Use LEFT and RIGHT arrow keys to navigate between flashcards;
Use UP and DOWN arrow keys to flip the card;
H to show hint;
A reads text to speech;
82 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
ISO |
International Standards Organization: An international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. |
|
Volts |
Force/pressure of electricity; represented as v. |
|
Amperes |
Flow/current (this is what hurts you!). Can also be volume; represented as amps. |
|
Current |
A flow of electric charge; represented as i. |
|
Resistance |
A measure of the difficulty to pass an electric current through an electrical conductor; represented as R. Resistance also slows down electrical travel. |
|
Ohms |
Unit of resistance; represented as Ω. |
|
Conductors |
Aids the flow of electricity. |
|
Insulators |
Impedes the flow of electricity. |
|
What are the 2 types of electricity? |
Alternating Current (AC) and Direct Current (DC) |
|
Alternating Current |
Comes in many forms, but the standard American outlets output at 115 VAC. 220 VAC is a different American standard normally used for larger appliances such as washers and fridges. |
|
Direct Current |
Is usually used for delicate equipment such as computers and most electronics. |
|
What are the 4 Factors in transferring electricity? |
Material, temperature, distance, and the cross-sectional area. |
|
Attenuation |
The distance a signal can travel without significant degradation. |
|
Ohms Law |
I (amperes) = V (voltage) / R (resistance) |
|
PSU |
(Power Supply Unit): in a computer, it is the component that turns AC to DC. |
|
ESD |
Electro-Static Discharge; static shock caused by the human body coming into contact with a conductor of electricity. |
|
Brownout |
Caused when electrical voltage drops significantly. |
|
Blackout |
Caused when power is completely lost. |
|
Spike |
When voltage unexpectedly goes up for a brief moment. |
|
Surge |
Primarily caused by lightning. |
|
Joules |
A measure and unit of energy (ex: Watt = 1 Joule per second) |
|
Watt |
Measure of work/energy done over time |
|
Hertz |
1 cycle per second |
|
Semiconductor |
Both a conductor and insulator |
|
Transistor |
Miniaturized high speed switch and regulates both AC and DC current |
|
Integrated Circuit |
Transistors stacked on a semiconductor; usually made of silicon. |
|
Deci |
10 |
|
Centi |
100 |
|
Kilo |
1,000 |
|
Mega |
1,000,000 (abbr. as M) |
|
Giga |
1,000,000,000 (abbr. as G) |
|
Tera |
1,000,000,000 (abbr. as T) |
|
Centa |
1/100 or 10-2 (abbreviated as c) |
|
Milli |
1/1,000 or 10-3 (abbr. as m) |
|
Micro |
1/1,000,000 or 10-6 (abbr. as mc) |
|
Nano |
1/1,000,000,000 (abbr. as n) |
|
Pica |
1/1,000,000,000,000 (abbr. as p) |
|
Bit |
The smallest unit of information that can be transmitted, usually as a 1 or 0 |
|
Byte |
8 bits; most often used unit |
|
Nibble |
4 bits; not used as often as Byte |
|
Octal |
A base “8” number system |
|
Hexadecimal |
0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A(10), B(11), C(12), D(13), E(14), F(15) Noted as base “H”; 8421 Rule can be used to easily convert between binary and hexadecimal. |
|
Diode |
Regulates direction of current. |
|
Capacitor |
Regulates voltage by temporarily storing energy. |
|
What does a PSU output? |
Outputs to DC in +3.3V, +5V, -5V, +12V, and -12V |
|
What are standard PUS outputs? |
Molex (4 pin connector for most PATA devices), Berg (4 pin connector for floppy drives), and SATA Power connector (15 pin “L” shaped). |
|
What are different characteristics of ESD? |
Electo-Static Discharge can be about 3,500 to 10,000 volts depending on the visibility. The body carries it at most times. It can harm PC components very easily. 10V is enough to damage parts. |
|
Chassis |
Often known as the case. |
|
Motherboard |
Can be referred to as the spinal cord of a computer. It is usually the first piece to attach to the chassis. Almost all motherboards have an I/O panel built in. Can also be called MoBo. |
|
Omnibus |
(Or bus for short) Is the main passageways of the motherboard. |
|
What are the 3 main buses? |
The Address Bus which locates components, the Data Bus which controls the transmission and speed of data (Hz), and the Power Bus which distributes power to the PC’s components. |
|
System Timer Chip |
Tiny piece of quartz that controls the speed that data is transferred on the board by giving instructions to the data bus. |
|
Processor Socket |
Where the CPU goes in. |
|
CPU |
Central Processing Unit: always fits into a socket; known as the “brain” of a computer. |
|
RAM |
Random Access Memory; also known as the“consciousness” of the computer. This is where programs and files are stored in temporarily when in use. |
|
Peripherals |
Input and output devices outside of computer. The necessary peripherals for communication between the computer and user are the monitor, keyboard, and mouse. |
|
Expansion Ports |
Used to extend the purpose and functions of a computer. |
|
ENIAC |
Electrical Numerical Integrator And Calculator |
|
RISC |
Reduced Instruction Set Computing; simplified, detailed sets of instruction. |
|
CISC |
Complex Instruction Set Computing; simple, generic sets of instruction for the computer to process most of the work to interpret. In other words, where single instructions can execute several low-level operations or are capable of multi-step operations or addressing modes within single instructions. |
|
Pipelining |
Using wait-states to queue up more instructions so that little time is wasted; in other words, asking for a new set of instructions while the old/previous instructions are still processing. |
|
HTT |
Hyper Threading Technology; Intel's proprietary simultaneous multithreading (SMT) implementation used to improve parallelization of computations (doing multiple tasks at once) performed on x86 microprocessors. |
|
HT |
Hyper Transport; the system bus architecture of modern AMD central processing units. |
|
Active Cooling |
Cooling a computer and its components with devices that move in some way. Simplest form is with fans, but also includes things like peltier cooling, water cooling, etc. |
|
Passive Cooling |
Cooling a computer and its components withno moving parts; usually cools via heat sinks and ambient air passageways, etc. |
|
Low Level Formatting |
Creates the physical format that dictates where data is stored on the disk. Modern hard drives are low-level formatted at the factory for the life of the drive. A PC can not perform an LLF on a modern IDE/ATA or SCSI hard disk, and doing so would destroy the hard disk. |
|
Track |
A circular path on the surface of a disk or diskette on which information is magnetically recorded and from which recorded information is read. |
|
Sector |
A subdivision of a track on a magnetic disk or optical disc. |
|
Servo |
The map or key for a hard drive. It tells heads where the tracks and sectors are located. |
|
Format |
The process used to create a file system. It is a process for preparing a storage device for data to be organized on a drive. |
|
NTFS |
New Technology File System; commonly used by Windows. |
|
FAT16 and FAT32 |
File Allocation Table; commonly used by MS-DOS. |
|
Partition |
Breaks up hard drive into smaller pieces that are ready to receive data. |
|
BIOS |
Basic Input/Output Software; main controller of all computer components. |
|
POST |
Power On Self Test; part of BIOS used to make sure necessary components of the computer can be accessed to function before turning control over to BIOS. |
|
OS |
Operating System; the environment the user uses to use the computer. |
|
Productivity Software |
Applications user uses in the OS. |
|
DOS Syntax |
Usually structured as "command source target" (ex: C:\ help.txt E:\) |
|
Memory Controller |
Also known as Memory Controller Chip (MCC) or Memory Host Controller; it performs fetching and prefetching. It also decides what to ask for and where to send information and store information. Controls graphics, PCIe, USB 3.0, etc. |
|
Chipset |
The North Bridge and South Bridge referred together make up the Chipset. |
|
Zero Insertion Force |
Requires very little to no force to install. |
|
Pin Grid Array |
Standard processor layout for Intel and AMD until Intel developed their modern, newer sockets. |