A+ Certification

Understanding the Motherboard This section prepares you to meet the exam objective of identifying popular motherboards and their components, architecture, and compatibilities. I can’t overemphasize the importance of this material for t...

Riding the BusPart of understanding the operation of the motherboard is understanding its bus structure. Most of the motherboard exam questions are about bus architectures. This section provides you with a brief overview of the bus structures...

Motherboard Sizes, Shapes, and StylesAlthough the blueprint of the A+ Core Hardware exam lists only the AT, Baby AT, and ATX form factors, don’t be surprised by references on the exam to other form factors. For that reason, you should r...

Stacking Up the ChipsetsThe bus structures and interfaces supported by the motherboard and CPU are controlled by functions included on the chipset. The chipset is a group of chips that together help the processor and other peripheral devices ...

Caching In on a Good ThingExpect questions on the A+ Core Hardware exam about cache memory, which is a motherboard component. Understand why it exists, what it is, its limitations, and how and when it is used. A mystery of the PC is that nea...

Upgrading the MotherboardIf your PC isn’t as fast or as powerful as you’d like, you can either get a new PC or upgrade its motherboard and/or its components. Depending on the upgrade you want, upgrading the motherboard or the comp...

The Motherboard Prep Test Which of the following is not a common name for the primary printed circuit board in a PC? Mainboard Motherboard Planar board Systemboard Which of the following are common mothe...