A test of your computer knowledge.

[Ol Smoke]

What does the video processor control?

 

 

What motherboard component controls the video card?

 

 

What does the main CPU handle during video gaming in reference to the video card?

 

 

What does the amount of memory on your video card do for the making of a video frame?

 

 

What exactly does the IC chips on your motherboard do?

 

 

How does the HDD controller board place data onto the HDD?

 

 

In data bit packing what bit tells the HDD to access the next data pack?

 

 

What controls the amount of data you can receive from an ISP node?

 

 

What does handshaking mean and how does it work?

 

 

What section of Microsoft Windows XP controls the hardware on your PC?

 

 

What does Windows 32 bit do that makes software run on it?

 

 

 

 

These are just a few questions on some of the tests I took to get a diploma in computer technology.

 

Can you answer any or all of these?    

 

 

Did you know that half of the IT managers I have worked with couldn't answer these questions?

 

Yet they had degrees in computer science from very good colleges.

 

If you know the answers to these questions, you can repair any Windows system, no matter what the problem.

 

 

When you have a few minutes to spare,  search for the answers to these questions.  You will never have to look for someone to fix your computer

if you know how these systems work, and the error codes they produce when they fail.

 

 

 

 

[rolf]

What exactly does the IC chips on your motherboard do? -- Well, since there are about 40 different, I can't answer that for every one

 

In data bit packing what bit tells the HDD to access the next data pack? -- Generally you don't need to know this.

 

What does Windows 32 bit do that makes software run on it? -- What 32 bit does? What Windows does? Or what an OS in general does?

 

 

 

I can't answer all questions. Luckily I'm a software developer, and these are user issues I'm totally unaware of Or hardware issues, which isn't my problem

[UAdave]

can i use google?

[Narbisaur]

Having a degree don't mean shit, these days. IDK if it did back in the day, but today you just gotta go person by person. There are way too many shortcuts people can (and do) take, and people get way too much credit for having "good handwriting" (which is what I call kissing ass, being neat, and following directions to a T). Getting good grades has way less to do with how smart you are/creative/resourceful, and way more to do with the "good handwriting" thing. Just how I see it.

 

I am stupid about computers. I can answer hardly any of these. Good post, though +1. I probably should know the answers?

[Xernicus]

What motherboard component controls the video card? It really depends on the processor you've got. On my computer, it would be the southbridge.

What section of Microsoft Windows XP controls the hardware on your PC? The HAL, obviously. (Hardware Abstraction Layer)
 

What controls the amount of data you can receive from an ISP node? I'd presume the packet headers.

What exactly does the IC chips on your motherboard do? Pretty simple question, really. They turn certain circuits on and off, thus creating logic gates.

What does Windows 32 bit do that makes software run on it? I'm confused by the wording of this question. If I took my old 486 and started up Windows 3.1, there's NOTHING 32-bit about that. All 16 bit there. Now are you talking about after Windows 2000 (Where 16-bit software runs in purely emulated DOS)...?
 

[Ol Smoke]

Pretty good Xernicus.  Yeah the last one there is a little tricky.  Here is the long version of the Win32 question.

 

Prior to Windows 98 the actual useage of Windows was just a GUI.  All the programs were 16 bit DOS programs.

Win98 actually opened the door for 32 bit software creation for Win2000.  Win 2k was a true 32 bit software OS but win98 actually used dual

16 bit pathways to emulate 32 bit production.  When the software people saw this they began to write programs that did not need the whole

programming language as DOS programs did.  DOS was standalone, but Win98 allowed Windows to have imbedded programming that did all

the work of opening ports and stuff.  So Windows did all of that, but the program made the connections as needed.  Like this.  Windows has the

language for opening a port to print, so the program doesn't have to include all that scripting, all it needs is a small code to say "Do the print thing".

So WIndows and the program share programming, like putting your fingers together from one hand to the other.  They mesh together to form one

entity. 

 

The answer to the ISP node question is actually pretty simple.  The size of pipe your ISP gives you.  Most of us run on 100MBps still, because your ISP

still limits you to less than that.  A single optic cable can actually send and receive about 10GBps.  So when you buy a portion of that, you get what you

pay for.  If you want 20MB down, that will be about $35 to $40 a month.  So that is what controls the amount of data you receive from an ISP node.

Now in the old days, it used to be controlled by the modem on each end, which was the data pack stream controller.  Which is the answer to the handshaking

question.  Handshaking is still used today to allow you to talk to a data controller so that it knows what language you are going to use, and how much data

you can accept, and where you are.  You send your ID to them, they send their ID back to you.  Once this is done, you have made a secure connection and the

pipe is opened and data can flow back and forth now.  Without the handshake it would be like a Russian trying to talk to a Frenchman to tell him to pass the salt

from one closed room to the other.  I hope that makes sense.

 

Data bit packing on the HDD.  The best way to describe this is like being a controller in a train yard.  You have to build a train and then get it ready to go onto the

main line and get from your location to another location in tact.  And when it gets there, the other controller must have a logbook showing what cars are in the train,

and the name of the train that is pulling them.  Every allocated area on a HDD has a beginning number and an ending number.  When you write a program or data

to the HDD the HDD controller knows how big each packet of data is and allocates it to a numbered area on the HDD.  Each data area is usually 4k big.  So when it

gets 4k or less data, it puts it in that data area and then sends the start number and end number of that allocated area to the controller which writes it down into Windows.

When all the data is written, that allocation table is given to Windows and to the controller on the HDD.  When you click on data or a program exe file, Windows asks the

HDD for that data.  It gives the HDD the number of the tablet in the allocation file that it wants to have the HDD retrieve.  This tablet has all the numbers of the allocated

data sectors on the HDD that hold data for that request.  It then, sends that tablet number back to Windows.  If the two numbers match, then the HDD reads the area and

transfers the data into a memory allocated area that Windows controls. Once all the data is placed into proper memory area, Windows launches the exe file to opening it.

 

Why is it important to know this?  There are two different error codes that can happen when the computer does the data transfer and write to and from the HDD from

Windows.  One error is a Windows control error,  the other is a HDD controller error.  IF you know these two errors, you have just cut down the time you need to find

out why data is being corrupted or a program is not working correctly.  The next step is find out if the control chip on the motherboard that accesses the HDD is good

or not, or if it is the controller on the HDD.  That is a simple test.  Once you find out, then you replace the defective part, clear the error out of Windows and check it out.

Knowing this stuff just makes it faster and easier to diagnose a computer problem.

 

Hope you had fun.

Edited September 30, 2013 by Ol' Smoke