Professor Messer’s Free CompTIA A+ Certification Training Course – Memory

Chapter 5: Memory

Memory technology is a mix of form factors, speed ratings, and installation challenges. In this chapter, you’ll learn exactly how to identify, upgrade, and troubleshoot memory in today’s modern personal computers.

We know that memory is one of the most critical resources in our computer, but how does it really work? In this video, we’ll look at the fundamentals of memory operation and learn about memory transfer rates, throughput speeds, latency, read-only memory, and the differences between single-sided and double-sided memory.

The CompTIA A+ certification requires extensive knowledge of memory packages, pin counts, and memory functions. In this module, we’ll step through each memory package and describe the progression of the different memory types through the years. We’ll discuss packages such as DIMM, RIMM, SODIMM, and MicroDIMM, and we’ll also detail memory types such as SRAM, SDRAM, RDRAM, DDR, and DDR2.

The process of installing or upgrading a computer system’s memory is easy to accomplish if you have the right procedures in place. In this video, we’ll walk you through every step of memory installation. You’ll learn how to select the correct memory modules, how to physically install the new memory, and how you can check your work after the installation is complete.

The memory installation process is relatively simple, but what options do you have if your installed memory isn’t working as expected? In this module, we’ll show you how some simple physical troubleshooting and software-based memory diagnostics can help get your system up and running quickly.