Question about A+ expansion cards

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Hi,

I just have a quick question about your section on expansion cards. I noticed that you mostly covered general things about expansion cards... installation, things to consider etc.. but I noticed you did not cover much on specifics .. like specs and characteristics of the different kinds of expansion slots. I am wondering if any specifics about expansion cards are going to be required for the A+ 901 exam!! Have they loosened the exam rquirements for this topic?

@Jeff-Greenlee,

Back when I earned A+ the first time, we had to know a lot more about them but there are so many vendors out there today that it's not that easy to point out specifications anymore about a type of expansion card. Take PCI-just for video cards. So the key today for the A+ is for the technician with 6 months of knowledge and experience int the field. So understanding the differences between the cards and knowing if the card will work in the computer is probably enough.

The details will come as the person moves from support technician to a system builder.

I can't tell you you won't get hit with some questions that are super specific but I can say that identification and scenario based on which would you would recommend or you might need to consider before upgrading or changing is more likely than which PCIe card supports 4GBps (ATI RADEON XXX or nVIDIA geForce xXX).

Hey Jeff,

Thank you for taking the time to post this question to the forum. I would still pay attention to specifications as I have always found these specs to be in a question or two on the exam. I will say that the CompTIA exams are requiring more of the practical application of the technology for example

You are a tech at XYX Company and are helping deploy PCs with high definition output. You need to determine which cable to buy for the monitors. Which of the following accomplishes the goal:

1-VGA, Composite
2-HDMi
3-DisplayPort
4-RJ-45

In this example while the goal is understanding of the specifications i.e VGA= Analog, HDMi= Digital, DisplayPort= Digital, RJ-45= Networking, what is does not require is a knowledge of how many pins or even the shape of the connector. I will recommend paying attention to specs and the following might help with expansion cards:

PCI

• 32 Bit Bus but also implemented in two independant 32 bit buses
• Plug and Play
• 33 MHz
• 5 devices (10 devices if implementation is two 32 bit buses)
• Bus Mastering ( a single PCI device can take control of the PCI bus)
• Shared parallel communication
• 133 MBps transfer speed

PCI-X

• 64 bit bus
• 66 MHz
• 266 MBps
• Server-centric but it was not widely adopted
• Parallel communication

Mini-PCI

• Type I
  • 100 pin stacking connector
• Type II
  • 100 pin stacking connector
• Type III
  • 124 pin edge connector

PCIe

• 1-32 lanes bus width
• serial communications
  • PCIe version 1.x
    • 250 MBPs per lane
    • 4 GBps total bandwidth (16 links/32 lanes)
  • PCIe version 2.x
    • 500 MBps per lane (x1)
    • 8 GBps (x16)
  • PCIe version 3.x
    • 1 GBps (x1)
    • 16 GBps (x16)
  • PCIe version 4.x
    • 2 GBps (x1)
    • 32 GBps
• PnP support

Mini-PCIe

• 52 pin connector
• Supports USB 2.0 communications
• PnP support

ExpressCard

• successor to PC Card
  • ExpressCard34
    • 34 mm width
  • ExpressCard54
    • 54 mm width
• Speeds
  • USB 2.0 Mode = 280 Mbps
  • PCIe 1 mode= 1.6 Gbps
  • PCIe 2 / USB 3 mode(s) = 3.2 Gbps

Legacy

ISA- Industry Standard Architecture
EISA- Extended ISA
AGP- Accelerated Graphic Port
AMR- Audio Modem Riser
CNR- Communications Networking Riser

I hope this helps with some of the concern over specification as well as specifics on common expansion cards. I put Legacy cards at the end for the sake of completeness but do not think they will be on the exam.

Best Regards,

Wes Bryan