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1. Which of the following are components inside a 4. Which of the following statements about the
system unit of a computer? execution of a program instruction is incorrect?
(1) Power supply A. Addition of the values in two registers may
(2) Motherboard set zero flag to 1.
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mputer System Fundamentals
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11 The System Unit of a Computer System
Short Questions
1. Ellen has a notebook computer which is equipped with two USB ports. One of the USB ports is connecting
to a mouse.
(a) For each of the following categories, suggest one peripheral which can be connected to the second
USB port of Ellen’s computer. (4 marks)
(i) Storage device Extenal hard disk / USB flash drive (any one × 1)
(b) Ellen wants to connect three or even more USB devices at the same time. She plugs a 4-port USB hub
to her notebook computer. State two potential problems that may occur in this setting. (2 marks)
• The USB devices work slower. (1)
• USB devices may fail to work due to low power supply. (1)
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mputer System Fundamentals
2. (a) Complete the following diagram which illustrates the role of a CPU. (2 marks)
Secondary
CPU storage device (1)
Data flow
Input device
(b) An instruction ‘ADD 1 to register BX’ is resident in the main memory. Describe the process of
how the instruction is loaded and executed by a CPU. (3 marks)
1. The control unit of a CPU fetches the instruction from the main memory and interprets the instruction. (1)
2. The control unit instructs the ALU how the instruction is performed. (1)
3. The ALU performs the arithmetic operation and sends the result to register BX. (1)
3. All registers in CPU X are 8-bit in length. Write the value of zero flag, sign flag and carry flag in the status
register (SR) when the following sequence of instructions is executed by CPU X. (3 marks)
Step 3: ZF = 0, SF = 1, CF = 0 (1)
Step 4: ZF = 0, SF = 0, CF = 1 (1)
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11 The System Unit of a Computer System
Remark: The result of step 4 is 256 which is represented as 0000 0000 in BX. Carry flag and zero flag are set to 1 and 0 (for unsigned integer)
(b) State two factors that determine the performance of a CPU. (2 marks)
Clock rate (1) and word length (1)
(c) If you were a computer engineer, how would you change the two factors stated in part (b) so as to make
a CPU run faster? (2 marks)
• Increase the clock rate. (1)
5. (a) State one common characteristic between complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) memory
and read-only memory (ROM). (1 mark)
Both memory chips can store data when the power supply is switched off. (1)
(b) CMOS is usually used to hold information of a computer system such as the memory capacity and the
specification of a hard disk. Is it possible to use a ROM chip to replace a CMOS chip in a desktop
computer? Explain your answer briefly. (2 marks)
No. (1) It is because the configurations of a desktop computer may be changed at any time, for example, an additional hard disk may
be installed. Unlike the CMOS, the configuration cannot be updated in a ROM chip. (1)
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mputer System Fundamentals
Long Questions
1. A newly designed portable game console works with a specially designed CPU. The CPU contains an ALU,
four general purpose registers and a 512 KB cache memory.
(a) (i) State the main function of the general purpose registers in a CPU. (2 marks)
They are used by instructions of assembly and machine code programs. (2)
(any three × 1)
(b) The game console does not work smoothly when an arithmetic intensive game is run. An engineer
proposes the following three methods to solve the problem.
Method 1: Implement more general purpose registers to the CPU.
Method 2: Redesign the CPU so that it can work with two ALUs at the same time.
Method 3: Implement up to 1 MB of cache memory.
(i) Explain how Method 1 can increase the processing speed of arithmetic intensive games. (2 marks)
Implementing more general purpose registers to the CPU provides more storage space for ALU (1) and CU (1) when executing
arithmetic operations.
(ii) Which method is most effective in increasing the processing speed of arithmetic intensive games?
Explain your answer briefly. (2 marks)
Method 3. (1) Because high cost is needed to implement more general purpose registers to the CPU and redesign the CPU while
cache memory can store data and instructions that have been recently used by the CPU. (1)
(iii) Arrange the three methods in ascending order of re-engineering cost. (3 marks)
3 < 1 < 2 (3)
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11 The System Unit of a Computer System
2. Tom wants to buy a new computer and he obtains the following advertisement from a computer shop.
SALE
Only $x,x
xx
(a) If the CPU of the stated computer takes four cycles to process one instruction, how many instructions
can the CPU execute per second? (3 marks)
The number of the instructions executed in 1 second
2.4 × 1,000
, × 1,000
, × 1,000
,
= (2)
4
= 600,000,000 (1)
(b) State the capacity of main memory in MB which have been installed in the computer. (2 marks)
Capacity of main memory = 256 + 2 (1)
= 258 MB (1)
(c) State one reason why the size of RAM is much larger than the size of ROM. (2 marks)
It is because ROM is mainly used to store BIOS, data supplied by the manufacturer and the bootstrap program which are small in sizes. (1)
But RAM is used to store the active application programs and data which take up a lot of memory space. (1)
(d) To have better a sound effect when playing computer games or watching DVDs, Tom wants to install a
powerful sound card and disable the on-board one. Where should he put the new interface card on the
motherboard? (1 mark)
Expansion slot (1)
(e) Tom has just installed an additional 256 MB RAM into the computer, but the computer fails to boot.
Give two possible reasons. (4 marks)
The specification of the new memory does not match with the existing one. / The installation of the new memory is improper. /
The information of the system stored in CMOS has not been updated. (any two × 2)