3.0 System Components
3.1 Cases and Form Factors
·• Why must the case be matched to the motherboard?
·• How does the ATX form factor differ from the ITX form factor?
·• What are the characteristics of the ATX form factor?
·• What is the main difference between a Micro-ATX tower and a Micro-ATX slim tower case?
·• What is the most common ITX form factor?
3.2 Power Supplies
·• How does the case form affect the type of power supply you purchase?
·• What is the function of the red toggle switch on a power supply? Why is this so important?
·• What rating determines the number of internal components a computer can handle?
·• What is soft power?
·• Why must you be careful when using a proprietary power supply?
3.3 Motherboards and Buses
·• What factors should you consider when selecting a motherboard?
·• What chipset functionalities have moved to the CPU on newer systems?
·• What are the basic steps of installing a motherboard?
·• How can you add peripheral devices to a system?
·• How are PCI and PCIe different?
3.4 Motherboard Troubleshooting
·• What are the symptoms of system power problems? How do you troubleshoot system power problems?
·• How do you interpret BIOS/UEFI error codes generated during POST?
·• What are the symptoms of system overheating? How do you troubleshoot overheating issues?
·• What are the symptoms of internal and external device failures? How do you troubleshoot internal and external device failures?
3.5 Processors
·• What are the differences between the four levels of cache memory?
·• What is the biggest limitation of using a 32-bit processor?
·• What factors should be considered when comparing the speed of computers?
·• What are the benefits of using a smaller processor size during CPU manufacture?
·• What is the difference between hyper-threading and multithreading?
·• Under what circumstances might you choose to use throttling?
·• What is virtualization? Which CPU features enable advanced virtualization support?
·• Which components are used with a CPU to dissipate heat?
3.6 Processor Troubleshooting
·• How can you protect a CPU from electrostatic discharge?
·• What could cause a system to not boot after installing a new CPU?
·• What could cause a system to spontaneously shut down after it has been running for a period of time?
·• What causes CPUs to fail prematurely?
3.7 Memory
·• What is the difference between SRAM and DRAM?
·• What are two advantages of using DDR3 memory over DDR2 memory?
·• What is the difference between SODIMM and UniDIMM?
·• How does DDR4 differ from DDR3?
·• What does the IMC do?
3.8 Memory Installation
·• Why is consulting the motherboard documentation so important when purchasing memory?
·• You have DDR2 memory with a CAS latency of 6 and DDR3 memory with a CAS latency 7. What can you tell about the relative speed of the two memory modules?
·• What is the difference between ECC and registered memory?
·• How does a triple-channel configuration and a quad-channel configuration differ?
·• After installing the memory, what should you do?
3.9 Memory Troubleshooting
·• What does a memory error indicate?
·• What are the symptoms of memory errors? How do you troubleshoot memory problems?
·• What has happened when the system boots, but the memory count is incorrect?
·• At which times might a memory problem manifest itself?
3.10 BIOS/UEFI
·• What are the functions of the BIOS?
·• What is the role of CMOS? How does it differ from the BIOS?
·• Why does the CMOS require a battery?
·• What might be some common reasons for editing the CMOS settings?
·• What determines the keystroke to open a CMOS editor? How can you find this information?
·• What functions are performed in the POST process?
3.11 Expansion Cards
·• What advantage does a PCIe bus have over a PCI bus?
·• Which type of devices typically use mini PCI cards?
·• Which bus type is commonly used by graphic cards?
·• What type of slot can a PCIe x1 expansion card be placed in?
3.12 Video
·• How does the video card affect the quality of the image on the monitor?
·• Which type of DVI connector sends digital signals only?
·• How does the GPU increase the video performance?
·• What are the differences between integrated graphics and dedicated video cards?
·• What advantages are provided by SLI and CrossFire?
·• What is the general function of HDCP? When should you be concerned with an HDCP video card or monitor?
·• What is the difference between ATSC and NTSC? Which format would you most likely choose if you wanted to watch broadcast TV in the United States?
3.13 Audio
·• What do you need to do to play AIFF files on a Windows computer?
·• What color typically indicates the speaker port on a sound card? What color is used for the microphone?
·• Which connectors are used for digital S/PDIF audio?
·• Which encoding techniques are used for surround sound audio?
3.14 Cooling
·• How does adequate cooling improve performance and extend the life of components?
·• How does organizing and attaching cables and wires in and around a computer system help with internal airflow?
·• Why should you keep the system case cover on during normal operations?
·• Why is it important that case fans are installed properly?
·• When might you want to add liquid cooling to a computer?
·• What is the difference between an active heat sink and a passive heat sink?
·• What is the function of thermal paste? When should it be used?
Testimonials
