IT142 ICT WORKSHOP 17IT043

Assignment – 4

Chapter 4 : Power supply & Storage Devices, Assembling the computer system

Q.1 What is SMPS and stabilizer? Explain different phase of SMPS?

Answer:
 SMPS means Switch Mode Power Supply. This is mainly used for AC to DC conversion. This works
on the principle of switching regulation. It transfers power from a source, to a load, while
converting voltage and current characteristics.
 Stabilizer contains electromagnetic or electrical components to regulate one or more AC or DC
voltages. This is a one kind of function which can maintain a constant voltage level. The main
purpose of Voltage Stabilizer is to maintain an output that is close to the normal mains voltage as
possible, under conditions of fluctuation.
 Phases of SMPS:-
1. 1.Input rectifier Stage: It is used to convert an AC input to DC. A SMPS with dc input does not
require this stage. The rectifier unregulated dc which is then passed through the filter circuit.
2. Inverter Stage:The Inverter stage is converts DC, whether directly from the input or from the
rectifier stage described above, to AC by running it through a power oscillator.
3. Output Transformer: If the output required is to be isolated from input then it converts the
voltage up or down to the required output level on it’s secondary winding.
4. Output Rectifier: If the DC output is required, the AC output from the transformer is rectified.
5. Regulation: Feedback circuit monitors the output voltage and compares it with the reference
voltage.

Q.2 Explain the working of SMPS and UPS with diagram?

Answer:
SMPS:-

Input as AC/DC current pass through rectifier, In Rectifier , if voltage is AC then converted into DC
else this stage is not required. After that, Inverter converts DC to AC by running it through a power
oscillator. Then, Transformer do voltage up/down as per requirement. In output rectifier , if the DC
output is required, the AC output from the transformer is rectified. Then We got an output voltage but

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there is an inverter controller which control the output voltage compare of reference voltage during
whole process.

UPS:-

Uninterruptible power supply (UPS) or battery backup, is used to provide a backup power source to
important desktop computer hardware components.

UPS is a device that allows your computer to keep running for at least a short time when the primary
power source is lost.

A UPS differs from an auxiliary or emergency power system or standby generator in that it will provide
instantaneous or near-instantaneous protection from input power interruptions by means of one or more
attached batteries and associated electronic circuitry for low power users, and or by means of diesel
generators and flywheels for high power users. The on-battery runtime of most uninterruptible power
sources is relatively short

5–15 minutes being typical for smaller units—but sufficient to allow time to bring an auxiliary power
source on line, or to properly shut down the protected equipment.

While not limited to protecting any particular type of equipment, a UPS is typically used to protect
computers, data centers, telecommunication equipment or other electrical equipment where an
unexpected power disruption could cause injuries, fatalities, serious business disruption and/or data loss.

Q.3 Write down difference between USB 1.0, USB 1.1, USB 2.0, USB 3.0, USB 3.1 and USB type c.

Answer:
A. USB means Universal Serial Bus. A protocol for transferring data to and from digital devices.

USB 1.0/1.1 can transmit data at speeds up to 12 Mbps.

USB 2.0 can transmit data at speeds up to 480 Mbps and is compatible with older versions of USB.
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USB 3.0 can transmit data at speeds up to 4.8 Gbps. It is compatible with previous versions of USB.

USB 3.1 can transmit data at speeds up to 10 Gbps easily. It is also compatible or not with previous
versions of USB due to expense and some extra basic features.

Q.4 What is motherboard? Functional Block diagram of Motherboard.

Answer:
It is a Printed Circuit Board (PCB) where all the components of a system are connected.

The Central Processing Unit (CPU), hard drives, memory and every other part of a system is connected
to the motherboard by means of slots, connectors and sockets.

The motherboard chipset is a series of chips that are a part of the motherboard.

Diagram:

Q5. What are typical functions motherboard? What is form factor of motherboard?

Ans:
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Some of the typical functions of a computer motherboard are as follows:

- The motherboard acts as the central backbone of a computer on which other modular parts are
installed such as the CPU, RAM and hard disks.

- The motherboard also acts as the platform on which various expansion slots are available to install
other devices / interfaces.

- The motherboard is also responsible to distribute power to the various components of the computer.

- They are also used in the coordination of the various devices in the computer and maintain an interface
among them.

Some of the Sizes in which the motherboards are available are : BTX, ATX, mini-ATX, micro-ATX, mini-
ITX etc.

The shape and layout of a motherboard is called the form factor. The form factor affects where
individual components go and the shape of the computer's case. There are several specific form factors
that most PC motherboards use so that they can all fit in standard cases.

 The socket for the microprocessor determines what kind of Central Processing Unit (CPU) the
motherboard uses.
 The chipset is part of the motherboard's logic system and is usually made of two parts – the
north bridge and the south bridge. These two "bridges" connect the CPU to other parts of the
computer.
 The Basic Input / Output System(BIOS) chip controls the most basic functions of the computer
and performs a self-test every time you turn it on. Some systems feature dual BIOS, which
provides a backup in case one fails or in case of error during updating.

Q.6 What is south bridge and north bridge? Which are the components connected with south bridge
and north bridge?

Answer:
North Bridge:

The north bridge typically handles communications among the CPU, in some cases RAM, and PCI Express
(or AGP) video cards, and the south bridge. Some north bridges also contain integrated video controllers,
also known as a Graphics and Memory Controller Hub (GMCH) in Intel systems. Because different
processors and RAM require different signaling, a given north bridge will typically work with only one or
two classes of CPUs and generally only one type of RAM.

There are a few chipsets that support two types of RAM (generally these are available when there is a
shift to a new standard). For example, the north bridge from the Nvidia nForce2 chipset will only work
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with Socket A processors combined with DDR SDRAM; the Intel i875 chipset will only work with systems
using Pentium 4 processors or Celeron processors that have a clock speed greater than 1.3 GHz and
utilize DDR SDRAM, and

the Intel i915g chipset only works with the Intel Pentium 4 and the Celeron, but it can use DDR or DDR2
memory.

South Bridge:

A south bridge chipset handles all of a computer's I/O functions, such as USB, audio, serial, the system
BIOS,

the ISA bus, the interrupt controller and the IDE channels. Different combinations of Southbridge and
Northbridge chips are possible, but these two kinds of chips must be designed to work together; there is
no industry-wide standard for interoperability between different core logic chipset designs.
Traditionally, the interface between a north bridge and south bridge was the PCI bus. The main bridging
interfaces used now are DMI (Intel) and UMI(AMD).

Q.7 Compare SSD and HDD. Why SSD are Faster? List down advantages of SSD over HDD.

Answer:
A solid state drive or SSD can speed up the performance of a computer significantly, often more
than what a faster processor (CPU) or RAM can. A hard disk drive or HDD is cheaper and offers more
storage (500 GB to 1 TB are common) while SSD disks are more expensive and generally available in 64
GB to 256 GB configurations.

Characteristics HDD SSD

Stands for Hard Disk Drive Solid State Drive

Speed HDD has higher latency,
SSD has lower latency,
longer read/write times,
faster read/writes, and
and supports fewer IOPs
supports more IOPs (input
(input output operations
output operations per
per second) compared to
second) compared to HDD.
SSD.
Since no such rotation is
Hard disk drives use more
needed in solid state
electricity to rotate the
Heat, Electricity, Noise drives, they use less power
platters, generating heat
and do not generate heat
and noise.
or noise.
The performance of HDD SSD drive performance is
drives worsens due to not impacted by
Defragmentation
fragmentation; therefore, fragmentation. So
they need to be periodically defragmentation is not
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defragmented.
Weight
HDDs are heavier than
SSD drives.
Components HDD contains moving parts
- a motor-driven spindle
that holds one or more flat
circular disks (called
platters) coated with a thin
layer of magnetic material.
Read-and-write heads are
positioned on top of the
disks; all this is encased in
a metal cas
Dealing with vibration The moving parts of HDDs
make them susceptible to
crashes and damage due to
vibration.
necessary.
SSD drives are lighter than
HDD drives because they
do not have the rotating
disks, spindle and motor.
SSD has no moving parts; it
is essentially a memory
chip. It is interconnected,
integrated circuits (ICs)
with an interface
connector. There are three
basic components -
controller, cache and
capacitor.
SSD drives can withstand
vibration up to 2000Hz,
which is much more than
HDD.

Speed

HDD disks use spinning platters of magnetic drives and read/write heads for operation. So start-up
speed is slower for HDDs than SSDs because a spin-up for the disk is needed. Intel claims their SSD is 8
times faster than an HDD, thereby offering faster boot up time.

Q.9 What is the cause of delay in HDD?

Answer:

1) Firmware or Manufacturer Faults:

This problem occurs mainly with the brand new hard disk which prevents it from working properly. It can
happen even after few days of purchasing and there are chances that manufacturer had delivered the
faulty disk. These types of hard disks are delivered to the customer without testing.

2) Heat:

This is the most common cause among all the hard drive failure causes and occurs too frequently. Due to
improper ventilation or faulty CPU fan, a system would heat to the peak point and leads to the sudden
hard disk crash or severe damage to the computer hardware which is irreversible.

3) Electronic Failure or Power Surges:

The UPS may not be able to deliver the required power supply, either too high or too low. It can also
occur due to the use of unreliable power source that delivers interrupted power supply.
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4) Mechanical or Internal failure:

This error happens internally into the hard disk due to of bad sectors and blocks, spindle motor stops
functioning, PCB board itself is damaged and read/write head may become immovable.

5) Corrupted Files:

Unethical way to shut down the PC, accidentally close running programs, use of malicious or faulty
applications, power surges are the factors which contributes towards system file corruption and make
the hard disk unstable or stops functioning properly.

Q10. Compare Optical and Magnetic disc.

Answer:

The key difference between optical storage media, such as CDs and DVDs, and magnetic storage media,
such as hard drives and old-fashioned floppy disks, is in how computers read and write information to
them. One uses light; the other, electromagnetism.

 Significance
 Computers are binary, meaning that for them to understand information, it has to be boiled down
to a series of digits, each of which is a 1 or a 0. Storage media use different methods of
representing those digits.

 Storage
 Magnetic storage uses disks coated with a magnetic material. Each tiny bit of the disk carries a
magnetic charge; the direction of that charge determines whether it represents a 1 or a 0.
Optical storage, meanwhile, uses disks made of reflective material; how each bit reflects light–or
doesn't reflect it–determines whether it's a 1 or a 0.

 Access
 Magnetic storage devices use "read/write heads," electromagnets that detect (read) or change
(write) the magnetization patterns on the disk. Optical storage devices use lasers to read the
reflections in the disk or "burn" the data pattern into the disks.

 Advantages
 In general, it's faster and easier to write data to magnetic storage media. However, data stored
on optical media tends to be more durable.

Q.11 Random Access Vs. Sequential Access Device. Also name devices.

Answer:

Comparing random versus sequential operations is one way of assessing application efficiency in terms of

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disk use. Accessing data sequentially is much faster than accessing it randomly because of the way in
which the disk hardware works. The seek operation, which occurs when the disk head positions itself at
the right disk cylinder to access data requested, takes more time than any other part of the I/O
process. Because reading randomly involves a higher number of seek operations than does sequential
reading, random reads deliver a lower rate of throughput. The same is true for random writing.

Random Access Example:-

Computer’s Internal RAM and disk Storage devices.

Sequential Access Example:-

Magnetic Tape.

Q12. How information is being read or written to optical Disc?

Answer:
-How Data is Written

A laser beam burns and etches pits into the surface of the disc. This is basically the process of putting
down information onto the disc. The way that this is done specifically is through the making of Lands
(smooth and level areas), and Pits (recessed areas) on the surface of the optical disc. A Land makes up a 1
in the binary system while a Pit makes up a 0.

-How Data is Read

There is also a laser beam that reads these bits for the drive. This laser beam distinguishes between the
pits and the lands by the amount of deflection or scattering that occurs when it hits the surface.

-What happens when Data is Read

Data is laid out on a optical discs as one continuous spiral of sectors of equal lengths and amounts of data
that can be held. Optical Drives use variable speeds depending on the type of data being read. The disc
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spins faster when the read-write head is near the centre of the disc so that it can keep a constant linear
velocity in order to read each sector on a spiral. CDs playing audio data spin at the slowest rates.
Because of the want to not have choppy videos the drivers were changed to double speed, quad speed
and so on. Currently CD Drives with 52x and 56x, which basically means how many times it is faster than
a regular audio drive, is not uncommon.

Q13. Write down the steps of how to assemble the computer system.

Answer:
Step:1

Prepare the Mainboard (motherboard)

Step:2

Mount the CPU in the socket of the Mainboard.

Step:3

Connect the CPU cooler to the Mainboard.

Step:4

Attach the RAM(memory) modules in the corresponding slots.

Step:5

Open the case and mount the power supply which is M-ATX (Micro Advanced Technology Extended) type.

Step:6

Attach the Mainboard back plate to the case and check the Mainboard mounting positions.

Step:7

Suitably position the Mainboard in the case.

Step:8

Suitably position the Mainboard in the case.

Step:9

Connect the 20 or 24 pin ATX connector and the 4-pin power supply control connector to the
motherboard

Step:10

Mount the DVD-ROM drive.

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Step:11

Finally, select a compatible operating system, and follow the instructions to install.

Q.14 What are the different computer cables? Explain cables with its functionality.

Answer:

1) If you look on any video card or display apparatus, there is a good chance you’ll see a VGA port.VGA
connections can be identified by 15 pins arranged in 3 rows with 5 on each row. Each row corresponds to
the 3 different colour channels used in display: red, green, and blue.

2) DVI-A can transmit analog signals, allowing it to be backwards compatible with VGA (useful for CRT
monitors and LCDs of lower quality).

 DVI-D can transmit the newer digital signals.

 DVI-I is capable of both analog and digital.
 In certain cases, you may need a VGA-to-DVI or DVI-to-VGA converter cable.

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3) High-definition broadcasts became the new standard of what it means to be high quality. Unlike VGA
and DVI, HDMI sends both video and audio signals together. The signals are digital only; thus, HDMI is
only compatible with newer devices.

4) The USB connection is quite possibly the most pervasive connection type in today’s world. Nearly every
form of computer peripheral device — keyboards, mice, headsets, flash drives, wireless adapters, etc. —
can be connected to your computer through a USB port. The design has evolved over the years, which
means there are multiple versions of USB available:

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