LO1 Understanding computer hardware

1.1 Hardware

1.2 Components

1.7 units of measure

1.5 communications hardware

1.9 number conversions

1.4 connectivity methods

1.3 computer systems

1.6 troubleshooting

1.8 number systems

Output

Input

microphone

keyboard

mouse

Speakers

Monitor

Plotter

Communications devices

Routers

Switches

Hubs

High quality printing but it is expensive

used to connect two different networkd

used to connect devices but send packets to everywhere on the network

only used on the same LAN unlike routers - only send packets to the correct device on the network

high quality sound but not very private

not very portable

Processor

Manages all the hardware activities required to receive instructions and data

Motherboard

this is the main printed circuit of a PC. Components such as the CPU are directly connected to it via sockets

Storage

Primary

Secondary

RAM

ROM

Register

Flash drives

cloud storage

SSD

HDD

Desktop

Tablet

Smartphones

Embedded

PC

Mac

Laptops

IPhone

Android

IPad

built in computer

Microwave

cars

fridge

android

Wireless

Fibre

Copper wires

slower than fibre

UTP/STP

cheaper than fibre

less interference than copper

cables are thinner

expensive

Bluetooth

WI-Fi

uses radio frequencies

laser networks

Switch

Router

Network Hub

Hybrid network hub

central connection point

equal resource sharing

receives packets

processes them and forwards them onto a specific device

WAN or LAN

Forwards packets between networks

includes internet access

wireless and wired LANs

Identifying faults

Troubleshooting tools

Investigating faults

symptoms

date

fault

problem history

error code

Binary values

Decimal values

1000MB = 1024MiB

TB(Terabyte)

PB(Petabyte)

GB(gigabyte)

MB(Megabyte)

KB(kilobyte)

GiB (Gibibyte)

TiB (Tibibyte)

MiB (Mebibyte)

PiB (Pebibyte)

KiB (Kibibyte)

Base 2 (Binary) the units are 0 to 1

Base 16 (Hexadecimal), we can only use a single character. Numbers of 10 and over are changed to letters and so. for base 16, the units are 0-9 and A to F up to 16

Base 10 (Decimal) the units are 0 to 9

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