CompTIA A+ Certification Overview

A+ Hardware Service Exam: The Essentials

The CompTIA A+ Certification is awarded to individuals who pass the A+ Core Hardware Service techni-
cian exam and the A+ Operating System technologies exam. The CompTIA A+ certification validates the
knowledge of an entry level technician and has no prerequisites.
There are six primary areas the A+ Core Hardware Service technician exam tests:
1.0 Installation, Configuration and Upgrading 35%
2.0 Diagnosing and Troubleshooting 21% Did you know?
3.0 Preventive Maintenance 5%
4.0 Motherboard/Processors/Memory 11% There are over 500,000 A+
5.0 Printers 9% certified technicians!
6.0 Basic Networking 19%
This guide provides essential information for passing the exam. Other study materials and practice tests
provide more structured and full-featured information.
The key to passing the A+ Certification exams is to study the necessary material you need to have
memorized and rely on your experience and common sense for the other questions. The minimum pass-
ing score is a 515 out of 900, or a 57%. The exam is about 80 questions and you have 90 minutes to
complete it. © 2006 ExamPractice.com

A+ Certification Core Hardware Service Technician

• The exam may require you to perform basic component identification. This may come in the form of
a picture-based question where an item is highlighted and it asks you to identify what it is. Review
the image and ensure you know the different parts on a typical motherboard. Example question: In
the image below, the processor is identified by which letter?
• BIOS settings are stored in the CMOS.
• The exam will ask you questions about basic components of
the computer. For example: What computer component stores
the operating system, applications, and data? Hard drive.
• The exam will ask you questions regarding number of hard
drives or IDE devices. Typically, the purpose is for you to know
that the standard for IDE is support for 4 devices. An example
question might be: You have two IDE hard drives, an IDE tape
drive, and an IDE CD-ROM installed in a computer. You want
to add a third hard drive, what will you need to do? Remove
one of the IDE devices to add the hard drive.
• IDE uses a 40-pin connector, there are two connectors on the
motherboard—each supporting two drives. One primary, one
secondary.
• SCSI—drive connector type.
Address
Device
Needs termination on both ends of the
(Hex) chain. External or internal drives.
• IRQ 0: System Timer
00-0F DMA Controller • CD-R standard storage size—700MB. • IRQ 1: Keyboard
• IRQ 2/9: Video Card or cascade to IRQ 9
20-21 Interrupt Controller • You should know your IRQs— • IRQ3:Com2,Com4
40-43 Timer especially available IRQs and COM port • IRQ4:Coml,Com3
• IRQ 5: Available (Normally sound card or LPT2)
IRQs. • IRQ 6: Floppy Disk Controller
1F0-1F8 Hard Disk Controller
•
• IRQ 7: Parallel Port (LPT1)
Become familiar with what DMA is— • IRQ 8: Real-time clock
200-20F Joystick Controller
Direct Memory Access. Typically used by • IRQ 9:/2 Redirected IRQ2
238-23B Bus Mouse HDCs & FDCs (Hard Drive Controllers/ • IRQ 10: Available
• IRQ 11: Available
278-27F LPT2
Floppy Drive Controllers) and NICs. Data • IRQ 12:PS/2Mouse
is passed on the bus directly between • IRQ 13: Math Coprocessor
2E8-2EF COM4 Serial Port memory and device bypassing the proc- • IRQ 14: Hard Disk Controller (HDC)
• IRQ 15: Available (often used for second HDC)
2F8-2FF COM2 Serial Port essor.
300-30F Ethernet Card • Disk file systems: FAT16 (16-bit DOS
and Windows File Allocation Table file system), FAT32 (32-bit version of FAT
330-33F MIDI Port
shipped with Windows 95 OSR2—2TB limit, 4KB cluster), NTFS (Windows
378-37F LPT1 Port NT, 2000, XP, file compression, file security, fault tolerance)
3E8-3EF COM3 Serial Port • Learn the memory addresses on the left. Especially the COM ports!
3F0-3F7 Floppy Disk Controller • CAT 5 Cable Max Length: 100 meters.
3F8-3FF COM1 Serial Port

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A+ Hardware Service Exam: The Essentials A+ Certification Core Hardware Service Technician—Hard Drive Review
IDE—Integrated Drive Electronics EIDE—Enhanced IDE SCSI—Small Computer RAID 0: Striping, min 2
• ATA • Fast ATA Systems Interface drives, better read/write
© 2006 ExamPractice.com
• ATA2 • Fast ATA 2 • Up to 7 devices con- performance, no fault
nected on single bus tolerance
• ATAPI • ATA 3
• Up to 15 devices RAID 1: Mirrored, min 2
- ATA Packet Interface • Ultra ATA connected to a wide drives, fault tolerant
- CD-ROMs
- CD-RWs
• ATA66 bus RAID 5: Striping w/
- DVDs • ATA100 • SCSI host adapter Parity, min 3 drives,
fault tolerant
• ATA 133 on ID7 or ID15

A+ Certification Core Hardware Service Technician—Troubleshooting

One of the tasks CompTIA identifies as important for an A+ certified technician is troubleshooting. CompTIA tests
your knowledge of troubleshooting by providing you problems and asks you what the most likely cause is.
Common Problems: one of the most common issues CompTIA bases test questions on are power issues. Look for NIC
lights and power connections.
Boot Failure: invalid boot disk, inaccessible boot device, missing NTLDR, bad or missing command line interpreter
are all examples of possible boot failures.
Missing Operating System: boot record signature of the master boot record (MBR) does not match a certain value at
a certain location. Possibly also if no active partition is defined in the partition table.
Non-system Disk or Disk Error: generated by BIOS when boot sector or MBR of boot drive is damaged or missing.
Also when a non-bootable floppy disk is left in. Eject floppy and reboot.
Boot Error Press F1 to Retry: hard drive is missing a MBR or boot sector or there is a problem accessing drive.
Hard Disk Controller Failure: hard disk has failed or controller cannot communicate with hard drive.
Bad or Missing Command.com: OS unable to find COMMAND.COM. Win 9x, boot with startup disk and type SYS C:
HIMEM.SYS Not Loaded: check CONFIG.SYS and make sure Device=C:\HIMEM.SYS exists.
Bad Motherboard or CPU: characterized by unexplained & random reboots, screen freezes, system locks.

Startup Modes © 2006 ExamPractice.com

Safe Mode: loads system with minimal set of drivers and services for troubleshooting
Safe Mode with command prompt: loads in safe mode, you work with a command prompt only (no GUI)
Safe Mode with Networking: safe mode and loads network drivers
Step-by-Step: starts the PC step-by-step so you can identify the problem

Troubleshooting Resources
You will probably see a question which presents a problem with a computer and asks you to identify the first place
you will go for troubleshooting. Resources to be aware of: user/installation manuals, websites (computer manufactur-
ers, newsgroups, knowledge bases), training materials, phone customer support, email customer support.

Electrostatic Discharge (ESD)

ESD is a well tested topic on the exam. You should be aware that you always need to wear an ESD grounding strap
while working on system components.

Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS)

Battery backup for electronic equipment. Be aware of the terms Surges (steady and abrupt change in voltage), Spikes
(sudden and drastic change in voltage), Sags (quick dip in available voltage), Brownouts (more excessive than sag, not
blackout), Blackout (complete loss of power).
A+ Certification Core Hardware Service Technician—Processors/Memory

Be aware of Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3 cache memory on processors.

Important Memory Terminology: Memory Speed, Parity (simple error checking where each data byte includes a ninth
bit), ECC (error checking and correction, detection in CPU and correction of single bit errors).

A+ Certification Core Hardware Service Technician—Printing

Dot Matrix Printers: fires pins at a ribbon, quality measure by # of pins: 9, 24, or 48 pin. NLQ, near letter quality,
best dot matrix printers can do.
Inkjet Printers: ink cartridge. Printer forces a spray of electrostatic charged droplets of ink onto page. Holes are
called nozzles. Print quality measured in dots per inch (DPI).
Laser Printers: also measured in DPI. Uses toner, static electricity, and heat to apply print.
Laser Printing Process: Cleaning or Preparing—removes any residual toner or debris from drum; Conditioning—
drum gets charged (-600V); Writing (Exposing)—image created on drum, written in different charges (image –100 volt);
Developing—drum spins past toner cartridge where toner particles are attracted to image on drum; Transferring—
+600 volt charge added to paper so paper pulls toner from drum; Fusing—heat and pressure fuse toner to paper.

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