A+ Study guide
Mouse port on the motherboard/case is Green.
Keyboard port on the motherboard / case is Purple.
Binary number system is base 2. It uses 1’s and 0’s. 1 represents on and 0 represents off. A 1 or a 0 is a
bit.
8 bits = 1 byte
The most common method for text encoding is ASCII
The width of a data bus is called the data path size.
The main bus on the motherboard that communicates with the cpu, memory and the chipset goes by
several names: System bus, front side bus, memory bus, host bus, local bus, or external bus. Front side
bus is the most common name used.
Clock speed is measured in hertz (hz)
Megahertz(MHZ) is one million cycles per second
Gigahertz(GHz) is one billion cycles per second.
Common ratings for motherboard buses today are 1066 MHz, 800 MHz, 533 MHz, 400 MHz
ACPI is Advanced Configuration and Power Interface is a power saving feature.
An older bios power management stand is Advance Power Management (APM)
ESCD (extended system configuration data) is an enhanced version of Plug and Play.
Diode is a semiconductor device that allows electricity to flow in only one direction.
Resistor is an electronic device that limits the amount of current that can flow through it.
The benefits of a UPS (uninterruptable power supply) are the following: Conditions the line to account
for both brownout and spikes, Provides backup power during a blackout, Protects against very high
spikes that could damage equipment.
Smart UPS (also called an intelligent UPS) can be controlled by software from a computer.
The temperature inside the case of a computer should not exceed 100 degrees F.
The most common form factor for motherboard is ATX. ATX measures 12 inches by 9.6 inches.
BTX is the newest form factor for motherboards. (page 231)
PCI Express slot speeds: x1 slot 400 MPps
X4 slot 1.6 GBps
x8 slot 3.2GBps x16 6.4GBps
Page 243 had common keys for different manufactures to reach the CMOS setup on the PC.
Post will use beep codes to inform of errors. 1 beep means there are no problems. P. 262
3 basic components of a processor: Input/Output unit, Control Unit, and one or more Arithmetic logic
Unit.
Front side bus and back side bus. Page 183-184
SECC fits in a slot 1. Page 212
A cooler is a combination of a heat sink and a cooling fan.
CPU Voltage Regulator – motherboard uses to control the amount of voltage to the processor.
DDR2 SDRAM is faster than DDR and uses 240 pins.
Dimm size modules are on page 287.
Hard drives use one of two methods to transfer data between the hard drive and memory. DMA (direct
memory access) or PIO (programmed input/output transfer)
The power connector for IDE drives is called a molex connector
SCSI (Small Computer System Interface) can have 7 or 15 devices and has terminators on both ends.
Fiber channel interface can support 126 devices. Page 327
Page 332
Error messages in the 600 range are related to floppy drives. Page 355
Native resolution for a XGA projector is 1024x768
Firewire is also known as i.link or 1394
Barcode readers and fingerprint scanners are different kinds of input devices.
The refresh rate for crt monitors is the number of times in one second an electronic beam can fill the
screen with lines from top to bottom.
VRAM (video Ram) is a type of dual ported memory.
WRAM (window RAM) is dual ported and less expensive than vram. Has its own internal bus on the chip
and a data path of 256 bits.
Direct RDRAM ( DRDRAM) is used on video cards and game systems and works with video well.
Solid State Devices do not use platters like traditional hard drives to store data. (example flash drive)
MPEG (Moving Pictures Experts Group) is the most common video standard. MPEG-2 is for dvd. MPEG-4
is used for video streaming on the internet.
RAID (redundant array of independent disks) is used for fault tolerance.
A spanned volume appears as a simple volume but can use space from two or more physical disks.
A striped volume (RAID 0) can use space from two or more physical disks and increases the disk space
available for a single volume.
A mirrored volume is called a RAID 1.
A RAID 5 volume is striped across 3 or more drives and uses parity checking.
A hard drive is organized into one or more partitions. A partition can be Primary or Extended.
A primary partition can have one logical drive, and a extended partition can have one or more logical
drives.
Device manager symbols: a red X indicates a disabled device. An exclamation point on a yellow
background indicates a problem with a device. Page 74
A loop back plug is used to test serial, parallel, USB, network, or other ports.
Pin 1 on a IDE cable should be clearly marked. Page 109
System Resources: page 120
IRQ numbers: A line of a motherboard bus that a hardware device or expansion slot can use to signal
the cpu that the device needs attention. Each IRQ line is assigned a number (0 to 15) to identify it.
I/O addresses: Numbers assigned to hardware devices that software uses to send a command to a
device.
Memory address: Numbers assigned to physical memory located either in RAM or ROM chips.
DMA channels: A number designating a channel on which the device can pass data to memory without
involving the cpu.
Inkjet Printers use a print head that moves across the paper creating one line of text with each pass.
Dot Matrix printers use a print head that moves across the width of the paper using pins to print a
matrix of dots on the page.
Thermal printers use wax based ink that is heated by heat pins that melt the ink onto the paper.
Postscript is a printer language used to communicate how a page is to print and was developed by
Adobe.
The Mac Address is a 48 bit number hard coded to the network card by the manufacturer and is also
called the hardware address, physical address, or adapter address.
Twisted pair cable is the most popular cabling method for local networks. It comes in 2 varieties:
unshielded twisted pair (UTP) cable and shielded twisted pair (STP) cable. CAT 5 and CAT 5e are the
most common. CAT 6 has less crosstalk than cat5 or cat5e.
Ethernet Topologies:
A bus topology connects each node in a line and has no central connection point.
A star topology connects all nodes to a centralized hub or switch.
802.11 is wireless
802.16 is wimax
An IP address is a 32 bit address consisting of 4 8bit numbers separated by dots.
A mac address is a 48 bit address permanently embedded on the network card.
IP Address classes: page 869
Class A : 0 to 126
Class B: 128 to 191.55
Class C: 192 to 223
TCP/IP utilities: page 928-929
ARP (arp.exe) manages the IP to Ethernet address translation tables used to find the mac address of a
host on the network when the ip address is known.
Getmac (getmac.exe) Displays the nic’s address
IPCONFIG displays the IP address of the host
Ping verifies there is a connection on a network between two hosts.
telnet allows you to communicate with another computer on the network remotely.
Netstat displays information about current tcp/ip connections.
HTTP Hyper Text Transmission Protocol is the standard protocol for web browsing.
HTTPS Secure browsing using SSL (secure socket layer)
SSL uses a digital certificate (also called a digital ID or digital signature)
TLS (transport layer security) is an improved version of ssl.
FTP (file transfer protocol) is the most popular way to transfer files on the internet.
Email servers use SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) to send email.
Email is received using POP3 or IMAP4
Port 80 web
Port 20-21 FTP
Port 25 SMTP
Port 110 POP3
Phishing is where the sender of a email message scams you into responding with your personal data.
Virus hoax is email that does damage by tempting you to forward it to everyone in your address book
with the intent of clogging up email systems or to delete critical system files by convincing you they are
malicious.
You must have the audit policy enabled to monitor the failure or success of login attempts.
A boot sector virus hides in the boot sector program of a hard drive.
A file virus hides in an executable program or in a word processing document that contains a macro.
A multipart virus is a combination of a boot sector virus and a file virus and can hide in either.
A macro is a small program contained in a document that can be executed automatically.
A script virus is a virus that hides in a script which can execute when you click on a link or a web page.
A virus is a program that replicates by attaching itself to other programs.
Adware produces unwanted pop up adds.
Spam is unwanted email.
Spyware is software that installs itself without your knowledge and collects personal information about
you and your browsing habits.
A worm is a program that copies itself through a network without a host program.
A keylogger tracks all your keystrokes.
A logic bomb is dormant code attached to software and triggered at a pre-determined time.
A Trojan Horse does not need a host program to work. It substitutes itself for a legitimate program.
A site license allows a company to obtain multiple copies of a software product.
Legitimate drivers have been digitally signed. The digital signatures are digital codes that can be used to
authenticate the source of the files.
Disk manangement will allow you to manage your partitions.
Microsoft Management Console (MMC) is where you can manage your system using snap-ins.
Regedit is the program you can use to edit the registry.