Unit – IV - Installation and Preventive Maintenance

Introduction – system configuration – pre installation planning – Installation practice –routine checks – PC Assembling and integration – BIOS setup – Engineering versionsand compatibility – preventive maintenance – DOS – Virus – Data Recovery

  1. List the applications for special system configuration.
  • DTP
  • CAD, CAM
  • Supermarket
  • Games
  • Image Processing
  • Voice Reorganization
  • Process control
  • Network Server
  • Bank
  • Data Center
  1. List the hardware items for common applications.
  • Scanner, Laser Printers
  • Plotter
  • High Resolution display
  • Joy stick
  • CD-ROM, DVD-ROM
  • Digital Camera
  • Microphone
  • Bar code Reader
  1. What are the aspects that the user should consider while buying a computer product?

Hardware and modules used

Manufacturing quality/reliability

Ease of maintainability and product engineering

Upgradeability provision

Warranty duration

  1. Draw the Bath Tub Curve for Product life time.
  1. What are the factors to be considered while choosing hardware modules?
  • Performance level required: low, medium, high
  • Type of usage: light, medium, heavy
  • Nature of application: personal, commercial, govt service
  • Criticality of system application: low, high
  • Location of site: rural, urban
  • Product engineering: industry standard, non-standard
  1. List the different levels of hardware configuration.

S.No / Hardware Item / Entry Level / Mid Level / High Level
1 / Processor Type / Celeron / Pentium III / Pentium 4 in FRC
2 / Processor Clock / 900 MHz / 1.2 GHz / 2.4 GHz
3 / RAM Capacity / 128 MB / 128 MB / 3 GB
4 / HDD Type / IDE / IDE / SCSI
5 / HDD Capacity / 20 GB / 40 GB / 40 GB
6 / Monitor Size / 14 Inch / 15 Inch / 17 Inch
7 / Power Supply / 250 Watts / 250 Watts / 300 Watts
8 / CD-ROM drive / 48X / 52X / 52X
  1. What is the advantage of using AC stabilizer?

All PCs have SMPS with built-in ac input stabilizer. However, if the ac input supply is too bad to be managed by the PC, an external AC stabilizer is essential. The use of a stabilizer is essential if you have a hard disk in the system. If a UPS is installed, the built-in stabilizer in the UPS handles the voltage fluctuations.

  1. What are the requirements are need in pre-installation planning?
  • Placement / Site Selection
  • Air Conditioning
  • AC Power Interference
  • AC Stabilizer
  • Power Supply Capacity
  1. Do we need to air condition the room wherein the PC is kept?

The necessary of air condition depends on the environment. The PC has a built-in cooling arrangement which is sufficient in general. But if the user operating the PC in a very hot environment, user should provide for external cooling of the room. A simple window air conditioner is sufficient.

  1. List some of the PC SMPS ratings.

PC ModelSMPS Wattage

PC-808863.5 W

PC/XT130 W

AT-286192 W

Celeron PC200 W

Pentium III PC250 W

Pentium IV PC300 W

  1. What are the abnormal aspects / defects in the PC after unpacking?

After unpacking the PC, carry out a through visual check to detect any of the following abnormal aspects / defects:

  • Loose connection
  • Incorrect setting of DIP switches
  • Broken wire or cables
  • Loose Screws
  • Missing Screws
  • Wrong Connection
  • Missing Jumpers
  • Physical Damage to cabinet or peripherals
  1. Why hard disk drive is shipped by the manufacturer with a ‘tie-down’?

The hard disk drive is shipped by the manufacturer with a ‘tie-down’ pin or clip on the positioning mechanism to prevent movement of the heads during transport.

  1. Write short notes on Pre-shipment burn.

In order to minimize the chances of problems with a new PC soon after you get it home, it's a good idea to have the PC tested before shipment. This is sometimes called a "burn-in" test, and is done to pre-screen systems to weed out bad components. Since most component failures occur very quickly, running tests on a system for 24 hours or so can eliminate some common faults. Obviously, it is to everyone's advantage if a problem is discovered before the PC is delivered to the customer rather than afterwards.

  1. What are essential steps to remove a motherboard?
  • Switch off the system, monitor and printer
  • Remove all daughterboard’s
  • Remove the keyboard connector from the rear side of the system box
  • Remove the SMPS power connectors from the system board
  • Remove the front h panel connector
  • Remove all I/O Connectors
  • Remove FDDs and HDDs
  • Remove screws and the rubber washers on the motherboard
  • Lift the motherboard gently and take it out of the system box
  1. What are the routine checks should follow by the engineer?
  • FDD Jumper: Drive Select
  • FDD Cable: Twist
  • FDD Terminator
  • Memory Jumpers
  • Cable Connectors Orientation
  • Processor Heat sink / Cooling Fan
  1. What are the advantages in assembling a PC?

Saving money

Choosing exact configuration

Gaining expertise which will be useful when the system fails

Ease of future up gradation

  1. What are the steps involved in motherboard stuffing?

Installing socket processor: The Pentium 4 motherboard uses a processor socket such as socket 423. Pull the locking lever away from the socket, then raise the lever to a 90-degree angle. Place the processor gently into the socket matching the pin no. 1 on the socket and the processor chip without applying force.

Installing the processor cooling fan: The Pentium 4 comes with a specific fan. Open the levers of the retention mechanism. Place the fan into the retention mechanism. Close the levers.

Installing Slot-1 processor: The slot-1 in the motherboard has a cartridge holder. While shipping the motherboard, the upright struts are put in folded down position. Pull them up and make them in upright position. Insert the processor cartridge into the cartridge holder.

Memory modules: hold the DIMM above the DIMM socket and align the two modules in the bottom edges of the DIMM with the two keys in the socket. Insert the bottom edge of the memory module into the socket.

  1. List the PC Assembling sequence.
  • System box preparation
  • Motherboard stuffing
  • Motherboard Installation
  • IDE Drives Preparation
  • Drive Installation
  • Daughterboard’s Installation
  • Cables Connection
  • Power Connections
  • BIOS Setup
  • Loading Software: Operating System and Special I/O Drivers
  1. What are the softwares items needed to assemble a PC?
  • Operating system (to be purchased separately)
  • Motherboard drivers (Come on a CD with motherboard)
  • Device Drivers (Come with devices)
  1. What are the basic tools need to assemble a PC?
  • Philips Screwdriver
  • Flat Screwdriver
  • Pliers (need nose)
  • Marker Pen
  1. Write short notes on Motherboard installation.

Mount the motherboard into the cabinet using the original screws with a Phillips headed screwdriver. Gently place the board inside the cabinet adjusting such that the mounting holes on the motherboard are in alignment with the holes on the cabinet. Fix the motherboard by screwing in the mounting screws.

  1. What are a BIOS setup and a standard CMOS setup?

The BIOS has a setup utility program for specifying the system configurations and settings. When u switch on the system, the BIOS gets control and it starts POST.

“Standard CMOS setup” option enables you to enter some basic hardware configurations and set the system clock and error handling.

  1. What are the hard disk drive specifications? Or Define Type User.

If the hard disk drive is a special one, user can use “Type User” to define the drive specifications manually. If user selects Type User, relevant data has been entered for the following items:

CYLSnumber of cylinders

HEADnumber of read/write heads

PRECOMPwrite precompensation cylinder

LANDZlanding zone cylinder

SECTORnumber of sectors

SIZEcapacity (displayed according to the configuration)

MODEaccess mode: Auto

Normal (HD<528 MB)

Large (for MS-DOS only)

LBA (HD>528 MB and supports logical block addressing)

  1. What is a swap floppy drive?

This item allows you to enable to Swap floppy drive or not. When enabled, the BIOS swaps floppy drive assignments so that drive A becomes drive B, and drive B becomes drive A.

  1. Write the date format in Standard CMOS setup.

The date format is:

Day: Sun to sat (Display only; calculated by BIOS)

Month: 1 to 12

Data: 01 to 31

Tear: 1901 to 2099 (set by user)

  1. Write the time format in Standard CMOS setup.

Time: to set the time, highlight the “Time” field and use the <PgUp> / PgDn> or + / - keys to set the current time.

The Time format is:

Hour: 00 to 23

Minute: 00 to 59

Second: 00 to 59

  1. List the Hard disk drive access modes.

The Hard disk access modes are:

  • Auto mode
  • Normal mode (HD < 528 MB)
  • Large mode (for MS-DOS only)
  • LBA ( HD>528MB & Supports Logical Block Addressing)
  1. What are the types of Video display adapter?
  • CGA
  • MDA
  • EGA
  • VGA
  • SEGA
  • SVGA
  • PGA
  1. List some of features in Advanced BIOS setup.
  • Virus warning
  • CPU internal Cache
  • External Cache
  • Boot sequence
  • Swap floppy drive
  • Boot Up Floppy Drive
  1. What is virus warning in BIOS Setup?

The virus warning feature protects the boot sector and partition table of the hard disk against overwriting. If any write attempt is made, the BIOS halt the system and displays a warning message so that user can either allow the operation to continue or run an anti-virus program to locate and remove the virus.

  1. What is a boot up floppy seek?

When enabled, the BIOS will give a seek command to floppy drive A before booting the system. It can find out whether the floppy drive installed has 40 or 80 tracks. The 360K FDD has 40 tracks where as 760K, 1.2M and 1.44M FDD’s have 80 tracks.

  1. What is a boot up numlock status?

This allows you to enable or disable the numlock function during boot up as per your personal taste. If set to ‘on’, it turns on numlock key when the system is powered on. If set to ‘off’, it turns off the numlock key so that you can see the arrows on both the numeric keypad and the main keyboard.

  1. What do you meant by Gate A20 option?

This option is related to ‘High Memory Area’ (HMA). It controls the use of A20 address bit. The A20 gate signal is generated by the keyboard controller logic (8042/8742) and RAM access above 1MB is handled through it.

  1. What is a PCI/VGA palette snoop?

Some non standard VGA display adapters may not show colours properly. This field allows you to set whether MPEG ISA/VESA VGA cards can work with PCI/VGA or not. When this field is enabled, a PCA/VGA can work with a MPEG ISA/VESA VGA card. When disabled, a PCI/VGA cannot work with a MPEG ISA/VESA card.

  1. Define Typematic Rate & Typematic Delay.
  • Typematic Rate:The speed of repetition ranging from 6 to 30 characters per second.
  • Typematic Delay:Initial tine interval before starting the repetition. Typically 500

msec.

  1. What is video BIOS shadow?

The video BIOS Shadow allows changing the video BIOS area from ROM to RAM after copying. Video BIOS shadowing increases the video speed: But may cause problems while running some operating systems or applications.

  1. List some of the advanced chipset features setup?

DRAM cycle time selection: this field sets the DRAM cycle time. The common options are 6ns and 70ns.

MA wait state: this field fixes the wait state of the memory address. The settings are fast and slow.

CPU to PCI IDE posting: when enabled, the CPU to PCI IDE posting cycles are treated as normal I/O write transactions.

System BIOS cache: when enabled, access to the system BIOS ROM addressed at F0000 – FFFFF are cached to RAM for faster execution.

  1. What is meant by 8 bit I/O recovery time?

This option specifies the length of the delay in sysclks inserted between consecutive 8-bit I/O operations. The settings are 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 or 8.

  1. What is meant by16 bit I/O recovery time?

This option specifies the length of the delay in sysclks inserted between consecutive 16-bit I/O operations. The settings are 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 or 8.

  1. What is the usage of passive release?

When enabled, CPU to PCI bus access are allowed during passive release. Otherwise the arbiter only accepts another PCI MASTER access to local DRAM.

  1. What is a delayed transaction?

The chipset has an embedded 32 bit posted write buffer to support delay transactions cycles. Select enabled to support compliance with PCI specification version 2.1.

  1. What is an AGP aperture size?

The field sets aperture size of the graphics. The aperture is a portion of PCI memory address range dedicated for graphics memory address space. Host cycles that hit the aperture range are forwarded to the AGP without any transaction. The options available are 4MB, 8M, 16M, 32M, 64M, 128M and 256M.

  1. What is SDRAM RAS-to-CAS delay?

This field is used to insert a timing delay between the CAS and RAS strobe signals, used when DRAM is written to, read from, or refreshed. Fast gives faster performance, and slow gives more stable performance.

  1. What is SDRAM RAS pre-charge time?

If an insufficient number of cycles are allowed for the RAS to accumulate its charge before DRAM refresh, the refresh may be incomplete and the DRAM may fail to retain data. Fast gives faster performance, and slow gives more stable performance.

  1. What is CAS latency time?

When synchronous DRAM is installed, the number of clock cycles of CAS latency depends on the DRAM timing. Do not change this field from the default value specified by the system designer.

  1. What are the four selections for power management?

Disabled: No power management

Min.Power Saving: Minimum power management

Max.Power Saving: Maximum power management. Only available - for SL CPU.

User Define: Each of the ranges are from 1 min. To 1 hr.: Except for HDD Power Downwhich ranges from 1 min. To 15 min. (default)

  1. What is Video Off method?

This field defines the video off features. There are three options.

V\H SYNC+ Blank: blank the screen and turn off vertical and horizontal scanning.

DPMS: Allows the BIOS to control the video display card if it supports the DPMS features.

Blank Screen: This option only writes blanks to the video buffer.

  1. What is video off after?

As the system moves from lesser to greater saving modes, select the mode in which you want the monitor to blank.

  1. How is the modem use IRQ?

This field names interrupt request (IRQ) line assigned to the modem (if any) on your system. Activity of the selected IRQ always awakens the system.

  1. What is Doze Mode?

When enabled, and after the specified time of system inactivity, the CPU clock will run at a slower speed while all other devices still operate at full speed.

  1. What is Standby mode?

After the specified period of system inactivity, the hard disk drive and the video shut off all other devices still operate at full speed.

  1. What is suspend mode?

When enabled, and after the specified time of the system inactivity, all the devices except the CPU will be shut off.

  1. What is HDD Power Down?

When enabled, and after the specified time of system inactivity, the hard disk will be powered down while all other devices remain active.

  1. What is throttle Duty cycle?

When the system enters Doze mode, the CPU clock runs only part of the time. You may select the percent of time that the clock runs. It is called as throttle Duty Cycle.

  1. What is IRQ 8 break suspend?

Either by using enable or disable monitoring of IRQ8 (the Real Time Clock), it does not awaken the system from Suspend Mode.

  1. What are integrated peripherals?

The integrated peripherals option in CMOS setup sets the hard disk configuration, mode & port. Some of the utilities in this section are:

  • IDE HDD Block mode
  • IDE Primary Master PIO
  • IDE Primary Slave PIO
  • IDE Secondary master PIO
  • IDE Secondary Slave PIO
  1. What is soft off by PWR BTTN?

This field defines the power off mode when using an ATX power supply. The instant off mode allows powering off immediately upon pressing the power button. In the Delay 4 Sec mode, the system powers off when the power button is pressed for more than four seconds or places the system in a very low usage state with only enough circuitry receiving power to detect power button activity or Resume by Ring activity when pressed for less than 4 seconds.

  1. What is onboard FDC controller?

Select enabled to use the floppy disk controller (FDC) on the system board. If you install a FDC option daughterboard or if the system has no floppy drive, select disabled in this field. This option allows selection of the onboard FDD port.

  1. What is the usage of onboard serial/parallel port?

These fields allow you to select the onboard serial and parallel ports and their address. The default values for these ports are

Serial port 13F8/IRQ4

Serial port 22F8/IRQ3

Parallel port378/IRQ7

  1. What are the functions of parallel port mode?

This field determines parallel port mode function

SPPStandard (Centronics) printer port

EPPEnhanced parallel port

ECPextended capabilities port

  1. Define Supervisor / User Password.

Supervisor Password:The supervisor password sets a password that will be used to protect the system and setup utility.

User Password: User password sets a password that will be used exclusively on the system.

  1. Write short notes on Preventive maintenance.

Preventive maintenance steps are prescribed by the manufacturer should be done periodically using appropriate materials in PC. One of the essential PM procedures is cleaning dust prone parts. This has to be done carefully by trained personnel.