Week 8

System BIOS


Information

CPU Intel Celeron (R) M

CPU Speed 1860MHz

Product Aspire 3680

Manufacturer Acer



Main

System Memory 634KB

Extended Memory 1526MB

Video Memory 64MB



Terms to use…….

DMA (direct memory access) transfers data from between the hard drive and memory with out involving the CPU. It’s the same sense of a freeway that directly connects Reno to Carson, bypassing Washoe Valley.

Low level formatting is the outlining of the positions of the tracks and sectors on the hard disk. This is basically the physical format that defines where the data is stored on the disk. When it leaves the factory the disk platters (sectors and tracks) are empty.

SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Advancement) uses a serial data path instead of the parallel path. Basically the difference between SATA and ATA is the chord used, it’s like using an regular HD chord for your TV (ATA) or you can use the new HDMI chord (SATA) which gives you much better resolution. SATA is faster on how it interfaces.

ATA (Advanced Technology Advancement) is an interface(communication) used for controlling computer drives. Uses a parallel path.

IDE is a standard interface between the motherboard data paths and the disk storage devices, basically it is a connector.