Absolute Beginners Guide to A+ Certification. Covers the Hardware and Operating Systems Exam

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Don't miss the Study Lab materials found on the CD accompanying this book. Each Study Lab is tailored to the individual chapters in this book, meaning that you'll quickly be able to determine which topics you understand well enough to pass the exam and which topics need more study. The Study Labs are presented in printable PDF format so that you can take them with you to study at work, on the road, or even in your car just before test time!

The Absolute Minimum

Use this section for a quick review of the high points of the chapter right before you take your exams.

  • The major I/O ports and devices used in computers include the serial and parallel ports, USB and IEEE-1394 ports, mouse devices, modems, keyboards, and sound cards.

  • Legacy I/O devices such as serial and parallel ports offer many configuration options, including choices of IRQ, I/O port address, DMA channel, and other options.

  • Newer I/O ports such as USB and IEE-1394 are PnP, so they can use any open resources, and can share IRQs with other PCI devices.

  • Parallel ports generally are used for printers, but they also can be used for high-capacity removable storage and scanners .

  • Serial ports generally are used for mouse devices on older systems and external modems.

  • Both parallel and serial ports can be used for direct-connect data transfer.

  • USB ports can be used for a wide variety of devices.

  • Serial, parallel, and USB ports are generally built into the motherboards of recent systems and can be retrofitted to older systems.

  • Keyboard ports can be either 5-pin DIN or the same 6-pin mini-DIN connector used for PS/2 mouse devices, although keyboard and mouse ports cannot be interchanged.

  • USB mouse devices and keyboards can be adapted to PS/2 ports with adapters, if so equipped from the factory.

  • USB 1.1 and USB 2.0 use the same connectors, but USB 2.0 is much faster (480Mbps versus 12Mbps).

  • USB Legacy mode enables USB keyboards to work outside of the Windows GUI.

  • Sound chipsets are included on some motherboards.

  • PCI sound cards can emulate Sound Blaster cards when necessary.

  • Some sound cards and motherboards support digital audio.

  • IEEE-1394 ports are almost always added to systems through PCI cards.

  • FireWire 400 is another name for IEEE-1394a; it runs at 400Mbps.

  • FireWire 800 is another name for IEEE-1394b; it runs at 800Mbps.

  • i.LINK is the Sony version of FireWire 400/IEEE-1394a.

  • You can enable, disable, or adjust the configuration of both legacy and newer ports built into the motherboard through the system BIOS setup program.

  • PnP ports and I/O devices generally request device driver and configuration software when the system is turned on for the first time after the device is installed.

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