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?