Maintenance Toolkit

The A+ Practical Application exam (220-702) covers the basic toolkit. It contains Phillips and flat-head screwdrivers and hex and torx drivers. A basic five-in-one screwdriver has most of what you need. That said, be careful with this type of screwdriver because most of them come with a magnet that should not be used inside of computers.

The basic kit also includes some seldom-if-ever-used tools such as a three-prong reach tool to grab fallen screws or jumpers. A hemostat is a fancy name for long tweezers that close and lock. Typically, these are used in surgery, not computer repair. The integrated circuit (IC) puller removes old BIOS chips. Modern ones are EEPROM (erasable programmable read-only memory), nonremovable chips. The fix is a flash update rather than an IC puller. In the unlikely event you need to use the IC puller, be sure that the new BIOS chip is oriented correctly. Unlike the CPU that has a missing pin or some other keyed method, BIOS chips have a half circle on one end that needs to correspond with a similar shape printed on the motherboard.