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CompTIA A+ Certification All-in-One Exam Guide

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erased every time you turned off the computer. You need some type of

permanent program storage device that does not depend on other peripherals

to work. And you need that storage device to sit on the motherboard.

ROM

Motherboards store the keyboard controller support programming, among

other programs, on a special type of device called a read-only memory

(ROM) chip. A ROM chip stores programs, services, exactly like RAM.

ROM differs from RAM in two important ways. First, ROM chips are

nonvolatile, meaning that the information stored on ROM isn’t erased when

the computer is turned off. Second, traditional ROM chips are read-only,

meaning that once you store a program on one, you can’t change it.

Motherboards use a type of ROM called flash ROM, the same stuff that

stores your data in your smartphone or SSD. That is why we call updating the

BIOS firmware, “flashing the BIOS,” which we will cover later in this

chapter. Figure 5-10 shows a typical flash ROM chip on a motherboard.

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