SAMPLE COMPUTER HARDWARE SERVICING INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

1. Give examples of network devices.

 Switch, hubs, routers, bridges

2. What do you mean by MAC address?

 a unique identifier assigned to most network adapters or network interface
cards (NICs) by the manufacturer for identification

3. What is motherboard for you?

 the primary circuit board of a personal computer, containing the circuitry
for the central processing unit, keyboard, mouse and monitor, together
with slots for other devices

4. Give examples of input device.

 Mouse, keyboard, webcam, digital camera, drawing tablet, scanner,
microphone, joystick, touch screen, barcode scanner

5. Give examples of output device.

 Monitor, speaker, printer, headphones

6. Give examples of storage devices.

 Internal/external hard drives, network attached storage (NAS), cd/dvd,
flash drives

7. What’s the maximum hard drive size for FAT16-based Windows system?
 2gb minimum hard disk for FAT16

8. How many hard drives do we generally can accommodate in a pc?

 4 hard drive can be supported
primary master, slave
secondary master, slave

9. Name the processor lines of two major manufacturers?

 Intel, AMD

10. What are the basic expansion card types?

 ISA – Industry standard architecture
 PCI – peripheral component interface
 AGP – accelerated graphics port

11. How do you clear CMOS password?

 Remove the cmos battery for at least 2 minutes or the cmos jumper then
re-install the battery.

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 12. What is TCP/IP?
 CP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) is the basic
communication language or protocol of the Internet. It can also be used as
a communications protocol in a private network (either an intranet or an
extranet).

13. Where’s MBR located on the disk?

 The MBR is located at the first sector of the hard disk. It is located in
sector 0, track 0, head 0, cylinder 0 of the primary active partition.

14. How many logical drives can we possibly fit into a physical disk?
 Maximum of 24 logical drives. The extended partition can only have 23
logical drives.

15. What is expansion slot? What are the common expansion slots found in
compatible computers?
 ISA – Industry standard architecture
 PCI – peripheral component interconnect
 AGP – accelerated graphics port
 AMR – audio/modem riser
 CNR – communication and network riser
 EISA – extended industry standard architecture
 PCIe - peripheral component interconnect express
 VESA - Video Electronics Standard Association

16. Gives examples of add-on devices being added to PCI slots?

 NIC/LAN cards, sound cards, tv tuners, firewire cards

17. What is BIOS?

 It stands for basic input-output system. It controls the most fundamental
operations of a computer and it is necessary to start a computer.

18. What is a byte?

 It is eight binary digits. It is the smallest unit a computer works with at
once.

19. What is control panel?

 A system utility that comes with Windows that allows the use to change a
variety of system settings.

20. Define modem. What is its function?

 A modem (modulator-demodulator) is a device that modulates an analog
carrier signal to encode digital information, and also demodulates such a
carrier signal to decode the transmitted information

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