Get ready to roll up your sleeves and dive inside your personal computer! The CompTIA A+ Certification Prep 1: Hardware course is the first of three CompTIA courses you will need to take to successfully prepare for your A+ certification. It teaches you about the hardware common to nearly every personal computer, including microprocessors, RAM, power supplies, motherboards, UEFI/BIOS, the system setup utility, the expansion bus, and input/output devices.
Throughout our CompTIA A+ prep course, you will learn techniques every tech masters for building and troubleshooting all sorts of computers, plus get the inside scoop on how techs work within the enterprise. This computer hardware course also gives you the base knowledge needed to continue your CompTIA A+ certification studies for the 220-1101 and 220-1102 exams.
Mike Meyers, also known as the "Alpha Geek," is widely recognized as the leading authority on CompTIA Certifications in the industry. He co-founded Total Seminars, LLC and National Cyber Group, LLC, and has been providing PC and network repair seminars, books, videos, and courseware to thousands of organizations worldwide. With his extensive experience in the computer and network repair industry since 1987, Mike has worked as a technician, instructor, author, consultant, and speaker.
Mike is the author of several popular PC books and videos, including the best-selling CompTIA A+ Certification All-in-One Exam Guide and CompTIA Network+ Certification All-in-One Exam Guide. He also serves as the series editor for the highly successful Mike Meyers' Certification Passport series and the Mike Meyers' Guide to series. Mike has sold over a million IT and certification books.
The instructional materials required for this course are included in enrollment and will be available online.
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Lesson 1
The Art of the Tech
The first lesson introduces the course and the CompTIA A+ certification. Get familiar with the how the components of a personal computer work together and how tech professional interact with clients. Finish with a tried-and-true troubleshooting methodology that applies to all tech situations.
The Visible Computer
Take a tour of the PC, starting with the exterior connectors. This lesson goes into details of the interior devices as well. The goal is to understand proper tech terminology and standard computer components.
Maintenance and Safety Precautions
Dive into the important safety techniques that every good tech absolutely needs to know. These techniques range from cleaning a computer to disposing of old parts safely.
Central Processing Units
Explore the importance of central processing units, the core processing component in every PC. You will learn the variations in technology, practical information and practice installing and troubleshooting CPUs.
RAM
Dig into the details of a foundational computer component—RAM. You will learn about the different varieties of RAM and proper techniques for installing it. Then, wrap up the lesson by troubleshooting RAM and memory problems.
BIOS/UEFI
This lesson focuses on the BIOS or UEFI, essential programming that makes computers function. You will learn about the special tools used for storing configuration options for BIOS and UEFI.
Motherboards and Cases
This lesson is all about motherboards, the bedrock of every PC. You'll learn about form factors, types of expansion slots, and installation steps for expansion cards. The lesson also covers upgrading, installing, and troubleshooting motherboards.
Powering the PC
This lesson focuses on power supplies and the basics of powering a PC. You will learn about how electricity gets from your wall outlet into your PC, along with how to test that electricity. The goal is to understand power supply standards, how to install one inside your PC, and how to troubleshoot power supply problems.
Input Devices
Get to know the devices that enable you to input data into your computer. This lesson explores standard input devices (like keyboards and mice) and multimedia devices (like digital cameras and webcams). You will also learn about connecting those devices to computer using connectors like USB and FireWire.
Hard Drive Technologies
Dig into hard drive technologies, including traditional hard disk drives and modern solid-state drives. In this lesson, you will learn the fundamentals of protecting data with RAID technology. The goal is to understand how to install hard drives and how to troubleshoot bad drives.
Implementing Hard Drives
This lesson will teach you how to prepare a hard drive for use by an operating system. You will also learn about maintaining your data using several included Windows utilities and partitioning and formatting a hard drive.
Removable Media
To wrap up the course, you will learn about the various forms of removable media. This final lesson teaches you about older formats like tape drives, flash media like USB thumb drives and memory cards, and about optical media like DVDs, Blu-ray Discs, and external drives.
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