UPGRADING REPAIRING PCs

Note
Glossary of Essential Terms 5
For other conversion and reference tables, see the Technical
Reference (found on the CD-ROM) of Upgrading and Repairing
PCs, Twelfth Edition.
Glossary of Essential Terms
Table 1.3 Terms and Their Definitions
Term Definition
ACPI Advanced configuration and power interface; power management for
all types of computer devices.
AGP Accelerated graphics port; a fast dedicated slot interface between the
video adapter or chipset and the motherboard chipset North Bridge;
developed by Intel. AGP is 32 bits wide; runs at 66MHz; and can transfer
1, 2, or 4 bits per cycle (1x, 2x, and 4x modes).
APM Advanced power management; power management for hard drives
and monitors.
ATAPI AT attachment-packet interface; modified version of IDE that supports
removable media and optical drives that use software drivers. Can
coexist on the same cable with IDE hard drives.
Beep code A series of one or more beeps used by the system BIOS to report
errors. Beep codes vary by BIOS brand and version.
BIOS Basic input/output system; a chip on the system board that controls
essential devices, such as the keyboard, basic video display, floppy and
hard drives, and memory.
Cluster Also called allocation unit; the minimum disk space actually used by a
file when it is stored; this size increases with larger drives due to the
limitations of the FAT size.
Color depth How many colors a video card can display at a given resolution; the
higher the resolution, the more RAM required to display a given color
depth.
COM Communication port; also called serial port.
Combo slot Also called shared slot; a pair of slots that share a single card bracket;
only one of the two slots can be used at a time.
Compact flash A type of flash memory device.
CPU Central processing unit; the “brains” of a computer.
CRT Cathode-ray tube; conventional TV-like picture tube display technology
used on most desktop monitors.
Data bus The connection that transmits data between the processor and the rest
of the system. The width of the data bus defines the number of data
bits that can be moved in to or out of the processor in one cycle.
DCC Direct cable connection; Windows 9x/Me/2000 program that enables
computers to link up through parallel or serial ports; Windows NT 4.0
supports serial port linkups only.