A+, Network+, Security+ Exams in a Nutshell

Personal Computer Components

This part of the A+ Essentials exam deals mainly with the identification, installation, upgrading, and basic troubleshooting of different parts of personal computers. This part of the study guide covers about one-fifth of the exam objectives. As a hardware technician, you are expected to have extensive knowledge of different components of personal computers. These components include storage devices, motherboards, processors, memory, power supplies, and adapter cards. It is also necessary to have a good understanding of ports and cable types that are used inside the computer and for connecting external peripherals. This section provides an overview of these components.

Components of Motherboards

The motherboard or the system board is made up of several components such as the central processing unit (CPU), memory slots, video section, and so on. Each component on the motherboard has a specific job. In this section, we will look at some of the most common motherboard components and their functions. Motherboards are mainly divided into the following two categories:

Integrated motherboards

Integrated motherboards have most of the essential components on them, which are otherwise installed as separate adapter cards on expansion slots. The major advantage of this type of motherboard is that all major functions are handled by a single circuit board. On the other hand, the drawback is that if one of the components fails, you might need to replace the entire motherboard. ...