Identify the fundamental principles of using personal computers
v Identify the names, purposes and characteristics of storage devices
v FDD
v HDD
v CD/DVD/RW (e.g. drive speeds, media types)
v Removable storage (e.g. tape drive, solid state such as thumb drives, flash and SD cards, USB, external
CD-RW and hard drive)
v Identify the names, purposes and characteristics of motherboards
v Form Factor (e.g. ATX/BTX, micro ATX/NLX)
v Components
v Integrated I/Os (e.g. sound, video, USB, serial, IEEE 1394 / firewire, parallel, NIC, modem)
v Memory slots (e.g. RIMM, DIMM)
v Processor sockets
v External cache memory
v Bus architecture
v Bus slots (e.g. PCI, AGP, PCIe, AMR, CNR)
v EIDE/PATA
v SATA
v SCSI Technology
v Chipsets
v BIOS / CMOS / Firmware
v Riser card / Daughter board
v Identify the names, purposes and characteristics of power supplies, for example: AC adapter, ATX, proprietary, voltage
v Identify the names, purposes and characteristics of processor / CPUs
v CPU chips (e.g. AMD, Intel)
v CPU technologies
v Hyperthreading
v Dual core
v Throttling
v Micro code (MMX)
v Overclocking
v Cache
v VRM
v Speed (real vs. actual)
v 32 vs. 64 bit
v Identify the names, purposes, and characteristics of memory
v Types of memory (e.g. DRAM, SRAM, SDRAM, DDR / DDR2, RAMBUS)
v Operational characteristics
v Memory chips (8, 16, 32)
v Parity versus non-parity
v ECC vs. non-ECC
v Single-sided vs. double-sided
v Identify the names, purposes and characteristics of display devices, for example: projectors, CRT and LCD
v Connector types (e.g. VGA, DVI / HDMi, S-Video, Component / RGB)
v Settings (e.g. V-hold, refresh rate, resolution)
v Identify the names, purposes and characteristics of input devices for example: mouse, keyboard, bar code reader,
v multimedia (e.g. web and digital cameras, MIDI, microphones), biometric devices, touch screen.
v Identify the names, purposes, and characteristics of adapter cards
v Video including PCI / PCI-E and AGP
v Multimedia
v I/O (SCSI, serial, USB, parallel)
v Communications including network and modem
v Identify the names, purposes and characteristics of ports and cables for example: USB 1.1 and 2.0, parallel,
serial, IEEE1394 / firewire, RJ45 and 11, PS2 / MINI-DIN, centronics (e.g. mini, 36) multimedia (e.g. 1 / 8 connector, MIDI COAX, SPDIF)
v Identify the names, purposes and characteristics of cooling systems for example heat sinks, CPU and case
fans, liquid cooling systems, thermal compound