BIOS / UEFI
What the acronym BIOS and UEFI stands for.
What is Basic Input Output System and Unified Extensible Firmware Interface?
The function of CMOS in computers.
A small, battery powered memory chip on the motherboard that stores BIOS/UEFI settings even when the computer is turned off.
The program that shows the status of installed hardware.
What is Device Manager?
A device used to add additonal USB ports to a computer.
USB hub / USB expansion card.
To ensure you know exactly which fix worked, a good technician should only perform this many changes at a single time.
What is one?
The test that identifies, tests, and initializes basic hardware components.
What is POST (Power On Self Test)?
What high temperatures do to a battery's life span.
What is shorten?
What an exclamation point next to a device's icon in Device Manager means.
What is a resource conflict or driver problem causing the device to not work properly?
The first step in installing an ethernet card.
This derogatory nickname describes a technician who haphazardly changes multiple things at once without a clear plan.
What is a "gun slinger"?
One reason UEFI is prefered over BIOS.
It is a graphical environment that provides mouse support.
It enables you to use a virus-scanning utility that is not operating system dependent.
It offers software that is not just configuration screens.
It offers optional internet access for troubleshooting or download capabilities.
It offers better system support for cooling, voltage levels, performance, and security.
It supports increased hard drive capacities and the ability to divide the hard drive into sections that are not subject to the limitations of the traditional BIOS.
It commonly has data related to temperature, voltage, CPU speed, bus speed, and fan speed.
It can have a boot manager instead of relying on a boot sector.
What is a Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor?
The central database in Windows that holds hardware information and all other data. All software application access it for configuration information instead of going to the adapter.
What is the registry?
The final step in installing a USB device.
What is Verify installation in Device Manager?
If a specific change does not resolve the issue, a technician should perform this action before attempting the next possible solution.
What is revert the system to its original configuration?
The effect of setting an administrator password in the BIOS / UEFI.
What is it prevents a user from changing system setup settings?
The most common CMOS battery used today.
What is a CR2032 lithium battery? (button battery)
The purpose of an I/O address.
What is a hexadecimal number that allows the CPU to exchange data with another part?
How an eSATA PCIe card or bracket is kept firmly in place once inserted.
What is by lowering an expansion bar or attaching a screw?
A technician should prioritize trying possible solutions based on this specific factor to save the user's resources.
What is the simplest solution (or the one that costs the least amount of time)?
One difference between a cold boot and a warm boot.
Cold boot starts computer from completely powered-off state, warm boot refreshes the system without removing power.
Warm boot is better for software issues and cold boot is better for hardware issues.
Cold boot initializes POST while warm boot does not.
The purpose of the CMOS jumper.
What is to reset the motherboard's BIOS/UEFI settings to their default state, clearing temporary data?
Hardware devices use this signal, commonly abbreviated as IRQ, to momentarily stop the CPU and request attention.
What is an Interrupt Request? A number assigned to an adapter, a port, or a device so that orderly communication can occur between it and the processor. For example, when a key is pressed at the same time the mouse is moved, the keyboard has the highest priority because of its IRQ number.
One option if your computer does not have eSATA ports.
Install an eSATA bracket or install a PCIe eSATA card.
Beyond just fixing the device, a technician must do this to ensure future technicians don't repeat the same steps and the exact solution is recorded.
What is document the issue and its resolution?