are 1GHz to 1.3 GHz.
http://www.dewassoc.com/performance/memory/memory
_speeds.htm
 All Motherboards today come with built-in Graphics and Sound.
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This was not the case earlier.
However, the Graphics and Sound that is built into the
motherboard is very basic.
Most of the graphics-intensive programs - AutoCAD, Adobe
Photoshop / CorelDRAW and the likes, would run much faster
with an add-on 3-D Graphics card with dedicated memory.
If you plan to run more that a Word processor, e-Mail, Browser
and such stuff, a dedicated Graphics Card, with 512 or 1024 MB of
dedicated Video RAM is a must!
Similarly, if you are into music editing/ making movies/ audio
CDs/ DVDs on your Computer, you must go in for a dedicated
Sound Card. Sound Blaster has remained the market leaders and
preferred brand in the sound cards segment for many years now!
 Today, you have a choice of Optical Drives. Here are
the choices you have:
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CD-ROM Drive (Read CDs)
Combo Drives (Read and Write CDs, Read DVDs)
Super Drive (Read and Write CDs as well as DVDs)
Blu-Ray Drives (Read and Write CDs, DVDs as well as the new
Blu-Ray Disks)
 A plain vanilla CD-ROM Drive is now passé, while a
Blu-Ray Disk may be a costly luxury at the moment,
for, its prices will continue to fall.
 At the moment, the best bet is definitely to go in for a
Super Drive that will let you play as well as record on
both CDs as well as DVDs
 Lastly - and equally importantly, your choice of
Operating System will also affect your specifications.
 While Windows XP would run quite well with 512 MB
Memory, you will require a minimum 1 GB, if your
choice is Windows Vista Business:
 It is recommended that 2 GB RAM is a minimum if
you are running Vista Home Premium, Vista Business
or Vista Ultimate.
 What is the memory requirement for Windows 7?