Essential Computer Maintenance: Practices and Solutions

Posted on Feb 12, 2025 in Computers

Essential Computer Maintenance

Practice 1: BIOS Fundamentals

  • Question: Name three basic functions of the BIOS.
  • Answer: Stores information on the hard disk, manages cache memory, and saves the date and time.
  • Question: What is POST?
  • Answer: It is the BIOS’s check of the video card, microprocessor, RAM, HDD, and other devices.
  • Question: In which BIOS settings can hard drives be configured?
  • Answer: IDE HDD autodetection.
  • Question: In which BIOS settings can I turn off the fan, monitor, and hard disk?
  • Answer: POWER MANAGEMENT SETUP.
  • Question: Where can I change device interrupt settings to resolve PnP conflicts?
  • Answer: PNP / PCI Configuration.
  • Question: How does copying the BIOS ROM to RAM help?
  • Answer: It can increase performance.
  • Question: When is low-level formatting from the BIOS advisable?
  • Answer: To reorganize the disk structure and eliminate viruses resistant to normal formatting.

Practice 2: Computer Systems

  • Question: Mention four types of computers and give an example of use for each.
  • Answer:
    • Supercomputers: Scientific research
    • Mainframes: Financial institutions
    • Minicomputers: Network management
    • Microcomputers: Household and office use
  • Question: What are the differences between buying a minicomputer and a microcomputer?
  • Answer: Price, capacity, and utility.
  • Question: What makes up a computer system?
  • Answer: Power supply, motherboard, storage units, and modem.
  • Question: How do connectors differ from each other?
  • Answer: Size and shape.
  • Question: What types of video cards are currently available?
  • Answer: VGA, SVGA, UVGA.
  • Question: What is the difference between RAM and ROM?
  • Answer: RAM is random access memory, and ROM is read-only memory.

Practice 3: Maintenance and Troubleshooting

  • Question: What determines the time allocated to computer maintenance?
  • Answer: Number of hours of operation, applications running, and environment.
  • Question: Mention at least 5 hard disk abnormalities that can be corrected.
  • Answer: Insufficient space, unnecessary files, cross-linked files, and high fragmentation.
  • Question: What are the main causes of a damaged boot sector?
  • Answer: Virus infection, abrupt power failure, electric shock, and age of the disk.
  • Question: How does a high percentage of file fragmentation affect a hard drive?
  • Answer: Your computer’s speed decreases.
  • Question: What is the problem with a highly fragmented file?
  • Answer: Increased access times.
  • Question: If a Trojan is a malicious virus, what is the disadvantage of it being installed on my system?
  • Answer: It monitors your activity, reads keystrokes, and saves images as you navigate.
  • Question: How does spyware affect my computer’s performance?
  • Answer: It shows information that is often a nuisance in everyday use.

Practice 4: Hardware and Software Considerations

  • Question: Where can I buy a base for a brand-name computer versus a clone?
  • Answer: Replacement problems, specialized care, service costs, and warranty issues.
  • Question: What are the two architectures of microprocessors, and mention a feature of each?
  • Answer:
    • CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computer): Uses multiple clock cycles per operation.
    • RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer): Works faster and uses fewer clock cycles.
  • Question: What motherboard problems are difficult to detect?
  • Answer: Freezing, rebooting without warning, and sudden disconnection from the Internet. These faults are difficult to detect because they are similar to faults caused by other components.
  • Question: What are drivers?
  • Answer: Software that acts as an intermediary between hardware and the operating system.
  • Question: Why are drivers needed?
  • Answer: To maximize the functionality of the device for which it has been designed.
  • Question: What criteria should I consider when updating software?
  • Answer: Programs that run at higher speeds and exploit new hardware performance.
  • Question: What are the main causes of computer failure?
  • Answer: Heat, dust, extreme working conditions, higher voltage, and vibration.

Practice 5: Hard Drives and Data Recovery

  • Question: What are the two types of structures for connecting hard drives to a computer?
  • Answer: IDE and SCSI.
  • Question: What is the logical structure of a hard disk?
  • Answer: Boot sector, partitioned space, and unpartitioned space.
  • Question: What steps should be taken for more reliable data recovery?
  • Answer: Do not store data in the root directory, defragment drives regularly, and do not store important files on flash drives.
  • Question: Mention three types of file systems currently used.
  • Answer: FAT, FAT32, NTFS.