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System Specification

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System Specification

Uploaded by

dontae5566677
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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System Specification

Objectives
✔ 1.1 Interpret the different specifications of a computer system
✔ 1.2 Demonstrate and understanding of the computer hardware
specifications as it relates to performance
✔ 1.3 state clearly four major factors to consider when evaluating a
computer’s hardware specification
✔ 1.4 describe correctly the use of hard drives, state appropriate storage
capacity and speed;
✔ 1.5 describe coherently the following: ports, expansion slot and their
use;
System specification is a set of requirements that a
system should possess.
Four major areas of a computer system
– Processor
– Memory
– Hard disk drive
– Ports and expansion slots

The CPU or processor


• The two main features of the CPU that you need to be
aware of are its speed and type. The two most
popular companies that currently produce CPUs are
Intel and AMD (advance Micro Devices).
Speed of the processor
• The CPU contains a clock; each time the clock
‘ticks’, one instruction is carried out. So the
faster the clock ticks the more instructions can
be carried out. The processors speeds PC are
measured in MHz (Mega Hertz) or GHz (Giga
Hertz).
• MHz means that it can execute approximately
1 million instructions per second
• GHz means that it can execute approximately
1 billion instructions per seconds.
Type of CPU
• The CPU type determines the type of application for which a
particular type of processor is used. There are many types of
processors that are developed by Intel and AMD.
Three main types of Intel processors are
• Premium
• Core
• Celeron

Four main types of AMD processors are


• Athlon
• Sempron
• Turion
• Phenom.
• Intel processors are a little more expensive than AMD’s due to the
small difference in performance.
Check Your Progress
1. State the difference between MHz and GHz
as it relates to the processor speed.
2. Why is it important to know the processor
speed?
3. What are the two main features of a CPU that
you should consider when you are planning
to purchase a computer system?
Main Memory
• In terms of computer memory it is important to know its capacity,
type, word size and speed.
Memory capacity
• The capacity of a computer’s memory determines the number of
programs that it can hold at a time, which affects the performance
of a computer system. In modern PCs, memory capacity is
measured in Gigabytes (GB) and is distributed with 2 GB or more.

Memory type
• There are two types of RAM – SDRAM (Synchronous Dynamic RAM)
and RDRAM (Rambus Dynamic RAM).
• RDRAMs are faster and more expensive than SDRAM, and are used
mainly for high-performance computers.
• SDRAMs (also called PC100 or PC133) are more common and can
be Double Data Rate (DDR) RAM, which offers double data transfer
rate.
Word size
• Word size determines the number of bits that
can be stored and processed at a time by the
CPU. Most of today’s PCs have word size of
32-bit or 64-bit.
Speed
• RAM speed indicates how fast the chip updates
the data that it contains. In modern PCs,
• RAM speed is measured in Mega Hertz (MHz)
and is usually above 400 MHz.
Check Your Progress
1. List four features of RAM that you should
consider when you are about to purchase a
RAM chip.
2. What is the advantage of having more
memory in a computer system?
3. State two difference between SDRAM and
RDRAM.
4. State the purpose of word size.
Hard disk
• The two main specifications to note for a hard disk is its
storage capacity and its speed.
Storage capacity
• The storage capacity of a hard disk determines the amount of
information that it can store for later use. In modern
computers, the hard disk capacity are measured in Gigabytes
ranging from 120 GB – 2TB.

Speed
• Hard disk speeds are normally expressed as data transfer
rate. The data transfer rate measures the speed by which
data can be transferred from one hard disk to the CPU. The
rate at which data can be transferred partly depends on how
fast the disk is spinning. The spin speed is measured in
revolutions per minutes (rpm). Hard disks vary in speed from
5400 RPM to 7200 RPM.
Check Your Progress
1. List two specifications of hard disk you should
take into consideration when you are about to
purchase it.
2. What are the two common measurements of
a hard disk speed?
3. Why is it important to know the hard disk
capacity when you are about to purchase a
computer system.
Secondary Specification
• In addition to memory capacity, speed, type,
word size, etc, it is important to know about
ports and expansion slots.
Ports
• A computer systems needs to send and
receive information from peripheral
devices. A port is a piece of technology that is
used to connect external devices to a
computer system.
There are different kinds of ports such as:
• Parallel: used mainly to connect printers but
can be also used to connect certain scanners
and external hard disks.

• Serial: used to connect certain types of mouse,


modem, and printer
• USB: Used to connect around 127 devices including
keyboard, scanners, flash drives and digital
cameras. This is the most common port used in
modern computers. There are USB-1 and USB-2.
USB-2 is faster.

Firewire/IEEE 1394: used to transfer video


images from digital devices.
Expansion slots
Expansion slots are sockets found on the main circuit board
(motherboard) that are used to insert additional circuit boards. The
can be used for adding more memory, graphics facilities and
other special devices.
Three types of expansion slots are:

• PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect), used for attaching


sounds cards, network cards and video cards.
• AGP (Accelerated Graphics Card), used mainly for connecting
graphic cards
• ISA (Industry Standard Architecture), used for attaching
modems and not commonly seen on most modern
computers.
Check Your Progress
1. What is the use of ports in a computer
system?
2. Give the purpose of a firewire port in a
computer system.
3. List THREE main types of expansion slots used
in modern PCs.
4. List TWO common uses of PCI slots.
Recommended Specification to run a
video game;
• 3 GHz processor
• 2 GB of RAM (4 GB of RAM for Windows Vista and
higher)
• 12 GB available hard disk space
• Nvidia GeForce 8800/AMD Radeon HD 5670 or
equivalent video card (Dedicated GPU with
512MB or higher Video Memory(VRAM))
• Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista, Windows 7,
Windows 8.1, or Windows 10 with the latest
service pack installed
• Web browser specification details
• windows 7 or later
• Microsoft Edge : latest edition
• Microsoft Internet Explorer11.0 or later
• Google Chrome : latest edition
• Mozilla Firefox : latest edition
Graphic Design Hardware
Specification
• CPU: Intel Core i5 or i7
• Display: 15 in., 1440 x 900 pixels, minimum
• RAM: 8 GB minimum; more is better. (RAM in
Apple MacBook Air and Retina models cannot be
upgraded later.)
• Video Card: A discrete video card with dedicated
RAM
• Storage: 500GB minimum
• Optical Drive: (optional) DVD +/- R/RW
What specs do I need for video editing?
• The Speed You Need. ...
• CPU: Processor.
• Online Editing: Dual Intel Xeon 2GHz six-core. ...
• GPU: Video Card.
• Online Editing: Dual NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760M.
• RAM – Memory.
• Online Editing: 32GB RAM.
• Storage.

Specs needed for Desktop publishing


• 2.6-3.0 ghz processor
• at least 512 to 1gb ram (1 gb to work with all those photos,
images, etc),
• a good sized hard drive @ 80gb.
Troubleshooting
Troubleshooting - basic computer
problems
Troubleshooting – Printer
Troubleshooting - Printer
Troubleshooting - Monitor
Troubleshooting - Battery

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