220-801 Cram Sheet

Motherboards – Connect everything together. Typical form factors include ATX (most common),
microATX, ITX, and BTX. AMD and older intel chipsets include a northbridge that connects the
CPU, RAM, and x16 PCIe devices, and southbridge that connects secondary systems such as
USB, SATA, IDE, and sound. Types of expansion buses include PCI, AGP, PCI Express (PCIe),
AMR, CNR, and PC Card (PCMCIA). Newer Intel chipset designs incorporate northbridge
functionality into the CPU that connects to a single-chip chipset via DMI or QPI. AMD CPU to
chipset connection is HyperTransport.
BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) identifies, tests, and initializes components and boots to hard drive. CMOS
(complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) stores time/date, passwords. CR2032 lithium battery provides power to
CMOS.
In BIOS, you can configure: time/date, boot device priority (boot order), passwords, power management, WOL (Wake
On LAN), monitoring.
To update BIOS, flash it with new firmware.

The Central Processing Unit (CPU) or processor takes care of all calculations.
Intel CPUs (Core i3/i5/i7) use LGA (Land Grid Array) 1155 sockets. Older Intel CPUs (Core 2) use LGA 775 sockets. AMD
Phenom II CPUs use AM2+ and AM3 sockets. AMD FX CPU uses AM3+ socket.
L1/L2 cache in each core. L3 cache is shared among entire CPU.
Thermal compound is required whenever heat sink is installed.

Random Access Memory (RAM) types include SDRAM, DDR, DDR2, DDR3, RDRAM and SODIMMs.
Example of DDR3-800 data transfer calculation: 800 MT/s x 8= 6,400 MB/s. Dual channel is double width, 128-bit bus.
Latency measured as CL or CAS.

ATX 12V 2.x Power Supplies connect to the motherboard by way of 24-pin cable + 4-pin for CPU and 6 or 8-pin for video.

Hard Disk Drives are nonvolatile (meaning they don’t lose data when power off) devices that store data, generally 3.5”.
Types of HDD include:
SATA​: Serial ATA drives come in 150, 300, and 600 MB/s versions (1.5/3.0/6.0 Gb/s), use a 15-pin power connector and a
7-pin data connector.
PATA​: Parallel ATA drives range between 33 MHz and 133 MHz (Ultra ATA/33 through /133), use a 4-pin Molex power
connector, 40-pin IDE ribbon cable for data, and can be jumpered as a single, master, slave or cable select.
SCSI​: Small Computer System Interface drives range in transfer rates from 160 MB/s to 640 MB/s and use 68-pin, 80-pin
or serial connectors.

RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks. RAID 0 is striping, RAID 1 is mirroring and RAID 5 is striping with
parity. RAID 10 is mirrored sets in a striped set. RAID 0 is not fault-tolerant. If RAID 1 uses two disk controllers, it is disk
duplexing.

Optical disc drives use removable media to store and retrieve data, typically 5.25”.
Types of optical discs include:
CD-ROM:​ Data CDs can typically hold 700 MB, can read and write at up to 52x (7.8 MB/s) and rewrite at up to 32x (4.8
MB/s).
DVD-ROM:​ DVDs have a capacity ranging from 4.7 GB (DVD-5) to 17 GB (DVD-18 dual-sided and dual-layered).
Recording technologies include DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD+RW and DVD-RW.
Blu-ray:​ Blu-rays are used for HD and games and have a capcity of 50 GB and a write speed between 1x and 12x (36
Mbps – 432 Mbs). Blu-ray drives connect via SATA only.

Floppy drives use 1.44 MB 3.5” disks and connect to the motherboard via 34-pin data cable and 4-pin mini (Berg) power
connector.

Solid-state media includes solid-state hard drives (SSD), USB flash drives, CompactFlash and Secure Digital (SD) cards.

Laptops are smaller versions of desktop PCs. They have replaceable items such as keyboards, SODIMM RAM, displays,
inverters, optical discs and 2.5” hard drives. Laptops use PC Card (PCMCIA), CardBus and ExpressCard technologies. They
have a “Fn” key for implementing secondary key functions.

Video cards connect to motherboards by way of x16 PCIe (most common, typically black), AGP (brown), or PCI (white)
expansion slots. Video connector types include DVI, VGA, HDMI, DisplayPort, S-Video and component Video/RGB.
Common color depths include 16-bit, 24-bit and 32-bit. Common resolutions include XGA (1024x76 , WXGA
(1280x720), SXGA+ (1280x1024), UXGA (1600x1200), WSXGA+ (1680x1050) and WUXGA (1920x1200).

Sound cards connect as x1 PCIe or PCI cards and normally have PC 99 color-coded 1/8” mini-jacks for I/O and speakers,
and optical I/Os known as S/PDIF (example: TOSLINK).

USB (Universal Serial Bus) can have up to 127 devices. USB 1.1 (full speed) runs at 12 Mbps with a max cable length of 3
meters. USB 2.0 (high-speed) runs at 480 Mbps with a max cable length of 5 meters. USB 3.0 (Superspeed) runs at 5
Gbps. Computers usually have Type A USB connectors built in.

IEEE 1394a (FireWire 400) runs at 400 Mbps. IEEE 1394b (FireWire 800) runs at 800 Mbps. IEEE 1394b also specifies 1600
Mbps and 3200 Mbps. IEEE 1394 chains can have up to 63 devices.

Printers include laser, inkjet, thermal and impact (dot-matrix). The six main steps in the laser printing process are
Cleaning, Conditioning (charging), Writing (exposing), Developing, Transferring and Fusing. Processing is considered
another step before printing begins.
Custom PCs include:
Audio/Video workstations - needs special A/V cards, fast hard drives and multiple monitors
CAD/CAM workstations – needs powerful CPUs, video cards and lots of RAM
Thin Clients – Low resources, relies on server, diskless, embedded operating system
Home Server PC – Has a fast NIC, RAID arrays, HomeGroup
HTPC (Home Theater PC) – usually small form factor, surround sound, HDMI output & TV Tuner
Gaming PC – needs powerful CPU and video card
Virtualization workstation – needs powerful CPU and lots of RAM.
- Type 1 hypervisor is native or bare metal
- Type 2 is hosted, runs on top of operating system.

LAN = Local Area Network

WAN = Wide Area Network
MAN = Metropolitan (or Municipal) Area Network
PAN = Personal Area Network

Switches connect computers together in a LAN.

Routers connect two or more LANs and connect LANs to the Internet.
Firewalls protect individual computers and networks from unwanted intrusion.

Network topologies include Star (most common), Ring, Bus, Mesh and other hybrids (like Star-Bus and Hierarchical Star).

IPv4 addresses are 32 bit dotted-decimal numbers (like 192.168.1.1) and can be statically (manually) inputed or
dynamically (automatically) assigned by DHCP.
IP Classes include:
Class A Range: ​1-126, Subnet Mask: 255.0.0.0, Private 10.x.x.x
Class B Range: ​128-191, Subnet Mask: 255.255.0.0, Private 172.16.0.0 - 172.31.255.255
Class C Range: ​192-223, Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0, Private 192.168.x.x

IPv6 addresses are 128-bit hexadecimal numbers (like 2001:7120:0000:8001:0000:0000:0000:1F10). The loopback
address is ::1.
Unicast IPv6 addresses are assigned to a single interface and are the most common type.

Common network speeds are 1000 Mbps (Gigabit Ethernet) and 100 Mbps (Fast Ethernet).

Networking Protocols include:

FTP – File Transfer Protocol : Port 21
SSH – Secure Shell : Port 22
Telnet : Port 23
SMTP – Simple Mail Transfer Protocol : Port 25
DNS – Domain Naming System (or Service) : Port 53
HTTP – Hypertext Transfer Protocol : Port 80
POP3 – Post Office Protocol : Port 110
IMAP – Internet Message Access Protocol : Port 143
HTTPS – HTTP Secure : Port 443
RDP – Remote Desktop Protocol : Port 3389

Cabling Standards include:

Category 3: 10Mbps
Category 5: 100Mbps
Category 5e: Rated for 100Mbps and gigabit networks
Category 6: Rated for 100 Mbps and gigabit networks

Wireless Ethernet Versions: (Name – Data Transfer Rate – Frequency)

802.11a – 54 Mbps – 5GHz
802.11b – 11 Mbps – 2.4 GHz
802.11c – 54 Mbps – 2.4 GHz
802.11n – 600 Mbps – 5 and 2.4 GHz

Bluetooth is a short-range technology aimed at simplifying communications and synchronization among network
devices. Bluetooth is divided into three classes:
Class I has a maximum transmission range of 100 meters. Max data transfer rate of 721 Kbps.
Class II (most common) has a maximum range of 10 meters. Max data transfer rate of 2.1 Mbps.
Class III is a short range and hardly used at a maximum range of 1 meter.

Port forwarding forwards an external network port to an internal IP address and port.

Port triggering enables you to specify outgoing ports that your computer uses for special applications. Their
corresponding inbound ports open automatically when the sessions are enabled.

Safety​:
Do not open power supplies
Test AC outlets before use
Use CO2-based BC fire extinguisher on electrical fires and call 911
Employ Cable Management whenever possible
MSDS =Material Saftey DataSheets. Consult when encountering a product with chemicals (toner cartridges and
cleaners).

ESD = Electro-Static Discharge. Prevent with antistatic strap and mat, touching computer chassis, use of antistatic bags,
unplugging computers before working on them and increasing humidity.
Incident Response: First response – Identify what happened – Document – Set up Chain of Custody (chronological paper
trail).

Professionalism:
Be punctual to clients
Listen to customer
Clarify problems
Positive attitude
Speak Clearly
Set and meet expectations
Avoid distractions (phone, etc)
Avoid confidential data