Dell PP21L Owner's Manual

Also see for Inspiron 1300: Owner's manual Service manual Service manual

Contents

Glossary 135Ooptical drive — A drive that uses optical technology toread or write data from CDs, DVDs, or DVD+RWs.Example of optical drives include CD drives, DVD drives,CD-RW drives, and CD-RW/DVD combo drives.Pparallel connector — An I/O port often used to connect aparallel printer to your computer. Also referred to as anLPT port.partition — A physical storage area on a hard drive that isassigned to one or more logical storage areas known aslogical drives. Each partition can contain multiple logicaldrives.PC Card — A removable I/O card adhering to thePCMCIA standard. Modems and network adapters arecommon types of PC Cards.PCI — peripheral component interconnect — PCI is alocal bus that supports 32-and 64-bit data paths,providing a high-speed data path between the processorand devices such as video, drives, and networks.PCI Express — A modification to the PCI interface thatboosts the data transfer rate between the processor andthe devices attached to it. PCI Express can transfer data atspeeds from 250 MB/sec to 4 GB/sec. If the PCI Expresschip set and the device are capable of different speeds,they will operate at the slower speed.PCMCIA — Personal Computer Memory CardInternational Association — The organization thatestablishes standards for PC Cards.PIN — personal identification number — A sequence ofnumerals and/or letters used to restrict unauthorizedaccess to computer networks and other secure systems.PIO — programmed input/output — A method oftransferring data between two devices through theprocessor as part of the data path.pixel — A single point on a display screen. Pixels arearranged in rows and columns to create an image. A videoresolution, such as 800 x 600, is expressed as the numberof pixels across by the number of pixels up and down.Plug-and-Play — The ability of the computer toautomatically configure devices. Plug and Play providesautomatic installation, configuration, and compatibilitywith existing hardware if the BIOS, operating system, andall devices are Plug and Play compliant.POST — power-on self-test — Diagnostics programs,loaded automatically by the BIOS, that perform basictests on the major computer components, such asmemory, hard drives, and video. If no problems aredetected during POST, the computer continues thestart-up.processor — A computer chip that interprets and executesprogram instructions. Sometimes the processor is referredto as the CPU (central processing unit).program — Any software that processes data for you,including spreadsheet, word processor, database, andgame packages. Programs require an operating system torun.PS/2 — personal system/2 — A type of connector forattaching a PS/2-compatible keyboard, mouse, or keypad.PXE — pre-boot execution environment — A WfM(Wired for Management) standard that allows networkedcomputers that do not have an operating system to beconfigured and started remotely.RRAID — redundant array of independent disks — Amethod of providing data redundancy. Some commonimplementations of RAID include RAID 0, RAID 1,RAID 5, RAID 10, and RAID 50.RAM — random-access memory — The primarytemporary storage area for program instructions and data.Any information stored in RAM is lost when you shutdown your computer.readme file — A text file included with a software packageor hardware product. Typically, readme files provideinstallation information and describe new productenhancements or corrections that have not yet beendocumented.