Assignment:
System Components
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?
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. 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?
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?
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?
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?
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?
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?
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?
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?
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?
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?
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?
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?