s l a i t n e s s E e h T : m a x E e c i v r e S e r a w d r a H + A
C o m p T I A A + Ce C e r t i f i c a t i o n O v e r v ie ie w The CompTIA A+ Certification is awarded to individuals who pass the A+ Core Hardware Service technician exam and the A+ Operating System technologies exam. The CompTIA A+ certification validates the knowledge of an entry level technician and has no prerequisites. There are six primary areas the A+ Core Hardware Service technician exam tests: 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0 6.0
Installation, Configuration and Upgrading Diagnosing and Troubleshooting Preventive Maintenance Motherboard/Processors/Memory Printers Basic Networking
35% 21% 5% 11% 9% 19%
Did you know? There are over 500,000 A+ certified technicians!
This guide provides essential information essential information for passing the exam. Other study materials and practice tests provide more structured and full-featured information. The key to passing the A+ Certification exams is to study the necessary material you need to have memorized and rely on your experience and common sense for the other questions. The minimum passing score is a 515 out of 900, or a 57 %. The exam is about 80 questions and you have 90 minutes to complete it. © 2006 ExamPractice.com
A + Ce Ce r t i f i c a t i o n C o r e H a r d w a r e S e r v i c e T e c h n i c i a n •
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The exam may require you to perfo rm basic component identification. This may come in the f orm of a picture-based question where an item is highlighted and it asks you to identify what it is. Review the image and ensure you know the different p arts on a typical motherboard. Example question: In the image below, the processor is identified by which letter? BIOS settings are stored in the CMOS. The exam will ask you questions about basic components of the computer. For example: What computer component stores the operating system, applications, and data? Hard drive . The exam will ask you questions regarding number of hard drives or IDE devices. Typically, the purpose is for you to know that the standard for IDE is support for 4 devices. An example question might be: You have two IDE hard drives, an IDE tape drive, and an IDE CD-ROM installed in a computer. You want to add a third hard drive, what will you need to do? Remove one of the IDE devices to add the hard drive . drive . IDE uses a 40-pin connector, there are two connectors on the motherboard—each supporting two drives. One primary, one secondary. SCSI—drive connector type. Needs termination on both ends of the chain. External or internal drives.
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Address (Hex)
Device
00-0F
DMA Controller
20-21
Interrupt Controller
40-43
Timer
1F0-1F8
Hard Disk Controller
200-20F
Joystick Controller
238-23B
Bus Mouse
278-27F
LPT2
2E8-2EF
COM4 Serial Port
2F8-2FF
COM2 Serial Port
300-30F
Ethernet Card
330-33F
MIDI Port
378-37F
LPT1 Port
Disk file systems: FAT16 (16-bit DOS and Windows File Allocation Table file system), FAT32 (32-bit version of FAT shipped with Windows 95 OSR2—2TB limit, 4KB cluster), NTFS (Windows NT, 2000, XP, file compression, file security, fault tolerance)
3E8-3EF
COM3 Serial Port
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Learn the memory addresses on the left. Especially the COM p orts!
3F0-3F7
Floppy Disk Controller
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CAT 5 Cable Max Length: 100 meters.
3F8-3FF
COM1 Serial Port
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CD-R standard storage size—700MB.
You should know your IRQs— especially available IRQs and COM port IRQs. •
Become familiar with what DMA is— Direct Memory Access. Typically used by HDCs & FDCs (Hard Drive Controllers/ Floppy Drive Controllers) and NICs. Data is passed on the bus directly between memory and device bypassing the processor. •
• IRQ 0: System Timer • IRQ 1: Keyboard • IRQ 2/9: Video Card or cascade to IRQ 9 • IRQ3:Com2,Com4 IRQ3:Com2,Com4 • IRQ4:Coml,Com3 IRQ4:Coml,Com3 • IRQ 5: Available (Normally sound card or LPT2) • IRQ 6: Floppy Disk Controller • IRQ 7: Parallel Port (LPT1) • IRQ 8: Real-time clock • IRQ 9:/2 Redirected IRQ2 • IRQ 10: Available • IRQ 11: Available • IRQ 12:PS/2Mouse • IRQ 13: Math Coprocessor • IRQ 14: Hard Disk Controller (HDC) • IRQ 15: Available (often used for second HDC)
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s l A + Ce C e r t i f i c a t i o n C o r e H a r d w a r e S e r v i c e T e c h n i c i a n —H —H a r d D r i v e Re Re v i e w a i t IDE—Integrated Drive Electronics EIDE—Enhanced IDE SCSI—Small Computer RAID 0: Striping, min 2 n Systems Interface drives, better read/write e ATA Fast ATA • • © 2006 ExamPractice.com s performance, no fault Up to 7 devices con• s ATA2 Fast ATA 2 • • nected on single bus tolerance E ATAPI ATA 3 • • RAID 1: Mirrored, min 2 e Up to 15 devices • - ATA Packet Interface h Ultra ATA • drives, fault tolerant connected to a wide T - CD-ROMs ATA66 • : bus RAID 5: Striping w/ - CD-RWs Parity, min 3 drives, m ATA100 • SCSI host adapter • - DVDs a fault tolerant on ID7 or ID15 x ATA 133 • E e A + Ce Ce r t i f i c a t i o n C o r e H a r d w a r e Se S e r v i c e T e c h n i c i a n — T ro ro u b l e s h o o t i n g c i One of the tasks CompTIA identifies as important for an A+ certified technician is troubleshooting. CompTIA tests v r e your knowledge of troubleshooting by providing you problems and asks you what the most likely cause is. S Common Problems: one of the most common issues CompTIA bases test questions on are power issues. Look for NIC e lights and power connections. r a Boot Failure: invalid boot disk, inaccessible boot device, missing NTLDR, bad or missing command line interpreter w are all examples of possible boot failures. d r Missing Operating System: boot record signature of the master boot record (MBR) does not match a certain value at a H a certain location. Possibly also if no active partition is defined in the partition table. Non-system Disk or Disk Error: generated by BIOS when boot sector or MBR of boot drive is damaged or missing. + A Also when a non-bootable floppy disk is left in. Eject floppy and reboot. Boot Error Press F1 to Retry: hard drive is missing a MBR or boot sector or there is a problem accessing drive. Hard Disk Controller Failure: hard disk has failed or controller cannot communicate with hard drive. Bad or Missing Command.com: OS unable to find COMMAND.COM. Win 9x, boot with startup disk and type SYS C: HIMEM.SYS Not Loaded: check CONFIG.SYS and make sure Device=C:\HIMEM.SYS exists. Bad Motherboard or CPU: characterized by unexplained & random reboots, screen freezes, system locks. Startup Modes
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Safe Mode: loads system with minimal set of drivers and services for troubleshooting Safe Mode with command prompt: loads in safe mode, you work with a command prompt only (no GUI) Safe Mode with Networking: safe mode and loads network drivers Step-by-Step: starts the PC step-by-step so you can identify the problem Troubleshooting Resources You will probably see a question which presents a problem with a computer and asks you to identify the first place you will go for troubleshooting. Resources to be aware of: user/installation manuals, websites (computer manufacturers, newsgroups, knowledge bases), training materials, phone customer support, email customer support. Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) ESD is a well tested topic on the exam. You should be aware that you always need to wear an ESD grounding strap while working on system components. Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) Battery backup for electronic equipment. Be aware of the terms Surges (steady and abrupt change in voltage), Spikes (sudden and drastic change in voltage), Sags (quick dip in available voltage), Brownouts (more excessive than sag, not blackout), Blackout (complete loss of power).
A + Ce Ce r t i f i c a t i o n C o r e H a r d w a r e S e r v i c e T e c h n i c i a n —P —P ro ro c e s s o r s / M e m o r y Be aware of Level of Level 1, 1, Level 2, 2, and Level 3 cache memory on processors. Important Memory Terminology: Memory Speed, Speed, Parity (simple error checking where each data byte includes a ninth bit), ECC (error checking and correction, detection in CPU and correction of single bit errors).
A + Ce Ce r t i f i c a t i o n C o r e H a r d w a r e S e r v i c e T e c h n i c i a n —P —P r i n t i n g Dot Matrix Printers: fires pins at a ribbon, quality measure by # of pins: 9, 24, or 48 pin. NLQ, ne ar letter quality, best dot matrix printers can do. Inkjet Printers: ink cartridge. Printer forces a spray of electrostatic charged droplets of ink onto page. Holes are called nozzles. Print quality measured in dots per inch (DPI). Laser Printers: also measured in DPI. Uses toner, static electricity, and heat to apply print. Laser Printing Process: Cleaning or Preparing—removes any residual toner or debris from drum; Conditioning— drum gets charged (-600V); Writing (Exposing)—image created on drum, writte n in different charges (image –100 volt); Developing—drum spins past toner cartridge where toner particles are attracted to image on drum; Transferring— +600 volt charge added to paper so paper pulls toner from drum; Fusing—heat and pressure fuse toner to paper. © 2006 ExamPractice.com
