Making changes to a personal computer’s BIOS can be a bit challenging the first time through. In this video, we’ll show you how to launch your BIOS configuration, provide you with some tips for navigating different BIOS options, and walk through some common CMOS settings found in most of today’s computers.
What really happens when you start your computer? In this video, we’ll show you how the BIOS handles the most basic operations of your personal computer and how the CMOS stores all of your important configuration information. We’ll also show you how to use VMware Player or Microsoft Virtual PC to create a test lab on your computer where you can test BIOS changes without modifying your PC settings.
The memory installation process is relatively simple, but what options do you have if your installed memory isn’t working as expected? In this module, we’ll show you how some simple physical troubleshooting and software-based memory diagnostics can help get your system up and running quickly.
The process of installing or upgrading a computer system’s memory is easy to accomplish if you have the right procedures in place. In this video, we’ll walk you through every step of memory installation. You’ll learn how to select the correct memory modules, how to physically install the new memory, and how you can check your work after the installation is complete.
The CompTIA A+ certification requires extensive knowledge of memory packages, pin counts, and memory functions. In this module, we’ll step through each memory package and describe the progression of the different memory types through the years. We’ll discuss packages such as DIMM, RIMM, SODIMM, and MicroDIMM, and we’ll also detail memory types such as SRAM, SDRAM, RDRAM, DDR, and DDR2.
We know that memory is one of the most critical resources in our computer, but how does it really work? In this video, we’ll look at the fundamentals of memory operation and learn about memory transfer rates, throughput speeds, latency, read-only memory, and the differences between single-sided and double-sided memory.
It’s one of the worst sounds in the world; a hard drive mechanism that’s gone bad. It’s even worse when it’s the sound of YOUR hard drive that decided to up and die. Unfortunately, one of my hard drives recently decided to bite the dust, but I thought I’d use the untimely demise of my hardware to provide you with some insight on what you (or your clients) might expect to hear when a hard drive starts going south.
A CompTIA A+ professional is required to understand the details behind selecting, installing, and troubleshooting a personal computer CPU. In this module, we’ll discuss the decision making process for CPU selection, CPU installation techniques, and some tips and tricks for troubleshooting potential CPU problems.
The history of the modern CPU is a mix of technical prognostication, very smart people, and a drive to expand on our vision of the future. In this module, we’ll follow the path of CPU technology from the origin of the Pentium through the latest in processing technologies from Intel and AMD.
The configurations of CPUs onto a motherboard consist of a diverse set of slots, sockets, and connections. In this video, we’ll highlight some of these sockets types and show how a pin grid array processor fits into the zero insertion force sockets of today’s motherboards.
