Motherboard Review Exercises

1. Which of the following "bus" controllers must communicate through a VESA Local Bus controller (if it exists) to get to the CPU?
   1. Cache
   2. ISA
   3. System
   4. None of the above

2. Which of the following devices is NOT connected directly to the motherboard?
   1. VESA Local Bus
   2. Hard Disk drive
   3. CPU (microprocessor)
   4. PCI Local Bus

3. Possibly the most important performance factor in an 'expansion' bus on the motherboard is the ________
   1. number of bits the bus transfers.
   2. number of expansion slots available.
   3. clock of the CPU.
   4. None of the above

4. Motherboards with multiple CPU sockets are probably best used with
   1. network servers.
   2. MMX applications.
   3. games and graphics applications.
   4. electronic mail.

5. "Modern" (1997) motherboards are beginning to drop which of the following expansion bus architecture?
   1. VESA Local Bus
   2. EISA bus.
   3. PCI bus.
   4. ISA bus.

6. A motherboard
   1. contains all major components of a "computing system".
   2. connects all components of a computer system.
   3. must have a large number of expansion slots.
   4. must have an IDE controller and connectors.

7. The two primary reasons for purchasing a new motherboard are probably
   1. memory and clock speed.
   2. BIOS and ISA Bus.
   3. Slow storage devices and capacity.
   4. Memory and graphics adaptor.

8. A motherboard that was originally equipped with memory slots for 72-pin SIMM chips can be upgraded to accept DIMM chips by ...
   1. getting a new BIOS that recognizes the DIMM chips.
   2. getting a new expanded memory board card.
   3. purchasing a new CPU accelerator.
   4. it cannot be done because the memory bank slots cannot be changed.

9. The ROM BIOS chip on the motherboard must be:
   1. reprogrammable to be effective over time of years.
   2. of a PROM, EPROM, or EEPROM type.
   3. addressable for booting your PC.
   4. All of the above.

10. The "chip set" specified for the CPU
    1. will work on any motherboard with any CPU for which the motherboard is "pinned".
    2. is usually specified by the CPU manufacturer to support their CPU.
    3. is irrelevant if the motherboard has a VESA Local Bus.
    4. must recognize an ISA bus.

11. The most efficient "L2" cache is
    1. SRAM located between RAM and L1 cache.
    2. DRAM.
    3. integrated in the CPU.
    4. EDO RAM.

12. PCs with EDO RAM memory slots
    1. can have that replaced with Synchronous DRAM (SDRAM).
    2. cannot change RAM types.
    3. can be changed to FPM memory.
    4. can't have a programmable BIOS if it is Flash ROM.

13. Motherboards which have their expansion bus, local buses, etc. which can have different speed boards usually have a
    1. 'bus' clock to provide a reference frequency to expansion boards.
    2. system clock to control the bus.
    3. controller to match the number of bits to the expansion bus.
    4. none of the above.

14. Motherboards that have the greatest promise for device attachment, are those with a ____________ bus interface.
    1. PCI
    2. ISA
    3. USB
    4. EISA

15. Which of the following motherboard components have been literally phased out by including it as part of the CPU (microprocessor)?
    1. Cache Memory
    2. Math Co-processor
    3. expansion slots
    4. mass storage interface