hi all,
i recently installed linux for the first time, and in the process found that i dont know much about the actual hardware of a PC
will u please explain the following -
1) what is a pci adapter or a scsi adapter. how are the two different?
2) how can i find the amount of video memory i have, as i no longer have the manuals with me
3) how can i find if my cd drive (creative 52x) is 'atapi' or not..what is this 'atapi' by the way?
4) on the motherboard, i found 2 switches which were labelled as 'jumper settings' what are these two used for?
thanks a *lot* and regards, mayuresh kulkarni.
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger http://phonecard.yahoo.com/
--- Mayuresh Kulkarni mayureshkulkarni79@yahoo.com wrote:
will u please explain the following -
- what is a pci adapter or a scsi adapter. how are
the two different?
Your PC (if it is >= Pentium, as well as a few 486's) is built around a PCI bus. PCI stands for Peripheral Interconnect (don't know how that fits into the acronym). A bus is (very simplistically) basically the backbone of a computer, which inetrconnects the different parts of the computer such as the CPU, RAM, disks, etc. It also carries power to the different components of the computer.
The PC has had several buses through its history. The original bus designed by IBM was later called the ISA bus (ISA - Industry Standard Architecture). This later evolved into the EISA (E-Extended) as microprocessors became 32 bit. IBM also introduced a proprietary bus architecture called Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) which died a quick and unlamented death because it was a closed standard.
SCSI stands for Small Computer System Interface, and is a kind of local bus designed to interface storage devices such as disk drives, tape drives etc. to the computer. SCSI subsystems connect to a PCI bus through a SCSI adapter which plugs into a PCI expansion slot on your PCI bus. Most PCs do not in fact ship with SCSI hard disks, unless they are high end workstations such as the HP Kayak. SCSI is generally not used for home PCs.
- how can i find the amount of video memory i have,
as i no longer have the manuals with me
- how can i find if my cd drive (creative 52x) is
'atapi' or not..what is this 'atapi' by the way?
The Creative 52x is an ATAPI drive. ATAPI is a disk drive standard.
- on the motherboard, i found 2 switches which were
labelled as 'jumper settings' what are these two used for?
Don't touch them unless you know what you're doing! Do you have the mobo manufacturer's manual?
HTH,
Krishnan
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger http://phonecard.yahoo.com/
Sometime on Jul 28, S. Krishnan assembled some asciibets to say:
Your PC (if it is >= Pentium, as well as a few 486's) is built around a PCI bus. PCI stands for Peripheral Interconnect (don't know how that fits into the
Peripheral Component Interconnect. It is the interface between peripherals and on board components.
microprocessors became 32 bit. IBM also introduced a proprietary bus architecture called Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) which died a quick and unlamented
There was also VESA for video adapters - Video Enhanced Standard Architecture. Today. when we say ISA, we really mean EISA, and in some cases EISA with a VESA bus. The P7 architecture has AGP instead.
Hi There,
- what is a pci adapter or a scsi adapter. how are
the two different?
Ah, If u want to know them technically - u can refer SN Mali - Both are covered :) (4th year portion of Comp. Engg. guys :) But I guess, simply put they are this - Every device, connected to the computer has to communicate to the cpu and vice versa. Sometimes, It even has to access the harddisk or do some Direct Mem. access etc... Now, for this data/code transfer, it is necessary to have relevant control signals and here come various types of adapters like ISA, PCI, SCSI (AGP is also there - but just for video cards). Various devices are present on these adapters. for ex. I have a ESS sound card on a ISA bus and a SiS video card on my PCI bus. SCSI adapters are used for harddisks, cdroms etc. They offer faster speeds than the current IDE interface for HDD... BTW, These are all called bus interfaces.
- how can i find the amount of video memory i have,
as i no longer have the manuals with me
When u initially boot ur system - u will see something about ur card written on the screen -It is the very first thing that comes on ur screen, when u switch the PC on. (even b4 ur ram count) . that will also show how much amout of vram u have... And how old is ur system?? If it is a recent one, and u have an AGP card, u can safely put 4 MB :)
- how can i find if my cd drive (creative 52x) is
'atapi' or not..what is this 'atapi' by the way?
It will be there in ur BIOS setup - press the "del " key while booting the system...
- on the motherboard, i found 2 switches which were
labelled as 'jumper settings' what are these two used for?
U will have to read ur motherboard manual. Generally, they are for auto-jumper and clear CMOS Bye, SP Without Pine, Life is a Pain
--- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.Using AVG antivirus Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.265 / Virus Database: 137 - Release Date: 7/18/01
_________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
-
Kompalli SuryaPrakash -
Mayuresh Kulkarni -
Philip S Tellis -
S. Krishnan