LCD Screen
LCD screens have evolved since the early laptops with a monochrome screen to ones of vibrant color and high resolution. Newer (high end) laptops ditch LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) in favor of newer low power LED screens, but you only need to know about LCD for the A+ certification exams.
As a popular choice for desktops and laptops, support for LCD monitors has become ubiquitous in IT support departments.
For the exam, you should be aware of two types of color LCD screen technologies: active matrix and passive matrix.
Active Matrix: Active Matrix displays use at least one transistor per pixel on the screen. This allows the electrical charge per pixel be held longer and provides vibrant and fast LCD screens. Active Matrix is also known as a Thin Film Transistor (TFT) display.
Passive Matrix: Passive Matrix monitors have one transistor per horizontal row and one per vertical column on the display. The monitor sends an electrical signal across one row and down one column, where they intersect, it displays a pixel. This produces much lower quality images and a slower display.
Though you need to be aware of the two types of LCD screens for the exam, almost all laptop manufacturers have moved to using Active Matrix at the very least.
Video Adapter
Just like a desktop computer, the laptop computer has a video adapter. It is frequently much smaller in size than on a desktop computer and often is built-in to the motherboard on the system.
System Board
The system board in a laptop is designed for two things: small size and heat dissipation. Two of the major problems laptop manufacturers have is how to fit all of the components into the laptop and how to handle the tremendous heat CPUs, video chips, memory, and hard drives produce.
The system board commonly contains all of the chips required for the system to run and interface. These include the video adapter, sound card, networking, expansion port circuitry, and more.
Memory
Laptop memory is similar to desktop memory, though smaller in size.
Due to size constraints, most laptops support only one or two memory slots limiting the total amount of memory you can run in the laptop. Most laptops support a maximum of 2GB of RAM.
Processor
Some laptop computer use desktop processors, though most use processors designed for the high demand of mobile computing. The primary problem with desktop processors is the amount of heat they generate. A desktop computer can use a series of heat sinks and fans to dissipate the heat which is not possible in a notebook computer due to size constraints. As processor manufacturers develop faster and faster chips, they find the chips produce more and more heat which is extremely difficult to offset.
Processor manufacturers (such as Intel) design mobile chips to use less power and often run at a slower speed than their desktop cousins.
Most processors are not field replaceable for laptops and instead need to be replaced by a computer manufacturer authorized technician.
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