WGU - IT Foundations - D316 with 117 questions and answers ( DOWNLOAD TO PASS )

Software

Part of the computer system that consists of encoded information or computer instructions.

Hardware

The physical parts of the computer.

Firmware

Provides control, monitoring, and data manipulation of engineered products and systems.

Device Driver

Operates a particular type of device connected to a computer.

Operating System

Coordinates interaction between hardware and software.

What does BIOS stand for?

Basic Input/Output System.

BIOS

Provides runtime services for programs and performs hardware initialization upon startup.

Soft Power

Front power button acts like a relay to initiate various power system changes depending on how long the button is held.

Overclocking

Increasing the clock speed beyond what is recommended in order to get enhanced performance.

What two components need to support hardware based virtualization in order to avoid software based virtualization?

BIOS and the CPU.

What is important when flashing a BIOS on a computer?

An uninterrupted power supply.

Beep Code

A series of beeps from the computer's speaker that indicate a problem. The pattern, duration, and number of beeps can sometimes indicate which component is causing the issue.

Motherboard

Computer component that contains all the circuitry that allows other components to communicate with each other.

ATX

Advanced technology extended (ATX) motherboards are motherboards that have the processor and memory slots at right angles to expansion slots and in line with the fan output of the power supply allowing the processor to run cooler.

Micro ATX

Smaller version of the ATX though you can still it into an ATX ready case. It has fewer expansion slots, memory slots, etc. than ATX.

ITX

Motherboards that are developed at low power, small form factor for specialty uses such as home theater systems. This family of motherboards consists of Mini, Nano, Pico, and Mobile models.

Chipset

A collection of chips that perform interface and peripheral functions for the processor. They can be divided up into two main functional groups: the northbridge and the southbridge.

Northbridge

This is the set of circuitry or chips that performs the management of high speed peripheral communications such as video cars in PCIe slots and processor to memory (RAM) communications. It contains the frontside bus and it may contain a backside bus as well.

Frontside Bus

Is part of the Northbridge and it connects the CPU and the main memory. If a backside bus isn't present the frontside bus also contains a cache.

Backside Bus

Is part of the Northbridge and it is a set of signal pathways that connect the CPU to the level 2 or level 3 cache memory.

Southbridge

Is connected to the northbridge and is responsible for providing support to slower on board peripherals such as serial ports, PS/2, USB, etc. Basically if you are considering part of a computer that isn't CPU, memory, cache, or PCIe then the _______ is in charge.

Expansion slots

Used to install various devices on the computer to extend its capabilities. Some expansions that could be installed are video cards, sound cards, networking cards, etc.

Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) slots

Usually white and around 3 inches in length.

PCI-Extended (or PCI-X) slots

Are primarily used for servers and while faster than PCI still lag behind PCIe slots in speed and suffers from the shared bus issue that PCI suffers from in that it falls back to the speed of the slowest inserted adapter.

PCI-Express (or PCIe) slots

This is becoming very common for use because of how fast it is.

PCIex1 slot

Really small slot used for wireless cards.

Random Access Memory (RAM) or just memory

Contains the currently used data and instructions for the CPU.

Dual Inline Memory Module (DIMM)

Typical in modern computers.

Small Outline DIMM (SODIMM)

Typical in laptops. Smaller than DIMM.

Which packaging is used for DDR SDRAM?

184-pin DIMM.

DIMMs with 240 pins are used for what types of RAM?

DDR2 and DDR3 SDRAM.

What are the DIMM pin counts for use in desktop motherboards?

168-pin, 184-pin, and 240-pin modules.

How many pins to duel channel RIMM modules have?

232-pin.

Parity Checking

Rudimentary error checking that usually works on a byte (8 bits) of data. Does not correct the problem.

Error Checking Correction (ECC)

This can check for single and double bit errors in code, but it can only correct single bit errors on the fly.

Registered (or Buffered) Memory Modules (RDIMMs)

Includes chips that act as buffers for signals and reduces the load placed on the memory controller.

Unregistered (or Unbuffered) Memory Modules (UIMMs)

No buffer is present in this form of memory. An example of this is ECC memory.

Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM)

This is what the majority of people are talking about when they say RAM. They need a constant update (also called refresh) signal in order to keep the memory that is written there. It stores each bit of data within a separate capacitor within an integrated circuit.

Synchronous DRAM (SDRAM)

Shares a clock signal with the computer's system bus clock. This ties the speed of the memory to the FSB eliminating the need to configure the CPU to wait for the memory to catch up.

Single Data Rate SDRAM (SDR SDRAM)

Transfers data on the rising edge of the clock only. Legacy hardware.

Double Data Rate SDRAM (DDR SDRAM)

Transfers data on the rising and the falling of the clock thus doubling the rate of transfer of the data.

What is the peak voltage of DDR SDRAM?

2.5V

How do you calculate throughput?

Module to chip (or module to FSB) speed multiplied by 8 equals throughput. This is used in determining the naming process as the chips that go into making a PC1600 module are named DDR200. It's worth noting that motherboards that have a 333MHz may not have a corresponding PC2667 module. Instead you'll probably want to look for a PC2700 because it's a round number that looks better.

DDR2 SDRAM

Yet another advancement in technology designed to roughly double the performance of DDR SDRAM. A DDR2-400 chip corresponds to a PC2-3200 module. Note that it is still 8 times 400 to calculate the 3200. We rely on the PC2 to indicate that is DDR2 memory.

What is the peak voltage of DDR2 SDRAM

1.8V

DDR3 SDRAM

Yet another generation of devices meant to double the performance of DDR2 SDRAM. DDR3-400 would then correspond to a PC3-3200 module in order to maintain the convention. Remember that DDR3 has quadruple the performance of DDR memory though. The 3 is not a multiplier but a revision mark.

What is the peak voltage of DDR3 SDRAM?

1.5V

Static Random Access Memory (SRAM)

Doesn't require a refresh signal like DRAM does. SRAM is considerably faster though and is traditionally used for caches. It is quite a bit more expensive than DRAM. This is a type of semiconductor memory.

Read Only Memory (ROM)

It's called read only memory because in the original form of this memory it could not be written to. This is usually used to store the computer's BIOS.

Programmable ROM (PROM)

This is a form of ROM that could be programmed once in a special machine, but once it would programmed it could never be written to again.

Erasable PROM (EPROM)

Originally needed UV light to erase it, but it has since been replaced by flash memory that can be erased with a slightly larger than normal electrical pulse.

Hyper-Threading Technology (HTT)

Uses simultaneous multithreading (SMT) to improve parallelization of computations (doing multiple tasks at once) on processors. Operating system must support SMT to take advantage of this.

Multicore

Is a single processing unit with two or more processing dies on a single unit. This is viewed the processor the same way processors in multiple sockets are viewed. As with HTT, the computer needs to support SMT in order to take advantage of multicore processing. It reads and executes multiple instructions at the same time when supported.

Land Grid Array (LGA)

A land grid array refers to a system wherein the central processing unit is flat on the back and the pin are located on the motherboard.

LGA 775

Seen in later generation Pentium 4 processors, Intel Core 2 Duo processors and some Xeon and Celeron processors. Sometimes called socket T. 775 pins are on the socket.

LGA 1366

This replaced the LGA 775, and it is used primarily by the Intel i7 processor. It has 1366 pins and is sometimes called socket B.

LGA 1156

This is also a replacement for the LGA 775. It integrated the northbridge onto the chip and has 1156 pins. Supports Intel i3, i5, and i7 processors. It is sometimes called the socket H or H1.

LGA 1155

Replacement for the 1156. It has 1155 pins, and it supports some of the Intel Sandy Bridge and Micro Bridge processors. Also called socket H2.

LGA 1150

Replaced the 1155. It has 1150 pins and is used in Haswell and Broadwell architecture. Also called socket H3.

LGA 2011

Replaced both the 1366 and the 1567. It has 2011 pins, and it was designed for high end desktops and servers. Used for the Sandy Bridge-E/EP and Ivy Bridge E/EP processors. It is also called socket R.

Pin Grid Array (PGA)

Pins are on the chip and not on the motherboard.

AM3

Replaced the AM2/AM2+. Supports Athlon II and Phenom II processors. Uses a zero insertion force package. It has 941 pins.

AM3+

Has 942 pins, and you can use the AM3 processor in the AM3+ motherboard, but you can't go the opposite direction because of the additional pin. Supports Athlon II and Phenom II processors.

AMD socket FM1

Supports A-series processors, DDR3, and PCIe 2.0. It has 905 pins and a PGA ZIF package. Supports AMD 10h processors.

AMD socket FM2

Has 904 pins and is not compatible with the FM1 socket types like with AM3/AM3+. Supports piledriver processors.

AMD socket FM2+

Has 906 pins and is in a micro PGA package. Different pin structure than FM2 and no compatibility as such. Sometimes called FM2b. Supports Steamroller processors.

Front Intake Fan

Used to bring fresh cool air into computers for the cooling process.

Rear exhaust fan

Used to remove hot air from the case.

CPU Fan

Typically attached to a heat sink and is used to cool the processor.

Power Supply exhaust fan

Usually found at the back of the power supply, this fan is used to cool the power supply and draws air from inside the case in through the vents and ejects is via the exhaust. Works in conjunction with the rear exhaust fan to remove hot air from the case.

Four Pin Power Connector (Molex)

Provides both 12V and 5V on a connection. Speed can be adjusted.

Three Pin Power Connector (Molex)

12V. power connector

Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID)

This is a way of combining the storage power of more than one hard disk for a special purpose such as increased performance or fault tolerance.

RAID 0

This is known as disk striping. This is where a stripe of data is spread across two disks. It allows one disk to be reading or writing while the other drive's read/write head is moving. This makes for much faster access, but if any of the drives fail all content is lost.

RAID 1

Writes all data simultaneously to two separate drives. If one drive fails, the other one has a backup on it that automatically takes over from the previous drive.

RAID 5

Requires at least three drives with one of the drives being reserved to rebuild the data on the array if it dies hence the data is placed on n-1 disks. Consists of block level striping with parity.

Hot Swappable Devices

These can be swapped while the computer is still on without issue. Something like a USB keyboard would fall into this category.

Cold Swappable Devices

These are things that are generally a bad idea to remove or add when the computer is powered on. A PS/2 device such as a keyboard or mouse could not be recognized or even potentially damage the motherboard if they are inserted when the system is powered on.

Warm Swappable Devices

These are things that are possible to hot swap with an asterisk. These can be connected via USB such as a memory stick or an external hard drive, but since operating systems don't always write immediately to disk and leave information cached before writing later if you don't use the safely remove option while the computer is on you could potentially lose data.

Solid State Drive (SSD)

Has no moving parts and it is limited to a finite number of read/write cycles on it. Algorithms have been created to spread the wear over the entire disk to increase the lifespan of the drive, but it still lags behind hard drives. It is much faster and more silent than a hard drive though.

What does SATA stand for?

Serial Advanced Technology Attachment

SATA has a data transfer rate of up to ____

150 MB/sec

SATA cables can extend up to ___ meter/s?

1

What does eMMC stand for?

Embedded Multimedia Card

What is the input and output pairing of AC voltage adapters?

AC input and DC output.

What is a hybrid drive?

A drive that has both SSD and HDD components.

What does the red stripe on a ribbon cable indicate?

Pin 1.

Access Point

The device that allows wireless devices to talk to each other and the network. It can also provide security monitoring.

Bridge

A type of device that joins devices of similar topologies such as Ethernet to Ethernet.

Digital Rights Management (DRM)

Systematic approach to copyright-protect digital assets such as online pictures or videos.

Modem

A device used to provide Internet access through a phone line. Takes a digital signal and converts it to analog then converts it back to digital at the destination device.

Point to Point

Communication mode in which two devices are directly connected to each other.

Topology

A way of laying out a network. It can describe a physical or logical layout.

127 devices

What is the maximum number of USB devices that can be attached to a single USB controller?

What is the maximum data transfer rate supported by USB 2.0?

480Mbps

Refresh Rate

It specifies how many times in one second the image on the screen can be completely redrawn. The refresh rate indicates how much effort is being put into checking for updates to the displayed image.

Frame Rate

It is the measure of how many unique screens of content were recorded per second. If the playback of the content is not at the same rate, there will be a negative impact on the output if the difference in rates is not multiplicative.

Resolution

It is defined by how many software picture elements are used to draw the screen. An advantage of higher resolutions is that more information can be displayed in the same screen area.

What is the probable cause of display artifacts across the screen?

Driver or application software.

What is the probable cause of video flickering

Low refresh rate.