Google IT Support Professional Certification - Course 1: Technical Support Fundamentals

PCIe

Peripheral Component Interconnect Express.

POST

Power on self test.

RAM

Random Access Memory. RAM is our computer's short term memory

RPM

Revolution per minute. The speed at which a platter can be rotated.

SATA

Serial ATA. Sata drives are hot swappable.

SSD

Solid State Drives. Have no moving parts. Data is stored on chips. They are much faster than HDDs.

Standoffs

Standoffs are used to raise and attach your motherboard to the case.

CMOS chip

Stores basic data about booting the computer.

SDRAM

Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory.

What are the two main parts to an OS?

The User Space (applications) and the Kernal Space (process manager, memory manager, file manager, i/o manager).

Wattage

The amount of volts and amps that a device needs.

File extension

The appended part of a filename that tells us what type of file it is in certain operating systems.

Motherboard

The body or circulatory system of the computer that connects all the pieces together.

Northbridge

The chip that interconnects RAM and video cards.

Byte

A group of 8 bits is referred to as a byte. Each byte can store one character, and we can have 256 possible values thanks to the base-2 system (2^8)

Shell

A program that interprets text commands and sends them to the OS to execute.

Process

A program that's executing, like our internet browser or text editor.

Time Slice

A very short interval of time that gets allocated to a process for CPU execution. A cpu processes each process in time slices, one-by-one.

ATX

Advanced Technology eXtended.

Gigahertz to cycles per second?

For example, 3.4 GHz is 3.4 billion cycles per second.

Virtual Memory

The combination of hard drive space and RAM that acts like memory that our processes can use.

Binary System

The communication that a computer uses, also known as a base-2 numeral system

How does the CPU, the address bus, the memory controller chip, and the external data bus work together?

The cpu asks, through the address bus, for data that it needs. The MCC looks for the data in RAM and sends it back over through the External Data Bus.

ext4

The file system for Linux.

Clock Speed

The maximum number of clock cycles that it can handle in a certain time period.

What are the two ways to interact with the OS?

Through the shell or the graphical user interface.

Abstraction

To take a relatively complex system and simplify it for our own use

UEFI

Unified Extensible Firmware Interface.

What is memory management?

When our kernal optimizes memory usage and makes sure our applications have enough memory to run.

Swap Space

When we store our virtual memory on our hard drive.

What is the meaning of "storage of file data"?

When we write data to our hard drive in the forum of data blocks.

Clock Cycle

When you send a voltage to a clock wire.

Reimaging

Wiping and reinstalling using a disc image which is a copy of an operating system

CPU

Central Processing Unit. The brain of our computer, it does all the calculations and data processing

What is the speed of USB 2.0?

480 Mb/s

What is the speed of USB 3.0?

5 Gb/s

How many bits are in 1 byte?

8 bits.

Memory Controller Chip

A bridge between the cpu and the ram.

How many bytes are in 1 kilobyte?

1,024 bytes.

How many gigabytes are in 1 terabyte?

1,024 gigabytes.

How many kilobytes are in 1 megabyte?

1,024 kilobytes.

How many megabytes are in 1 gigabyte?

1,024 megabytes.

What is the speed of USB 3.1?

10 Gb/s

What is the highest decimal value you can represent with a byte

255

Logic Gates

Allow our transistors to do more complex tasks, like decide where to send electrical signals depending on logical conditions

Operating System

Allows hardware to communicate with the system

What does the Chipset do?

Allows us to manage data between our CPU, RAM, and peripherals.

UTF-8

Allows us to store a character in more than one byte

AC

Alternating Current

Program

An application that we can run, like Chrome.

ReFS

An up and coming file system that Microsoft is developing; not ready for consumer use.

Peripherals

Anything that you connect to your compute externally that adds functionality.

Character encoding

Assigns our binary values to characters, so that we as humans can read them

What are the colors of USB 2.0, 3.0, 3.1?

Black for 2.0, Blue for 3.0, Teal for 3.1. Can change depending on manufacturers.

BASH

Bourne Again Shell

Clock Wire

Computer sends a voltage to the clock wire to let the cpu know that it can start doing calculations.

Ports

Connection points that we can connect devices to that extend the functionality of our computer

Address Bus

Connects the cpu to the mcc.

NTFS

Created with Windows NT

Kernel

Creates processes, efficiently schedules them, and manages how processes are terminated.

What are the three main components of file handling?

Data, metadata, file system.

Chipset

Decides how components talk to each other on our machine.

I/O Devices

Devices that perform input and output.

DC

Direct Current

DDR SDRAM

Double Data Rate Synchronous Random Access Memory.

DIMM

Dual Inline Memory Module. Have different size of pins on them.

DRAM

Dynamic Random Access Memory.

Peripherals

External devices we connect to our computer like a mouse, keyboard, and monitor.

What is the simplest way to describe the difference between cache and RAM?

Getting something from RAM is like getting food out of a refridgerator, getting something from cache is like pulling food from your pocket; it stores recently or frequently used data.

Expansion slots

Gives us the ability to increase our functionality of our computer.

GUI

Graphical User Interface.

What are the pros and cons of HDD and SDD?

HDDs are more affordable but more prone to damage, SSDs are more expensive and less risky.

HDD

Hard disk drive. Uses a spinning platter and a mechanical arm.

Hard Drive

Holds all of our data, which includes all of our music, pictures, applications.

External Data Bus

How data travels through the computer.

I/O Management

How our kernal talks to external devices. It's anything that can give us input or that we can use for output of data.

Software Layer

How we as humans interact with our computer

What is a file system?

How we manage files.

What is process management?

How your computer handles processes (such as when you're writing something in word, listening to music, and running updates).

ITX

Information Technology eXtended.

Programs

Instructions that tell the computer what to do.

Drivers

Instructions that tell the cpu how to use external devices.

User

Interacts with the computer

What is "block storage"?

It improves faster handling of data because the data isn't stored as one long piece and can be accessed quicker.

CLI Shell

It is the command line interface that we use to send text commands to the computer.

Which is the smallest and fastest cache?

L1.

Difference between MB and Mb/s?

MB is megabyte or unit of data storage, while MB/s is a megabit per second, which is a unit of data transfer rate. Remember that 1 byte is 8 bits, so to transfer a 1MB file in a second, you need an 8 Mb/s connection speed.

HFS+

MacOS's file system. It's journaled which means it does a better job at saving your disk state for file failure.

Hardware Layer

Made up of the physical components of a computer

Southbridge

Maintains our I/O, such as hard drives, and USB devices.

ROM Chip

Motherboard stores the BIOS on the ROM chip (read only memory).

Volatile

Once we power off our machines, the data stored in RAM is cleared

What is the difference between 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows?

The terms 32-bit and 64-bit refer to the way a computer's processor handles information. The 64-bit of Windows handles large amounts of RAM more effectively than a 32-bit system.

Operating System

The whole package that manages our computer's resources and lets us interact with it.

Pin Grid Array

There are pins that stick out of the cpu, the motherboard has holes.

LGA

There are pins that stick out of the motherboard, the cpu has holes.

Registers

They let us store the data that our cpu works with.

What is the significance of 32 and 64 bit?

They reference the cpu archiecture and state how much data they process efficiently.

What is file "metadata"?

Things like file owner, permissions, file size, data modified, date created, file type, etc.

How many levels of cache in a CPU?

Three levels: L1, L2, L3.