Chapter 5

Supporting the Power System

And Troubleshooting Computers

1. What are the two major components of a processor cooler assembly?

 CPU fan and the heatsink
2. How many pins does the CPU fan header on a motherboard have?
 4 pins
3. If the power connector from the CPU fan has only three pins, it can still connect to the 4-pin
header, but what functionality is lost?
 We lose the noise reduction functionality
4. How do you determine the wattage capacity needed by a power supply?
 Add up the wattage components to be installed on the computer, plus a 30% of the total
wattage
5. Which one component in a high-end gaming computer is likely to draw the most power?
 The video card
6. When you first turn on a computer and you don’t hear a spinning drive or fan or see indicator
lights, is the problem hardware or software related?
 Hardware problem
7. What is a Windows error message called that appears on a blue screen?
 Blue Screen of Death (BSOD)
8. How many beeps does startup UEFI/BIOS give to indicate a successful POST?
 1 Beep
9. Which two components in a system might give out a loud whining noise?
 Whining noise produced either by a faulty PSU (power Supply Units) and HDD (Hard Dick
Drive) or Hard Drive
10. What Windows utility can you use to test RAM?
 MdSched.exe (Memory Diagnostic
11. Which Windows tool is best to use to verify that hardware components installed in Windows are
working properly?
 Device Manager
12. What is the purpose of standoffs installed between the bottom of the case and the
motherboard?
 To protect the motherboard from short circuit
13. If a system hangs after being used for several hours and you suspect overheating, what can you
do to easily monitor the CPU and system temperature?
 Download SpeedFan from the Web. But be careful about garbage downloaded that you do
not need
14. What are two reasons to tie cables up and out of the way inside a computer case?
 To allow the air to circulate efficiently inside the case; or to prevent cables from blocking the
air circulating by staying close to the cooling fans; to prevent overheating on the computer
which might lead to fire
15. Why should a tower case not sit on thick carpet?
 Because the air circulation will be blocked, creating overheating on the computer
16. For most computer cases, does air flow from front to rear or rear to front?
 From front to the rear
17. Which type of CPU cooler contains heat pipes?
  Fanless; Passive heatsink cooling
18. What can you do if a port on the motherboard is faulty and a device requires this type of port?
 Disable the port on the BIOS; and install an expansion card to provide the needed port
19. What can you do to stop a computer from repeatedly restarting in a continuous loop?
 Press the F8 key during the POST, and then select “Disable Automatic Restarts on the system
failure”
 F8 is known as the Advance Boot Option Menu.
20. When a cell phone overheats, why is it important to find out whether the heat is coming from
the bottom of the phone or from other areas of the phone?
 If the overheating on a cellphone is coming on the bottom, then we can conclude that the
battery is causing the overheating