The Concept Of Computer Repair Information Technology Essay

In todays fast paced business environment, everyone depends on their computers to run in a reliable and efficient way. Therefore, cost effective and professional computer repair technicians are essential for any company in order to maintain all the equipment up-to-date and running efficiently. Nowadays, a grat deal of PCs running any version of Windows need frequent maintenance and updating, especially if connected to an always-on broadband connection. New vulnerabilities are always found and patched. Keeping your computer up-to-date with service packs and critical updates should be a priority to any computer user, as well as, preventive maintenance is one of the most ignored aspects of PC ownership. Most people seem to think that the PC doesn’t need preventive maintenance, and so you should just use it until it breaks, and then repair or replace it. These people generally find themselves repairing or replacing much sooner than those that take definite steps to avoid difficulties in the first place.

How Computer Hardware and Software Work Together

How does computer software and hardware work together? This is kind of a complex question. I think the most important thing connecting software and hardware would probably be the register. Commands or services requested by the software are encoded into binary values of 0’s and 1’s and are written into a register. For example, some register may hold a value of “01101100”. This encoding has a total of 8 bits. Each value of either 0 or 1 is called a bit, and 8 bits are called a byte. At the hardware level, the computer hardware does not see these 0’s and 1’s as numbers, but as voltage levels. For example, a high voltage of 3 volts may represent a 1 and a low voltage of near 0 volts may represent a 0. These high and low voltages are fed into a series of logic gates which then, through the correct logic design, will go about with producing the results needed by that particular software command. For example, if the software is requesting a calculation, the hardware logic gates may add the first two bits of the encoding together, produce a result of 1 (0+1 = 1), and then write this result into another register somewhere for the software to go fetch and read. Or, if the encoding is a request for some kind of service, the logic gates may in turn access or write into some other registers which would trigger other logic gates to initiate this service. But again, this is a very complex process with many variations depending on what kind of technologies the designers of the system choose to use.

Based on this principle of correlation between software and hardware I will try to explain their relationship as follows:

Basic Computer Hardware And Software

The Basic Computer Hardware

Central Processing Unit:

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The central unit is the basic part of the computer and includes all the main computer parts. It is the heart of the computer system. It is responsible for executing, or running the software. The software programs are translated into a series of codes made up of 1s to 0s that the CPU can understand. Every code means a certain operation should take place.

A CPU has various discrete units to help it in these tasks for example there is an arithmetic and logic unit(ALU) that takes care of all the math and logical data comparisons that need to performed. A control register makes sure everything happens in the right sequence. The motherboard is the main circuit board inside the PC. All other components are either slotted into or soldered to this board.

Microprocessors:

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Microprocessors are different to one another according to the manufacturer and technical specifications. The most important technical specifications of microprocessor are the type and processing speed. The type of microprocessor is defined by the internal structure and basic features .The microprocessors communicate with the rest of the system by means of buses. Buses are sets of parallel electronic conductors set of wires or tracks on the circuit board.

Motherboard:

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The motherboard is a printed circuit board (PCB) that contains and controls the components that are responsible for processing data. The motherboard contains the CPU, memory, and basic controllers for the system. Motherboards are often sold with a CPU. The motherboard has a Real-time clock (RTC), ROM BIOS, CMOS RAM, RAM sockets; bus slots for attaching devices to a bus, CPU socket or slot, cache RAM slot or sockets, jumpers, keyboard controller. It is also known as: Main Board because it is the main component in your computer. Everything plugs into it.

System Board: Just like the Main Board but all its chips are permanently installed. You can’t upgrade these.

Daughter Board:

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It’s an expansion board that supports the addition of spots for adapters.

Processor: It controls the speed and performance of your computer. It processes the commands from your operating system and sends the proper info to each section.

Fans: Keeps the computer from overheating.

Memory:

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When you have programs running memory is being used up it keeps things running.

Ports: There for connecting external drives into your computer, like your game controller, mouse, keyboard and etc. Parallel, Serial and U.S.B are all kind of ports.

Power Supply: It powers all your devices.

Sound card: Gives your computer sound.

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Monitor: The computer outputs information to the monitor so you can see it.

Case: Keeps your computer safe and gives it a clean environment.

Printer: It puts what you see on the monitor on paper.

Hard Drive: Keeps the information on your computer.

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Floppy Drive: It reads and writes on a floppy disk so that you can put the stuff you put on it to another computer.

CD Rom: Just like the floppy except it carries way more and works faster.

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Operating System: All that do with your computer is making codes that do things. The operating system makes those into a language you can understand.

Development of Computers and Technology

Computers in some form are in almost everything these days. From toasters to televisions, just about all electronic things has some form of processor in them. This is a very large change from the way it used to be, when a computer that would take up an entire room and weighed tons of pounds has the same amount of power as a scientific calculator. The changes that computers have undergone in the last 40 years have been colossal. So many things have changed from the ENIAC that had very little power, and broke down once every 15 minutes and took another 15 minutes to repair, to our Pentium Pro 200’s, and the powerful Silicon Graphics Workstations, the core of the machine has stayed basically the same. The only thing that has really changed in the processor is the speed that it translates commands from 1’s and 0’s to data that actually means something to a normal computer user. Just in the last few years, computers have undergone major changes. PC users came from using MS-DOS and Windows 3.1, to Windows 95, to Windows 98, Windows Vista, and finally Windows7;a whole new operating system. Computer speeds have taken a huge increase as well, in 1995 when a normal computer was a 486 computer running at 33 MHz, to 1997 where a blazing fast Pentium (AKA 586) running at 200 MHz plus. The next generation of processors is slated to come out this year as well, being the next CPU from Intel, code named Merced, running at 233 MHz, and up. Another major innovation has been the Internet. This is a massive change to not only the computer world, but to the entire world as well.

The Internet has many different facets, ranging from newsgroups, where you can choose almost any topic to discuss with a range of many other people, from university professors, to professionals of the field of your choice, to the average person, to IRC, where you can chat in real time to other people around the world.

Finally, it is important to remark the priority that computer maintenance and repair should be for any company or business. I would also like to mention that the correlation that exists with software and hardware is essential in order to comprehend the correct functioning of any computer.