this are list of question for those who study computer engineering

1. THE UNIVERSITY OF DODOMA
COLLEGE OF INFORMATICS AND VIRTUAL EDUCATION
eN 310: COMPUTER MAINTENANCE
TUTORIAL QUESTIONS
REAL PROBLEMS AND REAL SOLUTIONS
1. Mary wants her x86-based version of Windows Vista Business edition to run faster. She
has 4 GB of memory installed on the motherboard. She decides more memory will help.
She installs an additional 2 GB of memory for a total of 6 GB, but does not see any
performance improvement. What is the problem and what should you tell Mary?
2. Jack needs to e-mail two documents to a friend but the files are so large his e-mail server
bounced them back as undeliverable. What is your advice?
3. Your friend has a Windows XP desktop system that contains important data. He
frantically calls you to say that when he turns on the computer, the lights on the front
panel light up and he can hear the fan spin for a moment and then all goes dead. His most
urgent problem is the data on his hard drive, which is not backed up. The data is located
in several folders on the drive. What is the quickest and easiest way to solve the most
urgent problem, recovering the data? List the major steps in that process.
4. Mr. Ben bought a computer from Maxwell Computer Company, a computer P81ts store
that assembles systems from parts and sells them as a single unit price with a one-year
warranty on all parts. The computer has the following specifications:
Model
Model GIM Intel Gamer's Dream System
Brand General Intelligence Machines
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2. Tech Spec
Motherboard
Processor
Memory
Primary hard Drive
Case
Video
Audio
LAN
Optical Drive
Warranty
Parts
Labor
ASUS P6T Deluxe
Intel Core i7 920 2.66 GHz Quad Core, 8.l1BCache
Cmcial6GB DDR3 16001,111z(3x2GB)
Raid 0,2 pes of Seagate 1TB 32M Buffer SATA2 3G
7200rpm Hard Drive
Lian-Li PC60 Aluminum Mid Tower Case wi Nspire
extreme 750 Watt PSU
n'Vidia GTX280 1GB PCl-Express Video Card
Onboard Sound
Onboard Gigabit NIC
LG GGW-H20L Blue Ray Burner
1year limited
3 year limited
Answer the following questions about this ad for their high-end games computer:
I. What is the system bus called? What is the system bus frequency?
11. What is the frequency for the processor?
111. What is the brand of the processor?
IV. How much RAtvI is installed?
v. What type of expansion slot is used for the video card?
VI. What type of interface does the hard drive use?
VIi. How much data can the hard drive store?
Vlll. What is the brand of the motherboard?
tx. What type of optical drive is installed?
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3. 5. You've just been hired as a PC support technician in the lCT Directorate of the
University of Dodoma, During the job interview; you were promised a two-week training
period, but by noon on your first day an the job it dawns on you that "training period"
means you have to train yourself very quickly) Listed below are some problems you
encounter on the first day of your job:
L A professor calls you into hi.s office and tells you he thinks the memory on his
Vista computer needs upgrading, He wants you to tell him how much RAM is
currently installed. What do you do?
11. A TE instructor has Windows 8 on her desktop and wants you to tell her exactly
which OS she has installed. What do you do?
111. Your boss asks you to check his Windows 7 computer and find out the path and
name of the device driver for the optical drive (CD drive or DVD drive) that is
installed. What steps do you use? What is the path and name of the optical drive
device driver?
IV. The Office Administrator for Career Education uses MSWord often and wants
you to place a shortcut on her desktop to launch this application. List the steps to
do that.
v. A student in a computer lab is hying to answer a question in the lab about the
Windows Vista sidebar. She needs to add a gadget to the sidebar to show the current
temperature in Dodoma. What steps do you give her to find the answer?
How do you solve these problems and what Windows tools do you use?
6. Jenny works with a team of seven other professionals. Linda, a team member, is a very
close personal friend of the boss. With the boss's approval, Linda took a sudden and
unexpected two-week vacation to go on a cruise during the team's most difficult month
of the year. One team member, Jason, had to work 16 days nonstop, without a day off
during Linda's vacation. Other team members 30011 began complaining and resenting
Linda for the unbearable workload that vacation caused them. A few weeks back from
vacation, Linda began to notice that she was being excluded from informal luncheons and
after-work gatherings. She confided in Jenny that she could not understand why everyone
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4. seemed to be mad at her. Jenny, not wanting to cause trouble, said nothing to Linda. In a
group offour or five classmates, discuss the answers to the following questions:
1. If you were Jenny, what wouLd you do?
11. What would you do if you were Linda?
Ill. What wouLdyou do if you were Jason?
IV. What wouLdyou do if you were another team member?
v. If you were the boss and got wind of the resentment against Linda, what would
you do?
7.. How much power is consumed by a load drawing 5 A with 120 V across it?
8. Someone asks you for help with a computer that hangs at odd times. You tum it on and
work for about 15 minutes, and then the computer freezes and powers down. What do
you do first?
9. What is a reasonable wattage capacity for a power supply to be used with a system that
contains a DVD drive, three hard drives, and a high-end video card?
10. Suppose you tum on a system and everything is dead-no lights, nothing on the monitor
screen, and no spinning fan or hard drive. You verify the power to the system works, all
power connections and power cords are securely connected, and all pertinent switches are
turned on. What can you think: of first? What can you do there after?
11. A computer freezes at odd times. At first you suspect the power supply or overheating,
but you have eliminated overheating and replaced the power supply without solving the
problem. What do you do next?
12. Mary is responsible for all the PCs used by herself and her 10 coworkers in a small
Computer Solutions firm. For the last couple of weeks, Adriana's computer has been
hanging at odd times. Last week, Mary reinstalled Windows 8, but the problem did not go
away, so now Mary suspected a hardware problem. She wants to select and buy a new
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5. motherboard to replace it by keeping the repair costs to a minimum. What are the factors
that Mary has to consider before buying the new motherboard?
13. A user complains to you that her system hangs for no known reason. After asking her a
few questions, you identify these symptoms:
L The system hangs after about 15-20 minutes of operation.
lL When the system hangs, it doesn't matter what application is open or how many
applications are open.
IlL When the system hangs, it appears as though power is turned off: there are no
lights, spinning drives, or other evidence of power.
You suspect overheating might be the problem. To test your theory, you decide to do the
following:
a) You want to verity that the user has not overclocked the system. How do you do that?
b) You decide to check for overheating by examining the temperature of the system
immediately after the system is powered up and then again immediately after the
system hangs. Describe the steps you take to do this.
c) After doing the first two steps, you decide overheating is the cause of the problem.
What are four things you can do to fix the problem?
14. Yom friend has a Windows 7 desktop system that contains important data. He frantically
calls you to say that when he turns on the computer, the lights on the front panel light up
and he can hear the fan spin for a moment and then all goes dead. His most urgent
problem is the data on his hard drive, which is not backed up. The data is located in
several folders on the drive. What is the quickest and easiest way to solve the most urgent
problem, recovering the data? List the major steps in that process.
15. Upgrading an existing system can sometimes be a wise thing to do, but sometimes the
upgrade costs more than the system is worth. Also, if existing components are old, they
might not be compatible with components you want to use for the upgrade. A friend,
Renata, asks your advice about several upgrades she is considering. Answer these
questions:
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6. 1. Renata has a Windows Vista PC that does not have a FireWire port. She wants to
use a camcorder that has a FireWire 400 interface to a PC. How would she
perform the upgrade and what is the cost?
11. Her computer has one USB port, but she wants to use her USB printer at the same
time she uses her USB scanner. How can she do this and how much will it cost?
111. Renata also uses her Windows Vista computer for gaming. The computer has an
AGP 2.0 I.S-V video slot and three PCI slots. What is the fastest and best
graphics card she can buy? How much does it cost?
16. James uses a Windows Vista computer. His Windows Vista system won't boot, and he
has lots of important data files in several locations on the drive. He has no idea in which
folder some of the files are located. Besides the applications data he's currently working
on, he's especially concerned about losing e-mail addresses, e-mail, and his Internet
Explorer Favorites links.
After trying everything you know about recovering Windows Vista, you conclude the OS
is corrupted beyond repair. Based on what you have learned in this course, list the steps
you would take to reinstall Windows Vista and recover all the data that James needs.
17. Jovin, a coworker who uses many different applications on his Windows 7 system,
complains to you that his system is very slow starting up and responding when he loads
and unloads applications. You suspect the system is loading too many services and
programs during startup that are sucking up system resources. What do you do to check:
for startup processes and eliminate the unnecessary ones?
18. Someone has come to you for help with their computer. They are unable to connect to the
Internet and are not sure why. After some investigation, you realize that they have just
replaced the network adapter, but have lost the driver CD for the adapter and its
documentation. What are the steps you need to follow to get the correct drivers?
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7. Prepared by:
Lucian Ngeze
CN 310 Course Instructor
Jnayal16
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