M3 - Advanced Computer Hardware

Ampere

the rate of electron flow past a point in one second, used as a measurement of current

Voltage

Electrical "pressure" pushing the electrons

Watt

Measurement of power use (volts * amps)

What current do computers use?

DC current

What current does wall outlets use?

AC current

AC

Alternating current, direction of current constantly reverses. Long distance

US/Canada AC Frequency

120 VAC 60 hz

Europe AC Frequency

240 VAC 50hz

DC

Direct current, corrent moves in one direction with constant voltage

+12 V

Most modern components

+5 V

Some motherboard components, most use 3.3 now

+3.3 V

m.2 slots, RAM slots, motherboard logic circuits

+5 VSB

Standbu Voltage

-12V

older cards and ports, integrated LAN

-5 V

ISA adapter cards (old)

+3.3 and +5 V Limit?

combined

Most used voltage for modern computers

+12 VDC

Power supply connector

PSU outputs 3.3 VCD, 5 VDC, and 12 VDC voltage

Other Power supply connectors

Molex, SATA, and 4/6/8/16 pin connectors

24-pin ATX Power Connector

Also known as the P1 Connector, supplies power to Motherboard. Used to be 20-pin

How are power supplies rated?

watts

What capacity should your PSU be rated for?

50%

Converting AC to DC Impacts

Power is lost and heat is generated

Power supply efficiency range

80% - 96%

PSU power rating system

80 Plus - 80 Plus Titanium. Baseline 80% efficiency from 20% - 100% load

Fan sizes

80mm, 120mm, 200mm,

Heat Sync Materials

copper or aluminum alloy

HDD

Random access non-volatile magnetic storage with physical platters.

HDD Components

Actuator, Platters, Spindle, and Read/Write heads. Uses AHCI

High performance HDD rpm

15000 - 10000

Average performance HDD rpm

5400 - 7200

5.25” Drive size

optical bay

3.5” Drive size

HDD drives

2.5” Drive size

SSD drives

SSD

non-volatile flash memory

PCIe Storage interfaces

SSD communication before M.2

PCIe transfer rate

64 gigabits/s

SATA

Serial Advanced Technology Attachment, used for storage devices

AHCI

advanced host controller interface; moves drive data to ram

SATA 3 Throughput

6 GBps

NVMe

Non volatile Memory express; designed for SSD speeds using PCIe bus

NVMe theoretical transfer rate

20 Gbps

SAS

Serial Attached SCSI. Serial communication, manages SCSI in large storage arrays

SAS Throughput

22.5 gbps

SCSI Protocol

Small Computer System Interface, set of standards for connecting computer and peripherals

mSATA

Mini-SATA, replaced by m.2

M.2 Interface

Uses PCIe bus connection

M.2 Throughput

4 Gbps, faster when using NVMe PCIe x4

M.2 Connector Types

B Key, M Key, or both

Does M.2 guarentee NVMe?

No, as it may be using AHCI

Flash Drives

Uses flash, old version was CompactFlash (CF)

SD

Secure digital, SD, MiniSD, and microSD

SD capacity types

SD 2Gb, SDHC 34GB, and SDXC 2TB

SDHC

Secure digital High capacity

SDXC

Secure digital extended capacity)

EEPROM

electrically erasable programmable read-only memory , flash memory

Optical Drives

reads Small bumps read with a laser beam

CD-ROM

Compact disc - read only memory

DVD-ROM

Digital Versatile Discs - Read only memory

Basic recordable media

written to once in a single session

Multisession Recordable Media

can be written to in multiple sessions, but data cannot be erased

Rewritable media

can be written and erased multiple times, up to a certain number of write cycles

Cd storage capacity

700mb

DVD storage capacity

4.7 GB

Blu-ray storage capacity

25 GB per layer

DRM

Digital Rights Management

RAID 0

Striping, blocks are split between two or more physical drive

RAID 1

Mirroring, two or more drives and all files are duplicated

RAID 5

Striping with distributed parity; requires 3 drives

RAID 6

Striping with 2x parity; requires 4 drives and uses 2 parity blocks

RAID 10

Stripe of Mirrors; RAID (1+0); uses 4 drives.

NAS

Network attached storage

Data pathway

Determines the amount of information transferred per clock cycle. typically 64 bits wide

Address Pathway:

Determines the number of memory locations the CPU can track, thus limiting the maximum physical and virtual memory.

32 bit CPU memory cap

4gb

64 bit CPI memory cap

256 TB

64 Bit CPU address bus

typically 48 bits, could use 64 bits

DIMM

Dual inline memory module

SO-DIMM

Small Outline Dual Inline Memory Module

RDIMM

Registered DIMM; used for ECC ram

UDIMM

Unbuffered DIMM; common with consumer-grade RAM

ECC Compatibility

Motherboard and CPU must support ECC

DIMM Type Compatibility

either supports UDIMM or RDIMM

DRAM

Dynamic Random Access Memory; memory on DIMM that needs constant refreshing

SDRAM

Synchronous DRAM; syncs instructions with system clock

SDR

Single Data Rate; one instruction per clock cycle

DDR

Double Data Rate; two instructions per clock cycle

Column Access Strobe latency

the delay between the memory controller requesting data from the RAM and the moment it becomes available, measured in clock cycles

DDR3 SDRAM

Twice the data rate of DDR2

DDR4 SDRAM

more efficient channel design

DDR5 SDRAM

introduces dual-channel architecture per module and internal error-checking mechanism within the module itself

Parity Memory

Stores an additional parity bit for every byte transferred. Detects some errors, but cant correct the

ECC Memory

Error Correction Code; Detects errors by adding a 8 bit checksum, requires 72-bit data bus. ca correct single-bit memory and alert multi-bit errors

Parity Bit

Even parity gets the sum of all bits to make an even number.

CPU to RAM throughput measurement

MT/s (Million transfers per second)

Single-channel memory

one 64-bit data bus between the CPU, memory controller, and RAM

Dual-channel

Utilizes two 64-bit pathways, allowing 128 bits of data per transfer

Mismatched Modules Outcomes

defaults to single-channel mode, enables dual channel mode but disables extra ram, and Flex mode

Flex Mode

Dual channel and single channel memory

What happens when a software program runs?

assembled into CPU instructions loaded into system memory