a+ chapter 5

DisplayPort cable and connector

1) Full-size: The standard DisplayPort connector measures 16.10 mm x 4.76 mm, and is found on desktop computers and most displays. Most full-size connectors have a locking mechanism preventing them from being accidentally disconnected. 2) Mini: The mini DisplayPort connector measures 7.4 mm x 4.6 mm, and has no locking mechanism. It was originally developed by Apple but became part of the DisplayPort 1.2 standard. In addition to mobile devices, it often is used for Thunderbolt ports.

HDMI cables and connectors

1) Standard HDMI: Also called Type A: Measures 13.9 mm x 4.45 mm. For use with most desktops, monitors, and home theater devices. 2) Mini-HDMI: Type C: Measures 10.42 mm x 2.42 mm; for use with portable electronic devices. Using an adapter, can be used with a standard HDMI port. 3) Micro-HDMI: Type D: Measures 6.4 mm x 2.8 mm; for use in smaller form factor computers and devices. Using an adapter, can be used with a standard HDMI port.

HDMI cables and connectors

1) Standard: Carries video up to 720p or 1080i. "Standard HDMI with Ethernet" means it has a dedicated channel for Ethernet networking. 2) High Speed: Carries video resolutions of 1080p, 4K 30 Hz, 3D, and Deep Color. Also available as "High Speed HDMI with Ethernet". 3) Ultra High Speed: Carries video resolutions of 4K, 5K, 8K, and 10K at 120 Hz. All Ultra High Speed cables include Ethernet.

DisplayPort

A digital connector designed for high-resolution computer monitors. DisplayPort supports similar features to HDMI, but can support a wider range of resolutions not commonly used on home theater equipment. A DisplayPort connector looks similar to HDMI, but it's rectangular with a single corner cut off so you can't interchange them by mistake.

USB dongles

A dongle is a device that plugs into the USB port of a computer and provides an expansion interface.

Component

A higher quality connection which uses three cables grouped together (with the red, blue, and green RCA connectors) for analog video. Like composite, audio is carried in separate red and white cables.

RS-232

A low-speed serial connector found on old PCs and used for mice, external modems, and various other devices. Also known simply as a serial port, RS-232 uses a D-shaped connector called a D-sub, which comes in two standards: a smaller DB-9 connector and a larger DB-25, each named for its pin count. For both connectors, the port on the PC is male rather than female like most motherboard or expansion card connections.

USB (Universal Serial Bus)

A physical interface standard used to connect up to 127 peripheral devices to the computer.

Composite

A single cable, with a yellow RCA connector at each end, carries an analog video signal, while two other RCA cables (red and white), carry left and right audio.

SATA 2.0

Also called SATA 3 GBits/sec. It provides transfer speeds up to 300 MB/sec, doubling the data rate of SATA 1.0. SATA 2.0 devices are backward compatible with 1.0.

SATA 3.0

Also called SATA 6 GBits/sec. It provides transfer speeds up to 600 MB/sec, doubling the data rate of SATA 2.0. SATA 2.0 devices are backward compatible with 1.0 and 2.0.

FireWire

Also known as IEEE 1394, FireWire is a general-purpose serial bus. It also operates as a peer-to-peer connection, making it more flexible for some purposes. he most common FireWire standards are FireWire 400 and FireWire 800, each representing its top speed in Mbps.

Parallel

Also known as a printer port, and used for old printers and other external devices. Parallel interfaces also use 25-pin D-sub connectors, but the port on the PC is female. Most parallel devices such as printers have a 36-pin Centronics connector on the peripheral side.

Identifying USB host ports

Blue USB 3.x ports Black USB 2.x ports Blue connectors are always USB 3.x. White connectors are generally USB 1.x. Black connectors are always USB 2.0

Bluetooth version

Bluetooth 2.x supports a maximum data rate of 2 MBps, so isn't very useful for high performance devices. Bluetooth 3.0 supports a much higher data rate of 25 Mbps. These are older devices, but still not that uncommon. Bluetooth 4.x also supports 25 Mbps, but includes a number of other features, including more efficient data transfers. Bluetooth 5 (Not 5.0) is an emerging standard that is found on newer devices, and offers more flexible combinations of speed and range than 4.x.

Coaxial

Both audio and video are carried as a modulated radio signal through a coaxial cable with a single inner wire surrounded by an insulated layer and a braided metal shield.

HDMI

High-Definition Multimedia Interface was designed as an enhanced replacement for DVI with features useful for home theater equipment such as integrated audio signal. HDMI has a D-shaped connector but is flatter than VGA and with two rows of pins.

Infrared

Infrared (IR) uses a focused ray of light in a modulated signal to transmit digital data. The light of IR is similar to visible light, except that it has a longer wavelength, making it undetectable to the human eye. Modulate 38 kHz frequency IR data is the most common, but other frequencies can be used as long as aren't using the same frequency as natural or ambient light sources

USB 2.0

Introduced in 2000, the USB 2.0 standard added a third transfer rate of 480 Mbits/sec, called High Speed. All connected USB devices share the 480 Mbits/sec data transfer channel. USB 2.0 supports battery charging with low and high power variations. A unit load in USB 2.0 is 100 mA and a device may draw a maximum of 5 unit loads (500 mA) from a USB 2.0 port. USB 2.0 is still the most common standard you'll encounter.

USB 3.x

Introduced in 2010, the USB 3.0 standard added the Super Speed transfer rate of 5 Gbits/sec. In 2015, USB 3.1 introduced the still faster SuperSpeed USB 10 Gbps transfer rate, also simply branded as SuperSpeed+. A unit load in USB 3.x is 150 mA and a device may draw a maximum of 6 unit loads (900 mA) from a USB 3.x port. USB 3.0 ports are common in newer devices, while USB 3.1 is found only in the newest.

Bluetooth

It works on the same 2.4 GHz microwave frequencies used by Wi-Fi connections, but it's a different standard. Instead of forming networks between multiple computers belonging to multiple users, Bluetooth is designed to form a wireless personal area network (WPAN) or piconet of a handful of devices, presumably belonging to one user.

Lightning cables and connectors

Lightning is Apple's proprietary expansion interface used to charge and connect its "i-branded" mobile devices, such as the iPhone, iPad, and iPod. The Lightning cable is a USB 2.0 cable with a very small 8-pin connector on one end and a USB Type A connector on the other.

Near field communication

Near field communication (NFC) doesn't exactly use a pair of radio transceivers to communicate like Bluetooth, nor does it allow you to form a piconet. Instead, NFC is designed for only two devices to temporarily communicate over short distances, and in fact only one of them even needs to be powered.

Audio expansion interfaces

Pink: analog microphone audio input. Light blue: analog line level audio input, used for input from line outputs. Lime green: analog line level audio output for the main stereo signal (front speakers or headphones). Black: analog line level audio output for surround speakers, typically rear stereo. Orange: analog line level audio output for center channel speaker and subwoofer. Optical audio: digital audio signals supporting stereo audio, and multichannel Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 audio surround sound.

Ethernet

RJ-45 connectors are used for wired networks. They look much like an RJ-11 connector, but larger and with eight pins

RJ-11

Registered Jack 11 is the connector used for wired analog telephone service and for dial-up modem connections on computers. It has six slots for connectors, though most cables only use two or four pins.

PS/2:

The dominant standard for mice and keyboards prior to the adoption of USB, PS/2 ports use round, 6-pin connectors. They're usually color-coded: purple for keyboard and green for mouse.

eSATA cables and connectors

The eSATA cable is similar to the internal SATA cable. It is a long and thin ribbon cable with 7-wires. The difference between the two is the eSATA cable is shielded to reduce EMI.

DVI

The oldest widely used digital connector for computer displays is Digital Visual Interface. It uses a rectangular connector, larger than VGA and usually white.

SATA 1.0

The original SATA standard, also called SATA 1.5 Gbits/sec for its data rate. Due to encoding details, it can effectively transfer 150 MB/sec.

Thunderbolt Data transfer rates

Thunderbolt 1 - 20Gbits/sec. 10Gbits/sec on each of the two data channels. Thunderbolt 2 - 20Gbits/sec in a single data channel. Thunderbolt 3 - 40 Gbit/sec. 10Gbits/sec on each of the four data channels.

Thunderbolt

Thunderbolt is an Apple technology developed to replace FireWire. It combines PCIe and DisplayPort into one serial bus, allowing it to transmit and receive data, video, audio, network data, and power.

USB 1.x

USB 1.0 was introduced in 1996, but USB devices weren't widely available until the release of USB 1.1 in 1998. Both standards support two data rates. 1.5 Mbits/sec, called Low Bandwidth or Low Speed, is used for low data rate devices such as keyboards and mice. 12 Mbits/sec, called Full Bandwidth or Full Speed, is used for higher speed devices such as printers and external disk drives, but it's still very slow by modern standards. 1.1 didn't add any major features: it mostly fixed problems 1.0 had operating with hubs.

USB cables and connectors

USB 1.1 cables can be up to 5 meters long for devices operating at Full Speed (12 Mbits/sec) and 3 meters in length for devices operating at Low Speed (1.5 Mbits/sec). USB 2.0 cables can be up to 5 meters long for devices running at Hi Speed (480 Mbits/sec). USB 3.0 does not specify a maximum cable length. However, a typical copper twisted-pair, 26 guage cable will deliver a good signal over a distance of about 3 meters. USB 3.0 has a throughput of up to 5Gbits/sec.

USB dongles include

USB to Ethernet dongle, which provides the physical interface for an RJ-45 Ethernet networking cable. USB to Wi-Fi dongle, which provides Wi-Fi wireless networking capabilities. USB to Bluetooth dongle, which provides Bluetooth capabilities. USB cellular modem, which provides 3G/4G cellular connectivity. USB graphics adapter, which provides additional display outputs USB legacy connector, which provides serial, parallel, or PS/2 ports. Security dongle, which is used for authentication or software copy protection.

eSATA

eSATA cables have speeds of 1.5 Gbits/sec to 6 Gbits/sec (150-600 MB/sec), just like internal SATA cables. eSATA data cables have a maximum length of 2 meters, while internal SATA cables can be up to 1 meter long.

VGA

he oldest commonly used standard for computer displays is Video Graphics Array, which uses an easily recognizable 15-pin D-sub connector, usually with a blue port

DVI-I

supports both digital and analog connections. The analog signal uses the same format as VGA, and in fact a VGA adapter can be connected to it

DVI-A

supports only analog connections. It isn't very common.

DVI-D

supports only digital connections. It's most common on devices that have a separate VGA connector, though some motherboards or display cards might have both VGA and DVI-I.

HDMI 2.0

supports two video streams to drive multiple displays from a single cable. HDMI 2.0 supports 32 channels of high definition audio, while older versions support 8 channels.