Dallas Computer Repair

Computer Repair Terms "A"

Dallas Computer Repair Terms A | B | C | D | D Page 2 | E | F | G-H | I | J-K-L

A: Drive- Usually depicts the first, floppy drive in Microsofts's DOS operating system. A computer repair field replaceable unit.

Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP)- A 32-bit video interfaces specification based on the PCI bus design. It provides a dedicated path between the vidio graghics controller and the system memory. The AGP bus was designed to transfer the fast data demands of 3d graphics. A computer repair field replaceable unit.

ACK (ACKnowledge)- A communication code where the receiver tells the transmitter that it is ready to accept data. The signal is continually used to indicate successful data exchange of the last character or block and to request more data.

Active Partition- The logical drive that stores the system files necessary to read at bootup; a term commonly used during computer repair.

Adapter- A physical device that permits one system to connect and work with another. Many of these devices plug into the PCI interface of the expansion slots. These circuit boards are many times referred to as adapter cards. A computer repair field replaceable unit.

Add New Hardware Wizard- The applet in Windows 9x-XP designed to guide installation of non-PnP hardware. Install the hardware before using the Plug-and-Play(PnP) wizard. A term often used during computer repairs when replacing hardware.

Add/Remove Program Wizard- The applet in Windows 9x-XP designed to guide the installation or removal of programs. The program can also be used to to install or remove optional Windows components; commonly used during computer repairs.

Address- A particular location number of a specific memory storage area, like a byte pf primary memor, a disk sector memory or a peripheral device.

Address Bus- A unidirectional path carrying address data from the microprocessor to the many memory and I/O elements of the PC. The size of the bus is determined by the amount of memory that a computer can use and directly indicates the computer's power.

American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII)- A 7-bit binaray data code used in all computers, many minicomputers and in communication services. There are 128 possible character combinations of which the first 32 are used for printing and transmission control. Computers use 8-bit bytes and the extra bit is used for parity checking or for the extended ASCII set of characters that includes foreign language characters and line-draw graphic symbols.

Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC)- A large scale device that replaces a large block of PC circuitry. When an unspecified amount of computer users for a specific device becomes popular, IC manufactures will make a specific device for that particular function. Examples are integrate M I/O controllers, VGA controllers and integrated peripheral controllers. A computer repair field replaceable unit.

Asynchronous Transmission- A method of serial data transmission where the receiving and transmitting system is not synchronized by a common clock signal.

AT Attachment (ATA)- Known as IDE, it is a system-level interface specification that integrates the drive. The first ATA specification supported one or two disks with a 16-bit interface using Programmed I/O (PIO). The newer ATA-2 specs, known as EIDE or Fast ATA, supports a faster PIO and DMA transfer along with logical block addressing (LBA).

AT bus- Referred to as ISA (Industry Standard Architecture) bus, it is a 16-bit data bus introduced in AT class computers that has become the industry standard for 16-bit systems.

ATTRIB- The DOS command that is used to attributes in files; examples are system, read-only and hidden status.

Attribute- See above; it is the properties of DOS files that can be changed with the external command ATTRIB.

ATX Form Factor- A newer system board form factor that reorients the system board 90 degrees making the design form efficient by placing the IDE connectors closer to the the drive bays and positioning the microprocessor in line with the power supply's cooling fan outlet. A defintion needed in the PC repair field by replacing the motherboard with the correct size to fit the case.

AUTOEXEC.BAT- an optional DOS program that at bootup the system's command interpretor uses to carryout custom startup commands.

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