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Table of Contents

MINIMUM REQUIRED TOOLS ................................................................................................................. 1

SAFETY ISSUES ................................................................................................................................... 1

IDENTIFYING THE COMPUTER’S EXTERNAL ELEMENTS ......................................................................... 2

IDENTIFYING SOME OF THE INTERNAL COMPONENTS ............................................................................ 3

BIOS .................................................................................................................................................. 5

INSTALLING AND REMOVING THE 3.5" DISK DRIVE ............................................................................... 7

SETTING UP BOOT SEQUENCE ................................................................................................................ 8

HARD DISK DRIVE .............................................................................................................................. 10

HARD DRIVE COMPONENTS ................................................................................................................ 11

TRACKS AND SECTORS ........................................................................................................................ 11

THE CHARACTERISTICS AND PERFORMANCE OF A HARD DRIVE ........................................................ 13

Storage Capacities ........................................................................................................................ 13

The Average Number of Revolutions............................................................................................. 13

Average Access Time .................................................................................................................... 13

Data Transfer Rate ....................................................................................................................... 13

CONTROLLERS/INTERFACES ............................................................................................................... 14

CABLES ............................................................................................................................................ 15

MASTER/SLAVE ................................................................................................................................ 17

MEMORY .......................................................................................................................................... 19

CACHE MEMORY ............................................................................................................................... 19

Cache Sizes ................................................................................................................................. 20

THE MAIN MEMORY ........................................................................................................................... 20

Concept of Operation .................................................................................................................... 21

Types of DRAM ............................................................................................................................. 21

How is RAM measured? ................................................................................................................ 22

Main Memory Modules Contacts .................................................................................................. 23

Memory Contacts .......................................................................................................................... 23

THE CENTRAL PROCESSING UNIT (CPU) ............................................................................................ 26

The Data Bus ............................................................................................................................... 27

Address Bus ................................................................................................................................. 27

Internal Data Bus (Internal Registers) ......................................................................................... 27

PROCESSOR SPEED RATING ................................................................................................................ 27

PROCESSOR SOCKETS AND SLOTS ...................................................................................................... 28

MOTHERBOARD ................................................................................................................................ 32

MOTHERBOARDS FORM FACTORS ...................................................................................................... 32

SYSTEM BUSES ................................................................................................................................. 34

EXPANSION SLOTS AND BOARDS ........................................................................................................ 34

POWER SUPPLY ................................................................................................................................ 38

POWER SUPPLY RATING ..................................................................................................................... 38

VOLTAGE OUTPUTS ............................................................................................................................ 39

POWERING UP THE POWER SUPPLY .................................................................................................... 39

POWER SUPPLY CONNECTORS ............................................................................................................ 40

MEASURING POWER SUPPLY VOLTAGES ............................................................................................ 42

OPERATING SYSTEMS (OS) ................................................................................................................ 44

FORMATTING .................................................................................................................................... 44

PARTITIONING .................................................................................................................................. 44

INSTALLING WINDOWS XP ................................................................................................................. 44

TROUBLESHOOTING ............................................................................................................................ 46

Check the Cables......................................................................................................................... 46

RAM and Adapter Cards ............................................................................................................... 46

Trouble Shooting By Replacing Parts ........................................................................................... 47

Power On Self Test (POST) .......................................................................................................... 47

PC DIAGNOSTIC SOFTWARE ............................................................................................................... 49

Testing the RAM modules ............................................................................................................. 49

Fixing the Hard Drive ................................................................................................................... 49

The Video Card and Motherboard ................................................................................................ 50

DRIVER CONFLICTS ............................................................................................................................. 52

Device Manager ............................................................................................................................ 52

SOFTWARE BUGS ............................................................................................................................... 54

MALWARE ........................................................................................................................................ 55