Week 2: Computer Hardware

What are 1,024 Kilobyte equivalent to?

1 Megabyte

What are 1,024 Gigabytes equivalent to?

1 Terabyte

Every motherboard has a few key characteristics. What are they?

1. Chipset 2.Peripherals 3.Expansion slots

The Chipset has two chips, what are they called?

1. NorthBridge 2. SouthBridge

How do programs and hardware work for a computer?

1. Programs are the recipes 2. These recipes are sent to a CPU is the chef that makes the food 3.We then take a copy of that recipe and put them into RAM (it stores info the CPU can access, faster than with a hard drive) 4. We give her 1 recipe this travels through, the EDB External Data Bus, at a time (not the entire book). It's a row of wires that interconnect the parts of our computer, kind of the veins in our body. We need the help of MCC (Memory Controller Chip) The MCC is the bridge between the CPU and RAM. 5. The CP talks to the MCC and says "I need information for step number 3 of the recipe" 6. The MCC finds the instructions for step 3 in RAM, grabs the data, and sends it to the EDB. 7. Another IMPORTANT bus, Address Bus, it takes it connects the CPU to the MCC and sends over the location of data but not the data itself. Then the MCC takes the address and looks for the data. Once found sends it to EDB

Have you ever seen a CPU in the store and has something labeled 3.4ghz, this number refers to the Clock speed of the CPU. Which is a maximum number of clock cycles that it can handle in a set in a certain time period.

3.40 gigahertz is 3.4 billion cycles per second.

The EDB comes in how many sizes?

8 bits, 16 bits, 32 bits, and 64 bits

So most power supply units have what?

A Fan, voltage information just normally listed underneath or on the side, and cables, like this one, to power your motherboard, and, A power cable.

What is a key component of our motherboard that allows us to manage data between our CPU, RAM, and peripherals?

A chipset, is a key component of our motherboard that allows us to manage data between our CPU RAM Peripherals

Batteries and Chargers: A portable power supply,------- our device while also ------- the battery.

A portable power supply, powers our device while also charging the battery.

There are a few interfaces that hard drives use to connect to our system, what are they?

ATA interfaces are the most common ones. The most popular ATA drive is a serial ATA, or SATA, which uses one cable for data transfers. SATA drives are hot swappable. It means you don't have to turn off your machine to plug in a SATA drive. SATA drives move data faster and use a more efficient cable, like this one, than it's predecessors. SATA has been the de facto interface for HDDs today. But people quickly found that using a SATA cable wasn't good enough for some of the blazing fast SSDs that were coming on the market. The interface couldn't keep up with speed of the newest SSDs.

The most common form factor (size) for motherboards is?

ATX which stands for Advanced Technology eXtended. In desktops, you'll commonly see full sized ATX's.

Batteries and Chargers: Rechargeable batteries can be damaged by very cold or very hot environments. Don't charge or discharge rechargeable batteries unless they're within their safe operating temperature range. Why is this?

Batteries can swell, rupture, and sometimes even catch fire. It is best to learn how to safely handle lithium-ion batteries, which is a very common type of rechargeable battery.

Ram is not the fastest way to get more data to our CPU for process, what is?

Cache, CPU's also uses this to store data. It is smaller than a RAM but it lets us store data often and let us quickly reference it.

What is known as the brain of the computer, it does all of the calculations and data processing?

Central Processing Unit CPU, It communicates pretty heavily with the RAM or Random Access Memory.

Batteries and Charging Systems: what is is one full charge and discharge of the battery.

Charge Cycles

Batteries and Charging Systems: Rechargeable batteries have a limited lifespan which is measured in--------

Charge cycles, is one full charge and discharge of the battery.

Look on the back of the one of your device charges, you might see something like 1 or 2.1a.

Charging a device with 2.1 amps will actually charge a device faster because it's able to put current from a 2.1 amp than a 1 amp charger.

Which is the maximum number of clock cycles that it can handle in a set in a certain time period. 3.40 gigahertz is 3.4 billion cycles per second.

Clock Speed

We refer to the amount of electricity coming out as?

Current or amperage, and it's measured in amps, We can think of amps as pulling electricity, as opposed to voltage, which pushes electricity. Amps will pull as much electricity needed, but voltage will just give you everything.

Power Supplies: Computers have a power supply that converts electricity from your volt to something usable. There are two types of electricity, what are they?

DC, or direct current, which flows in one direction and AC, or alternating current, which changes directions constantly.

When building your computer, you will need to keep in mind what type of form factor you want.

Do you want to build something small that can't handle as much workload? Or, do you want a powerhouse workstation that you can add lots of functionality to? The form factor will also play a role into what expansion slots you might want to use.

Even though they're small, some mobile devices still use what?

Even though they're small, some mobile devices use peripherals. Smartphones connect to Bluetooth headphones for example. A fitness tracker is a standalone device, but it can also be peripheral to your smartphone.

What slots also give us the ability to increase the functionality of our computer?

Expansion slots, If you want to upgrade your graphics card, you could purchase one and just install it on your motherboard through the expansion slot.

Pros and Cons of HDD + SDD ?

HDDs are more affordable, but they're more prone to damage. SSDs are less risky when it comes to losing data, but they're also more expensive. SSDs is also slimmer compared to their HDD cousins.

There are two basic hard drive types used today, what are they?

Hard disk drives, or HDDs, use a spinning platter and a mechanical arm to read and write information. HDDs are prone to a lot more damage because there are a lot of moving parts. New type of storage called solid-state drive, or SSD. These have no moving parts. Are you familiar with a USB stick? SSDs are created in a similar way.

If you don't want to use an ATX form factor, you could use an

ITX or Information Technology eXtended form factor. These are much smaller than ATX boards. For example, the Intel NUC uses a variation of the ITX board which comes in three board sizes; mini-ITX nano-ITX pico-ITX

If it's not listed on the box, you can go to the-------where it usually list what types of CPUs are compatible with the motherboard.

If it's not listed on the box, you can go to the manufacturer's website where it usually list what types of CPUs are compatible with the motherboard.

If you purchase a CPU, you'll see that it has either a --- bit or -- bit architecture.

If you purchase a CPU, you'll see that it has either a 32 bit or 64 bit architecture. CPUs that have 32 bit or 64 bit architecture are just specifying how much data it can efficiently handle.

Say you send 8 bits, 1 byte to the CPU what now?

Inside the CPU, there are Registers (they let us store data our CPU works with) ex. when we add two numbers *One number would be stored in register A *The other number stored in Register B *The result of these numbers will be stored in Register C

There's actually a very powerful calculator right inside of your computer that processes binary for us. Do you know what it is?

It's our CPU, the brain of our computer.

There are currently two major types of CPU sockets----

Land Grid Array also known as LGA, and Pin Grid Array, also known as PGA. In an LGA socket, like this one, there are pins that stick out of the motherboard. Make sure your CPU and motherboard socket also both match.

Example of how our CPU processes information

Let's say you want a recipe for PB and J 1. Our chef needs the information quickly, so we must send it to her one line at a time. Like so *Get two slices of bread *Put peanut butter on one side *put jelly on the other side *Combine the two slices of bread Our chef can only communicate in 0's and 1's so we send her this 10001000, 10101010, 10101111,10101011

Understanding motherboards and their characteristics can be a big plus when fixing hardware issues, since things like the type of RAM module or processor socket are dependent on the kind of motherboard they need to fit into.

Let's say you're responding to a ticket for a user who is having video problems, you don't want to make it all the way to their desk only to realize the graphics card due board as a replacement doesn't fit the motherboard their computer uses.

How are mobile devices different from desktop computers and laptops?

Mobile devices build some or all of these components together in a way that you can't take apart. They are portable and powered by batteries. Some devices are smart phones while others are fitness monitors + e readers. The CPU, RAM, and storage, might be soldered directly to the devices motherboard. Very small mobile devices use a system on a chip or SoC.

What is known as the body or circulatory system of the computer that connects all the pieces together?

Motherboard

Which part of the computer lets us expand our computer's functionality by adding expansion cards around its power from the power supply and it allows the different parts of the computer to communicate with each other?

Motherboard

What was another interface standard that was was created to replace the SATA?

NVM Express, or NVMe.

Which chipset interconnects stuff like RAM and video cards.

Northbridge interconnects stuff like RAM and video cards. In some modern CPUs, the Northbridge has been directly integrated into the CPU so there isn't a separate Northbridge chipset.

How much does 500 gigabytes even mean? Let's take a look at the size of an average music file, which is about three megabytes.

On a 500 gigabyte machine, that's approximately 165,000 music files. We store all of our computer's data on our hard drive, which allows us to store our programs, music, pictures, etc.

How does our CPU know when the set of instruction ends, and a new one begins?

Our CPU has an internal clock that keeps its operational in sync. It connects to a special wire called Clock wire. When you send or receive data, it sends a voltage to that clock wire to let the CPU know it can start doing calculations. Think of our clock wires as the ticking of a clock. For every tick, the CPU does one cycle of operations. When you send a voltage to the clock wire, it's referred to as a clock cycle. If you have lots of data you need to process in a command. You need to run lots of clock cycles.

Power Supplies: Our computers use DC voltage, so we have to have a way to convert the AC voltage from our power company to something we can use. How does our power supply do this?

Our Power Supply converts the AC we get from the wall into low voltage DC power that we can use and transmit throughout our computer.

To understand electricity, we must use the example of water pipes.

Our sinks have a faucet that's connected to a pressurized water tank. When we turn on the faucet, water comes out. This is sort of like how electricity works. When we plug an appliance into a wall outlet and turn it on, a flow of electricity comes out. If we added more pressure to our water tank, would more water come out of it? The higher the pressure, the more water there will be.

This is an example of what? Let's say you're a gamer and you want to have better graphics and less lag while playing. You might want to overclock your CPU when you play the game, but there are cons to doing this, like potentially overheating your CPU.

Overclocking

There's a way you can exceed the number of clock cycles on your CPU on almost any device. It's called what?

Overclocking, and it increases the rate of your CPU clock cycles in order to perform more tasks. This is commonly used to increase the performance in low-end CPUs.

What is the standard for an expansion slot today?

PCI Express or Peripheral Component Interconnect Express, A PCIe bus looks like a slot on the motherboard

The other type of socket is the------socket, where the pins are located on the processor itself.

PGA

What are the external devices we connect to our computer like: a mouse, keyboard, and a monitor called?

Peripherals

What are connection points that we can connect devices to that extend the functionality of our computer?

Ports, We have a port here to connect to a monitor, and a few ports here to plug your keyboard and mouse. We're able to have the basic functionality to browse the web and much more.

To extend the functionality of a computer, we can plug devices into connection points on it. What are these connection points known as? -Hardware -Mouse -Keyboard -Port

Ports, are connection points that we can connect devices to that extend the functionality of our computer. a port serves as an interface between the computer and other computers or peripheral devices. In computer terms, a port generally refers to the part of a computing device available for connection to peripherals such as input and output devices.

Programs & hardware: ------- are basic instructions that tell the computer what to do.

Programs, Think of programs like cooking recipe, all of the recipes are stored together in a cookbook just like apps are stored in a hard drive.

What is known as our computers short term memory?

Random Access Memory RAM, you're typing something into a chat or a piece of text in a word processor.

Batteries and Charging Systems: Rechargeable devices might have an ---------- charger for a ------- batteries, or might have a cradle stand or wireless charger.

Rechargeable devices might have an external charger for a removable batteries, or might have a cradle stand or wireless charger.

Where does the CPU store its computations?

Registers, When the CPU does computation, it stores information in registers first.

When we install our CPU, we need to do a few things to it to keep it cool. What do we need to do?

Since it does a lot of work, it's prone to overheating. We have to make sure to include a heat sink, too, which takes the heat from our CPU and dissipates it through a fan or another medium.

Some devices have batteries that are designed to be ----- by the end-user, other devices have batteries that are very difficult to replace like small ----- and ------devices.

Some devices have batteries that are designed to be replaced by the end user, other devices have batteries that are very difficult to replace like small laptops and mobile devices.

Batteries and Chargers: When a battery reaches the end of its life, you'll need to replace it. What is one sign your battery is at the end of its life?

Some devices will slow themselves down when a battery is getting old, to make the battery lasts longer.

Which chipset maintains our IO or input/output controllers, like hard drives and USB devices that input and output data.

Southbridge maintains our IO or input/output controllers, like hard drives and USB devices that input and output data.

Which mechanisms do we use to transport binary data and memory addresses? Check all that apply. D Bus The External Data Bus Address Bus School Bus

The EDB is used to transport binary data and the Address Bus is used to transport memory addresses.

What does the chipset for a motherboard do?

The chipset decides how components talk to each other on our machine. It is made up of two chips NorthBridge and SouthBridge

The next largest unit after 1 byte is refer to as -----

The next largest unit is refer to as kibibyte, but we typically use the term kilobyte.A kilobyte is made up of 1,024 bytes.

The next largest unit of storage from a bit is called a----?

The next largest unit of storage is called a byte, which is comprised of 8 bits. A single byte can hold a letter, number or symbol.

The smallest unit of a data storage is what?

The smallest unit of a data storage is a bit. A bit can store one binary digit, so it can store a one or zero.

There are how many different cache levels?

There are three different cache levels in a CPU, L1, L2, and L3. L1 is the smallest and fastest cache.

Ram VS Cache

Think of RAM like a refrigerator full of food. It's easy to get into, but it takes time to get something out. On the flip side of that, Cache is like the stuff we have in our pockets. It's used to store recently or frequently accessed data.

Batteries and Chargers: You also need a charging circuit that manages the power transfer from the external power source to the rechargeable battery. Why?

This circuit works a lot like a power supply unit or PSU, that we looked at earlier. It makes sure the input power is converted to the correct output power. Instead of using a large PSU (Power Supply Unit), rechargeable devices use more portable power adapters, power supplies, or chargers.

Hard disk drives, or HDDs, use a spinning platter and a mechanical arm to read and write information. The speed that the platter rotate allows you to read and write data faster, is called what?

This is commonly referred to as RPM, or revolution per minute. A hard drive with a higher RPM is faster, so if you go out and buy a hard drive today, you might see something like a 500 gigabyte with 5400 RPM.

Have you noticed this large slab here?

This is our motherboard. It holds everything in place and lets our components communicate with each other. You can think of the motherboard as the body or circulatory system of the computer that connects all the pieces together.

Make sure you backup your data to be safe. What's one way you can do this?

This means you should copy or save your data somewhere else, just in case something goes wrong and your hard drive crashes.

The CPU uses WHAT to translate and perform functions on our data.

This transition book is called an instruction set, which is literally just a list of instructions that our CPU is able to run. Functions like adding, subtracting, copying data are all instructions that our CPU can carry out. Instruction sets are hard-coded into our CPU. But they generally perform the same functions. It's like how car manufacturers build their engines differently but they all get the same job done.

Our CPU is constantly taking orders and executing them but how do these orders travel around our computers?

Through an External Data Bus (EDB) It's a row of wires that interconnect the parts of our computer, kind of the veins in our body. When you send a voltage it's marked as 1, no voltage marked as 0. This is how we send our 1's and 0's around. This is how our bits travel around our computer.

Peripherals: Whats the transfer speed for USB 2.0?

Transfer speed is 480 Mb/s

Peripherals: Whats the transfer speed for USB 3.0?

Transfer speed is 5 Gb/s

Peripherals: Whats the transfer speed for USB 3.1?

Transfer speeds of 10 Gb/s

As a general rule, be sure to use the proper voltage for your electronics. True or False

True

Components RAM: True or false: If you turn off a machine that uses SDRAM, the data on the SDRAM will be wiped out.

True

Peripherals: You most commonly encounter using what? 3 types of USB's in today's system.

USB 2.0, USB 3.0, and 3.1

Peripherals: -----, also known as -------- devices are the most popular connections for our gadgets.

USB, also known as Universal Serial Bus devices are the most popular connections for our gadgets.

What are some of the standard power, data, and display connector types you'll find used in mobile devices?

USB-C Lightening adapter Mini-USB Micro-USB Micro-HDMI Mini-HDMI Mini DisplayPort.

When it comes to electricity, we refer to the pressure----

Voltage, So when I was on vacation, to my surprise, when I plugged in that 120-volt appliance into a 220-volt outlet, the power came busting through and fried my charger. If it was the other way around, and a 220-volt appliance was plugged into a 120-volt outlet, I wouldn't have seen the same outcome. I'll still be able to get electricity, but slowly.

------ is the amount of volts and amps that a device needs.

Wattage, If your power supply has too low of a wattage, you won't be able to power your computer, so make sure you have enough. It's best to error on the side of large power supplies. You can power most basic desktops with a 500 watt power supply, but if you're doing something more demanding on your computer, like playing a high-resolution video game or doing a lot of video production and rendering, you'll likely need a bigger power supply for your computer. On the other hand, if all you're doing is just browsing the Web, the power supply that comes with your computer should be fine.

When you select your CPU, you need to make sure it's compatible with what-------

When you select your CPU, you need to make sure it's compatible with your motherboard.

Mobile devices may use standard or proprietary ports and connectors. Why is this?

You might need to have a specific adapter, or connector for charging a device, or connecting your mobile device to a computer. For example, say you have a waterproof fitness tracker. If it had a Micro-USB port, that port would be damaged if exposed to water. So instead, it's designed with a custom charging interface that can be submerged underwater.

Peripherals: What are examples of peripherals?

a mouse, keyboard, and a monitor, A peripheral is basically anything that you connect to your computer externally that adds functionality.

Some organizations allow people to use their own personal devices for work. We call this what?

bring your own device or BYOD.

What does Gb/s stand for?

gigabyte per second

What part converts electricity from our wall outlet onto a format that our computer can use?

power supply

Batteries and Charging Systems: Mobile technology uses what type of batteries to carry power with the device, wherever we take it.

rechargeable batteries

A system on a chip packs what?

A system on a chip packs the CPU, RAM, and sometimes even the storage onto a single chip. Not only our SoC is small, they use less battery power than if those components were separated

What are 1,024 Megabytes equivalent to?

1 Gigabyte

In general, USB 2.0 are what color?

Black

In general, USB 3.0 are what color?

Blue

If you connect a USB 2.0 device into a USB 3.0 port, you won't get 3.0 transfer speeds. But you can still make this connection work, how?

But you can still use the port since it's backward compatible, meaning older hardware work with newer hardware.??? Backward compatible meaning Integral USB 3.0 Flash Drives and card readers are backwards compatible with USB 2.0 and USB 1.1 ports. The USB 3.0 Flash Drive or card reader will work at the speed of the port, for example if you use a USB 3.0 Flash Drive in your USB 2.0 laptop, it will work at USB 2.0 speed.

What are a few types of display peripherals?

DVI cables generally just output video. If you need to hook up a monitor or projector for a slide presentation and you want audio too, you may be out of luck. HDMI. This has become a standard in lots of televisions and computers nowadays and outputs both video and audio. DisplayPort which also outputs audio and video. USB type C can also do data transfer and power.

Remember, that one byte is 8 bits, so to transfer a one megabyte file in a second you need an 8 megabits per second connection speed. So, to transfer 40 megabytes of data in a second, you need a transfer speed of ---- megabits per second.

For every 1 megabyte, there are 8 megabits So to transfer 40 megabytes of data in a second, you want to multiply 8megabits by 40 to get 320 megabits per second.

Using capital M lowercase b forward slash s (Mb/s) instead of using capital M capital B (M/b) to reference transfer speed. Means what?

MB is megabyte or unit of data storage Mb/s capital M lower case b forward slash s is a megabit per second, which is a unit of data transfer rate.

What characteristics distinguish a Solid State Drive from a Hard Disk Drive? Check all that apply.

Non-Moving parts + Smaller form factor

In general, 3.1 ports are what color?

Teal

What holds all of our data, which can include music, pictures, applications?

The Hard drive

The most recent peripheral is the ?

The most recent one is the type C connector which is meant to replace many peripheral connections.

True or false: If you plug in a 220v appliance into a 120v outlet, the appliance could get damaged.

True, If you don't give your appliance the proper amount of voltage, it could deteriorate the performance of your device.

What does Mb/s stand for?

megabyte per second

Think of our clock wires as the ticking of a clock. For every tick, the CPU does ----- cycle of operations.

the CPU does one cycle of operations.

When we want to store anything in long-term memory, we use?

the hard drive, holds all of our data, which can include music, pictures, applications.