© 2009 Prentice-Hall, Inc. Chapter 6 Understanding and Assessing Hardware: Evaluating Your System To buy or upgrade? Evaluating your system: – CPU – RAM

© 2009 Prentice-Hall, Inc.

Chapter 6 Understanding and Assessing Hardware:

Evaluating Your System • To buy or upgrade? Evaluating your system:

– CPU– RAM– Storage devices– Video output– Sound systems– Computer ports

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To Buy or To Upgrade?Things to consider:• Moore’s Law (Gordon Moore,

Intel) - CPU increases x 2 every 1.5yrs (On YouTube Moore said every 1yr and later, every 2yrs)

• also DRAM incrs 60% per 1yr; HDD incrs 50% per 1 yr

• Cost of upgrading vs. buying• Time installing software and

files• Needs and wants

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Desktop or Notebook?

• Desktop– Hard to move around– Less expensive– Harder to steal– Easier to upgrade– Difficult to ship (repairs)

• Notebook– Portable– More expensive– Easily stolen– Difficult to upgrade– Prone to damage– -yet… ExpressCards can

be installed to expand (analgous to expansoin cards on desktop)

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Evaluating the CPU• How does the CPU work?

– Control unit– Arithmetic logic unit (ALU)– Machine cycle (4 steps):

• Fetch – Decode – Execute – Store – Speed:

• MHz• GHz

– Common speeds: desktop: 2- 4 GHz – Ex: 3 GHz = 3 giga hertz = 3 billion cycles per second

(clock cycles ~ instructions per sec)

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Differentiating CPUs’ power• Clock speed (previous slide)• Number of cores (next slide)

– Core: A complete processing section from a CPU embedded into the same physical chip

– Number of threads – hyperthreading: a secondary set of instructions can start in

CPU before the last set is finished• Cache memory – high speed expensive memory on the

CPU. Levels 1, 2, 3. Newer Intel cache called Smart Cache.

• FSB – front side bus (think bus route b/c it is the route for signals between CPU and RAM). Not listed on newest CPU spec list

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Multi-core processors

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• Ex: Intel CPU Core 2 Duo - has 2 cores (One processor to run OS and other to run all else, for example.)

• With a multi-core processor each task being executed has the ALL of the CPU’s resources and is not sharing them with another task as in the 3rd CPU pictured. Questions: How many cores on the 1st CPU? the 2nd? the 3rd?


Evaluating the CPU

• Identify your CPU: right-click Computer, Properties (or click Sys Props button in Computer)

• Determine whether it is meeting your needs– Go to Task Manager to review CPU usage ctrl+alt+del.

CPU usage revving at 100% a lot is not good.

• Consider how quickly data moves to or from the CPU (In new CPUs the FSB measure is replaced by GT/s giga transfers per sec)

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.

Publishing as Prentice Hall


Some CPUs CPUs for desktops diff than for laptops. See Intel/AMD website for more models and spec sheets.

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desktop laptop

Intel Core i3, Core i5, Core i7 Core 2 Duo Core 2 Quad Core 2 extreme

Centrino 2Core i3 MobileCore i5 MobileCore i7 Mobile

AMD AthlonPhenomSempron

Sempron MobileTurion 64 Mobile


CPU spec sheet examples• Example: Intel E6700 Core 2 Duo (64-bit): • 2.66 Ghz speed • 4 MB L2 cache • 2C/2T (cores/threads) • Bus/core ratio: 10• 1066 MHz FSB (Front Side Bus)Newer example: Intel Core i5-680 (64-bit): • 3.6 GHz and w/ turbo 3.8 Ghz speed, • 4MB Smart Cache, • 2C/4T (cores/threads) • bus/core ratio: 27• 2.5 GT/s DMI (giga transfers per sec); no FSB # mentioned

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RAM (names for)• Random access memory (RAM):

– TemporaryTemporary storage (memory) also called VolatileVolatile• Physical memory• Memory modules fit on motherboard into

memory banks (slots)• Module also called dual inline memory

modules (DIMMs)– DDR2, DDR3

• DDR3 newer faster– SDRAM (typical RAM type)– (SRAM, DRAM -not on test)

Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall


How Much RAM Do You Need?• Kernel memory (that needed for OS)• Windows 7 recommended memory min: 2 GB• Need RAM for operating system, application

software, and data all to run at same time• Sample RAM requirements:

Application Minimum RAM Required

Windows 7 1000 MBMicrosoft Office Professional 2007 256 MBInternet Explorer 8 128 MBiTunes 256 MBAdobe Photoshop Elements 512 MB

Total RAM required to run all programs simultaneously 2,152 MB or 2.15 GB



Typical types of RAM

Types common now:•SDRAM DDR2, •SDRAM DDR3 (newer)

DRAM (original RAM technology was DRAM -- older, no “S” prefix)DDR = double data rate; DDR3 is faster than and newer than DDR2

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Adding RAM• Increases system performance (May need to add

more if your system is slower over the years)• Check your RAM amount: right-click Computer,

Properties (or click Sys Props button in Computer)• To upgrade, find out from your manual, or

crucial.com req’d RAM amounts & specs for your computer model: – Type of module (common: SDRAM DDR3)– Maximum total limit, maximum limit per slot– Maximum limit for your operating system

• Common size: 2- 6 GB (expandable to 8 GB)• Easy to do and reasonably priced

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Virtual Memory• Memory bound (sys that runs out of RAM space)• Virtual memory (also page file)– When system runs

out of RAM, hard drive space is resorted to. • Drawback = speed is slowed. That is, RAM

operates in nanosecs (1/billion= 1/1,000,000,000) and Hard Disk Drive operates in millisecs (1/1000)

• Increasing RAM can avoid this problem• Identify your amounts of RAM and virtual memory:

type “system information” into search

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Storage

• Types of storage devices– Hard drive– USB flash drive– Optical drive– External hard drive

• Nonvolatile storage



Hard Disk Drive HDD• Common storage capacity: 320 GB, 500

GB, 640GB, 1 TB, 2 TB (Terabytes)• Access time (in milliseconds) - time to

locate and make avail for processing• Data transfer rate (in MB per sec)• Spindle speed is measured in

revolutions per minute (rpm) typical: 5400 rpm, 7200 rpm, 10,000 rpm

• SATA (serial ATA) HDD (faster)• PATA (parallel ATA) HDD; (older - uses wide

IDE cable)• eSATA port (e=external) – fast (3 G bps), ideal

to connect to external drive16


How a Hard Disk Works• Composed of iron oxide

coated platters stacked

on a spindle• Data saved to the disk:

pattern of magnetized spots (0s and 1s)

• read/write heads access each platter surface (platter=disc)

• Check your C: Drive size: Right-click C: drive, Properties

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Platters Read/write head

Access arms


Newer hard drives

• SSD – solid state drive – very expensive still– similar technology to the USB drive (flash drive) – no heat, no noise, no spinning discs but instead

chips

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Optical Storage• Optical media: Store data as tiny pits burned into

a disc by a laser; nonpits=lands– Prerecorded

• CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, BD-ROM– Recordable

• CD-R, DVD-R, BD-R– Rewritable (rewrite again and again)

• CD-RW, DVD-RW, BD-RE• A DVD-RW burner will burn CDs and DVDs; • A Blu-ray burner will most likely burn CDs and

DVDs



Optical Storage• Be aware of the variety of DVDs and Blu-ray

discs– Read your products label to determine which to

buy: ex: DVD+R/RW (plus) DVD-R/RW (dash), DVD-RAM

• Speeds: write, rewrite, play in that order:– Ex 52x32x52x - “52x” the original technology’s

speed• Going from CD, to DVD to Blu-ray drives,

their size capacities and speeds increase.Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education,

Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall


Video Card• Process binary data into

images• Attach to motherboard as

expansion card (else “integrated”)

• Contain memory: video memory (VRAM) types:GDDR3, GDDR5

• Contain own Processor (GPU)

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Video Card

• To determine specs of your video card (graphics card) -- go to screen resolution settings screen in Control Panel, click Advanced button

• Ports on video card: – S-video to connect to TV, stereo or VCR, – DVI to connect to digital LCDs – HDMI to connect to HD TV

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Sound card

• Attach to motherboard as expansion card (on lower end PCs it may be “integrated” on motherboard)

• Process digital data into sounds

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Evaluating System Reliability

• Performance:– Is slow– Freezes– Crashes

• Upkeep and maintenance:– System tools– Control panel– Update software, and hardware drivers

(Windows update can include Microsoft’s other software)

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Upkeep and Maintenance

• System tools:– Disk defragmenter– Disk cleanup– Add/remove programs– Run anti-virus and anti-spyware scans– Updates Windows– Update programs

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The Last Resort

• If problems persist: First…– Try reinstalling the software application that is the

probable cause (e.g. maybe you just attempted installing a new program)

– Create a restore point

• Drastic measures…– Reinstall (“recover”) the operating system– Upgrade the operating system to the latest version

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Documents

© 2009 Prentice-Hall, Inc. Chapter 6 Understanding and Assessing Hardware: Evaluating Your System To buy or upgrade? Evaluating your system: – CPU – RAM