This chapter covers the following subjects:

• The Essential Parts of Any Computer— This section lists the vital components of a PC, for example motherboards, CPUs, video cards, and more. It also shows how to identify those components.

• Points of Failure— In this section you’ll learn about possible issues that could cause the computer to fail; for example overheating, hard drive failure, or loose adapter cards.

• Hardware, Software, and Firmware— This section explains how hardware, software and firmware interact and defines the major types of software and utility programs.

• Working Inside Your PC— This section demonstrates how to assemble/disassemble the computer. It shows how to connect cables, replace components, add adapter cards, and protect your equipment from electrostatic discharge.

• Hardware Resources— In this last section you’ll learn about interrupt requests (IRQs), input/output port addresses, direct memory access channels, and memory addresses, and how each is assigned to the components of your computer.