Pass CompTIA A+ 220-1001 Exam in First Attempt Easily

All About the CompTIA A+

1. What is the CompTIA A+?

Hey, everybody. It's your favorite nerd, Mike Myers, answering the perennial question, what is the CompTIA A plus? Well, there are really two questions there. Number one. What is CompTIA? And two, what is a plus? Now Comp stands for the Computing Technology Industry Association. They're a vendor-neutral, nonprofit trade association. They've been around since the early 1980s, and they have tens of thousands of corporate members all over the world. So you'd be hard-pressed to come up with a name that isn't a member of CompTIA. Intel, Microsoft, Cisco Everybody's a member of CompTIA. Now, there's also another type of membership, which is an individual membership based on different types of certification exams that CompTIA gives out. There are lots of different certifications. They have names like A Plus, about which we're going to talk about network plus, gritty plus, and CYSA. There are tonnes and tonnes of them. But the one I want to talk about right now is the Comp A-Plus examination. The CompTIA A+ examination is a test taken at a computer, and it's designed to test the skills of an IT technician with anywhere from six to nine months of experience. Now, it is by far the single most popular IT certification in the world. It is given all over the world in 1520 different languages. I mean, it's everywhere. I don't believe they have testing for Antarctica, but they do for pretty much every other location. There are well over a million certified APlus It technicians in the world today. The A-plus really isn't a single examination. It's really two. One of them is known as the core 220-1001, and the other as the core 220-1002. These two exams, when you take them together, make you certified. You don't have to have any formal training. You don't have to buy any books. You don't have to watch any videos to take any classes. If you want to, you can just walk in and take those exams. However, I'd recommend that you probably consider some really great courses, like ones given by me, Mike Myers.

2. What is on the CompTIA A+ Core 1 (220-1001) Exam?

If you want to get A+ certified, you're going to have to take two exams, the Core 1 (220-1001) and the Core 2 220-1002. In this episode, I want to talk about what's on the Core 220-1001 exam. Okay, now we start with CompTIA's objectives. So you need to head over to the CompTIA website. Here's the URL. Now go over to CompTIA and locate the objectives for the Core 220-1001 exam. This basically tells you what you're going to be tested on, and it's the tool I even use to build my training material. So I've actually downloaded a copy. I've got it right here. Let's take a look at it so you understand what's going to be on the exam. So here we are. This is the core of 220-1001. I just downloaded this from the CompTIA website and they talk about the exams of stuff to scroll over. So you're going to have a maximum of 90 questions. You're going to have both choice and performance-based questions. The length of the test is 90 minutes, and here they say eight months' experience. They change these; I'm not going to worry about that too much. And the passing score is 670 on a scale of 100 to 900. All right, all CompTIA exams are broken down by domains. The domains are the level one objectives that give you an idea of the big areas that they're going to be covering; they also give you percentages. So let's check all this out. Domain 10 is mobile devices, so that's 14%; domain 2 is networking at 20% Hardware is at 27%, virtual is at 12%, and hardware and network troubleshooting is at 27%. So the big domains give us a rough idea, but if you continue to go through this document, it's going to break these subdomains. And this is really the secret about not only what topics you need to know but also what aspects you need to know to be able to pass the A plus. So let's continue to go through this document, and let's break down one of the objectives. All right, well, here I am under 10, and you'll see it breaks it down into sectors like 11213. You actually see these when you're taking the course. As we go through the different episodes, I'll be putting that on the screen so you know exactly what objectives we're going to be covering while you're studying. All right, let's take a look at one of these. So for example, here on one and two, it says "Given a scenario, install component," which is the display of a laptop. It also specifies the LCD and OLED types. These are screen types: putting in a WiFi antenna, installing a webcam, a microphone, an inverter, and a digit touch screen. They're actually expecting you to take a look at a laptop display, open up the laptop display, and recognise the function of all these different devices. and some of the issues that come into play. So, yeah, when you watch my videos, we're definitely going to be taking a laptop and the monitor off and talking about all the different wires. So it really tells us that we need to know how to install it. But there's more here. Let me show you. Here at 1.4, it says to compare and contrast the characteristics of various types of other mobile devices. So smartwatches, reality headsets, and e-readers So a question like this isn't really expecting you to know how to figure something out or set something up something. It’s basically going to make sure that you understand what a smartwatch is capable of doing. What do we expect an reader to do? So not only do we understand e-readers, we need to make sure we understand what an e-reader actually does. So it's helpful. Now, there's one more type of objective. find one here for you. So we can actually see two of these that are pretty similar and summaries the properties and purposes of services provided by network hosts. So whether a file server, DHCP server, or DNS server, and then explain common networking configuration concepts like DNS or DHCP, notice that they are not telling you to trigger these types of things; they're expecting you to understand, for example, what is DHCP? Why is it really important for your individual network devices? So if you want to understand how to do DHCP, take my network plus courses, but within network plus, we take advantage of these domain sub-objectives to give us a real feel for what we're supposed to know. So I don't want to just say DP; I need to understand how it's going to affect this individual system. Okay? So what I want to do now is let’s go back through all of this and let's take a look at these major domains and take a moment so you understand what's really on the exam. The CompTIA 220-1001 exam is obsessed with mobile devices. So, first of all, smartphones are going to be a big part of this. So if you're using iOS, or if you're an Android user like me, you need to be comfortable with both of these mobile operating systems. In terms of their functionality, I'll give you a clue. They pretty much do almost exactly the same thing, just in different ways. But it does stop with smartphones. Make sure you're comfortable with tablets, GPSes, e-readers, and even heart rate monitors in there. Make sure you're familiar with all of these mobile devices, the 20 and 101. Let's talk about networking. But when we talk about networking on the 220-1001, we're really talking more about the hardware. So, for example, cable Do you know your RJ 45? Do you know your fiber cables? Do you know the different types of connectors? And can you tell one cat from another? Well, at the end of my video series, you will. We're going to be talking about things like switches, routers, firewalls, and all of these different boxes that are denizens of our networks now. And it doesn't stop with cabling. We also talk about the 800 and 211 standards. So when you're configuring SSIDs and setting up your wireless networks, you're going to be talking to wireless access points and all that stuff as well. And it's not just set up. On top of that, you're going to be talking about some of the more basic networking configuration and troubleshooting tools out there. And you make certain that you understand the distinction between a fox and a hound, as well as why these distinctions are critical for any good network technician. When I think of the CompTIA A+ Tier 1001, I think about hardware because I'm a hardware tech. And man, does it cover the hardware that we see in systems? So, for example, in motherboards, do you know what these different slots are for? Do you know what the board is, and do you know how to connect it? Do you know how to install it on a system to make it run? We've included CPUs to ensure you understand the two major players, Intel and AMD. And what does Core I nine? Mass storage. We've got tonnes of stuff on the different types of hard drives that you're going to have in there. And what's the difference between a hard disc drive and an SSD? We've got power supplies connected to the right power supply system to make it go Ram. What's the difference between DDR3, DDR4, and all that type of stuff? There are even things like, for example, monitors. Do you know what a 1080 monitor is? Do you understand how to configure the right type of connection and the graphics cards that go with it? make sure that you're comfortable with it? Boy, does the A-plus love their hardware? For the next two decades, we're definitely going to be hitting virtualization and cloud computing hard. These types of technologies are critical for any A-plus technician. And man, does CompTIA do a great job covering it. When it comes to virtualization, you'll be working with different types of hypervisors, understanding how we can use those to create virtual machines on our systems. And in the course, you'll actually be doing this yourself; I'll give you the tools so you can do it. All of the amazing virtualization systems that are out there with names like Amazon Services that we use on a daily basis to set up all of our different servers If you go to a Web page, you're probably already on a cloud. Look, the whole reason we're technicians is because we are the troubleshooters for all kinds and network situations that might come up on the Core 220-1001. We're going to be going over lots and lots of troubleshooting techniques so that you can keep your systems and your hardware working at peak condition. Let me just give this one more turn, so that's a quick idea of what you're going to be seeing on the exam.

Hide

Book Chapter 1 - Safety and Professionalism

1. Tools of the Trade

A big question I get from almost every babytech out there is: Mike, what tools do you use to do the job of PC repair? Well, the right answer is this is the only real that I need. I would say probably maybe even close to 90%. All the actual repairs I do involve nothing more than me typing on a keyboard. However, there are some tools out here. Now keep in mind that throughout this entire series, I'm going to be talking about zillions of different software tools. In this episode, what we're concentrating on are the hardware tools that I keep around. Now, normally when I walk up to somebody, I'm only going to have two things on me. I'm going to have my phone, and I'm going to have a number-two Phillips screwdriver. Between these two devices, I can pretty much cover most of the problems. Run into. A number two Phillips screwdriver will get you into just about any system and can take out just about any component. And the phone, well, that's for me to do research. when I'm finding different types of problems. I'm typing in here, pulling up manuals, and doing whatever I need to do to be able to figure out a problem between these two tools. This is probably the bulk of all I ever need. However, there are some other toys out there I want you to be aware of. Starting off over here, this is a very traditional—in fact, this is a very old tool kit. One of the things that I like about this toolkit, though, is that it comes with this nut, and I have all these different types of bits that I can use there for everything from different sizes of Phillips screws to different torques, and all these other kinds of strange little connectors that we see on mobile devices. It works out pretty well. Another tool that I use a lot is going to be these hemostats. I am constantly dropping screws into systems, and these guys have helped me out a number of times. being able to extract screws. Speaking of that, little tweezers like this can often be really handy for pretty much the exact same reason. Now there are a few old things in here. Now I'm going to bring this up to you just because they still sell these kits, but you're never going to need them. This is an IC inserter. It's designed to plug into integrated circuits. This thing is ancient and I should probably throw it away, but it's got a spot on it. So I leave it in there. Now, for almost anything I'm doing on a desktop system and a number of laptops, that little toolkit is going to cover pretty much anything I need. However, I do a lot of work with mobile devices, and if I'm messing with tablets or with smartphones, I'm going to need some type of specialised toolkit. And that's what this is, right here. This toolkit comes from a company called I FixIt, and they don't pay me any money. I just like their stuff. And what really excites me about the guys are these nut drivers that they put in here. So we've got all of these different, specialised I don't know if you guys can even zoom in on that, but look at all these different types of connectors. You've got any interest in working on mobile devices? Every smartphone and tablet has its own strange little screws and requires its own little bit. And I fix it, so it provides these. I love these things, and I use them all the time. Now, while we're looking at this, if you look over here, these little devices are designed to help open tablets and smartphones. They're known generically as spudgers, which is the official name for these guys. And they're just little prizes that we used to openly price things. And then there are some little hemos over here as well. And these guys just help me hold on to little, tiny, teeny components. And I also have a few more pry bars over here. Prime bars are different than spudgers in that they're always going to be plastic like this, and they're designed to—if I'm trying to spin a smartphone, for example, I'll put a number of these in here. These are the tools that I tend to carry around. But there are a few other things that I want to make mention of. Now we'll reference these tools in other episodes of the series. I'm just trying to give you an overview of this. One of the big ones right here is a voltage tester. So what I've got here is a standard voltage tester here in the US. It's a nice little three-prong voltage tester that's absolutely fantastic because one of the biggest problems we run into is that the electricity that we're provided is often bad in and of itself. Speaking of, this is a Volt-Ohm meter. I use volt metres mainly to test electrical circuitry that's coming from a house or something like that. However, there are a few situations where you can use a volt-ohm metre on a PC, and we'll go over those in later episodes. Now, the last thing I want to talk about is important. It's these guys right here. There's nothing special going on here. These are thumb drives. A good technician, over time, is going to start getting their own stack of software. And as I've already said in this series, we'll be going over all kinds of the software that I use directly. I call them cool tools. And you might find yourself wanting to add all of these and put them on a thumb drive. So when it comes to thumb drives, I'm going to have one thumb drive that has my tools on it, whatever those tools might be. I have another thumb drive that's going to be an antimalware thumb drive. Antimalware is a big part of my job, and I have one thumb drive. I can plug it in, I can boot this, and I can use antimalware tools to clean a system. So this is my basic toolkit. Now, keep in mind and stay with me through these stories; you're going to see more than this. But the tools at your site here on this table right now take care of about 99.9% of all the stations that I run into. So go get yourself a toolkit.

2. Troubleshooting Theory

Ipconfig release. What IP? Config-space slash release Release. having a DHCP problem there. I think so. May I ask why you're doing this? The Internet is down. Okay. In this episode, what I want to talk about is CompTIA's shooting theory. It's a series of steps that I, as a technician, can go through to help my ears deal with whatever problems they might have. And I'm personally not a huge fan of this particular theory, but it's wrong. But there are a lot of different opinions on this. But CompTIA does stress this, and you're going to see it in the end. So let's go through these steps to help me, as a technician, help my users get back on. Now. before we do anything with this troubleshooting theory. The most important thing you need to remember if I'm in an organization There might be procedures or there might be policies that the organisation says she shouldn't try to type that command. Or maybe she needs to make a particular phone call to a particular IT group. Or maybe I'm not in your IT group. Or there are always all kinds of rules. es. Okay? So before I want to dive into this as a tech, the first thing I'm going to do is make sure that I'm within whatever organizations, policies, and procedures they might have so that I don't get into trouble. And I'm really good at getting into trouble. I always want to fix everybody's computer. Yeah, big ass. Let me help. All right. So anyway, the first step that I'm going to be doing is identifying the problem. And what I'm going to do isI'm going to talk to the user. I'm going to ask, What is the problem? Lisa anticipate that problem to look, I'm going to be talking to her about anything she might have been doing lately that could have led up to this. There could be environmental issues; air conditioners going down can do evil things. There's all kinds of situations where this initial situation where I'm attempting to identify the problem, understand, I'm identifying the problem. I'm not saying what's broken. I'm just buying the problem. So what's the problem? The Internet is down. All right, first of all, let me assure you that the Internet is not. It's running all over the place. People are buying stuff on eBay, and they're playing games and doing all kinds of stuff. The problem you have is your connection between this laptop and the Internet. It's down, and that's what we need to be dealing with. Okay, so one of the things I'm going to do is take a quick look at the system and verify it. When she says she's down, she's probably referring to the fact that her browser isn't working, or that she's getting before or worse than that. So I'm going to be taking a look at this. I might review some applicable system to try to find some situation that helps define what the problem is, because her opinion of the problem and mine are very different. Okay. So based on this, I went to look at a few things. When was the last time this computer got on the Internet? just a couple of hours ago. Okay. And were you doing anything? I was just doing my research. I have all of this work to do and have just stopped working. I know you've got a big mess around here. You've been out on that sales call since April, I so exactly. You just came back in. When does your flight get in? It just got in earlier this morning. Okay, so it was working up until you got back in the office. Exactly. All right. So this has given me some idea. It might be taking place within the user's experience. It might give me some ideas. The chances are that there's some kind of configuration or setup issue between where she was running and where she is now. I'm not going to be worried about network cards being down or that everybody else around here is on the Internet, so I'm not going to worry about anything around here. There's something between her machine and our Internet that's causing the problem. So I'm going to do a little bit of research here, and I'm going to try to get some ideas. So when you typed that IP configuration release, did anything happen at all? earch herAll right. So now I'm getting a little bit worried about things, and I'm going to take a look. And again, externally, everybody else is also on the network, so I'm going to be zeroing in on her. So I'm going to be thinking to myself, "I'll bet there's a problem with the way she set it up." The number two thing that I'm going to do is come up with a probable cause. And in this situation, my probable cause is that somehow there's something on her system that's down network wise. So I'm going to be checking the network card, checking the wireless settings, all that type of stuff, and I'm going to go in and take a look. So on this particular system, I would just go in and make a few clicks. And I can actually see a little clue here. It's already telling me what the problem is. And what I'm thinking myself is that because I see a little aeroplane on your taskbar, I'm thinking she's in aeroplane mode. You're in the airplane, right? I was. Were you using the laptop on the plane? I was. And when this stewardess told you to turn it off, you were a good flyer and turned it off. Right. I've never done this, so I can be really judgmental about this type of stuff. All right. So I'm going to go ahead and test it. I've taken it out of aeroplane mode, which is pretty trivial on this guy. All right. And then it changed from an aeroplane to what appears to be a wireless connection. Exactly. So I'm going to go ahead and test that. Probably test is just open up Googleand see if I'm magically now you But one thing is certain: if I'm not right, I'm going to go back in and try something else. And this is always the tricky part where it's like, okay, I know what the problem is. You can't get Internet, but I sometimes have to go through a few iterations. Now. I'm Mike Myers, a popular author and Alpha Geek. So I'm really good at this stuff. Do you believe that? I t I have Hey, good, vice President. Well done. All right. Now, the other problem is, at this point, a lot of times, maybe I can't come up with the answer. And in those situations, there's never a problem to escalate. And when we say escalate, that means calling in some help. And every IT nerd has someone to whom they can turn for assistance. Maybe it's picking up the phone and having a buddy remind me of something else I need to look at. We really take our time and try to come up with theories that actually come up and determine the cause. So the next thing I'm going to do is to say I'm going to establish a plan of action and go ahead and resolve this problem. Now, the challenge here is something as simple as this: I've kind of already said it, haven't I? You did, yes. a lot of times. Part three and part four are the same step, especially for smaller problems. But if this was a bigger problem, say that malware was found on your system, Now, I realise that my solution isn't just fixing your machine; there might be six or seven other machines on the network that are messed up. And in that case, I've got to deal with a much bigger plan of action than simply hitting the Toggle button on your her machines So in theory, I have fixed the problem. So the net is that we have to verify full functionality. And this is a big problem that technicians run into because I'll be looking at this and I'll go, "Oh, okay." So you're on. Okay, at we have tFound fy full fuI have to wait until Robin is satisfied about my repair. I know there's an aeroplane mode, but as far as she's concerned, the Internet was down. And until such time as you get to go, Mike, I am happy with the results, and you're googling away and just having a good old time. I stay here until we get to that point. So would you feel that everything's okay? Yes. Can I test it? Go py with the I'm up. All right. The Internet is pretty snappy around here, huh? Yes, the Internet's up. we get to So the other thing we want to do as part of this step is that we want to implement preventative measures. Now, again, this one's not too terrible. Here. Here's my preventative measure. Robert, remember to turn it back off in Airplane Mode when you get in the office, okay? Actually, most preventative measures are best that way, but something more serious could end up being documentation or an escalation issue. This could define new policies for the company—all kinds of stuff like that. So when we talk about prevention, it could be very casual or very formal. All right, so we're all happy and everything? Yes. Thank you so much. Very welcome. All right. Now, the last step really depends on your organization, but it's documentation. Documentation is really important because, number one, we have something called "lessons learned," and what we can do as an IT support group is come up with what we've learned from stuff like this. Be sure to tell all the salespeople to get out of aeroplane mode when they get back in the office. Or it can be a little bit more serious in terms of defining issues with bugs and operating systems or something that could have a much higher impact. And we need to do this documentation not really just for us, but for the next person in line who's going to run into the exact same problem, because the big issue for us is text. I've never run into a problem that no one else has run into. If I could somehow magically be standing next to that tech who's already had that problem, then we're looking in great shape. And that's where documentation comes into play. I need to warn you for the exam that Kia loves the troubleshooting theory, and you need to be careful with this. On the exam, you will need to understand all these steps, and you need to understand their order as well, because you will see it there.

Hide

Book Chapter 2: The Visible Computer

1. Primary PC Connections

Look at all this fun stuff I've got in front of me. This is pretty much anything most people—better say 99.99% of folks—are going to have on a standard desktop computer. Now an episode, which I call Primary PC Components. Really, all we're trying to do here is a quick little overview to make sure we know the names of all this stuff. That way, as we go through the series, if I refer to something, you'll know what I'm talking about. So the most important part that I want to talk about more than anything else is this beautiful system right here. What you're looking at here is what we call the system unit. Now the system is really the computer. Inside are the CPU, the brain of the system, RAM hard drives, and all the other stuff we need to actually make the computer go. But the problem with a computer is that it has to deal with these really terrible things called human beings. So as human beings, we have to have other equipment that allows us to interface with the computer. Now the one thing you're not going to see in this episode is all of the cables. In order to connect all of them together, I need cables. Although some stuff is wireless, So I'm kind of keeping that out of the picture for right now. Trust me, we've got plenty of episodes in this series that will cover all the different types of cabling. So let's start off right. So we obtained the system unit. A lot of people will call this the "CPU that's inaccurate." The lock itself is the system unit. Now I hope everybody recognises this little BC right here on this monitor. The monitor allows us to see what the computer is doing, and it is the primary interface. The next thing is going to be a keyboard and mouse. These are actually wireless, so the keyboard and mouse allow us to provide input to the computer. marching down here a little bit. Let me have a sip of coffee. Then we're going to have printers. Printers provide paper output for whatever we may require. If we need paper, then we're going to have speakers. So these speakers provide sound so I can listen to my Cold Play when I'm kidding. And then there are a couple of other little components here that I want to talk about. First of all, there is this guy right here. So this is a game controller, which is actually kind of fun for some of the games that I like to play. I plugged it in. This is a USB connector. Plug it into the back of my system unit, and I can use this as a way to control this. This is a Web camera. So if you're talking to me online and we want to actually look at each other while we're doing a Skype session, I'll use a camera. this so you can look at me. What else do we have here? This is an external hard drive. External hard drives just provide external storage. I have storage inside my system unit, but if I need more or if I want something that's transportable, this is a convenient way for me to plug into the system, save stuff to this, and then I can unplug it and take it to another system. Here's my headset. In my business, I live on headsets. By business, I mean gaming all the time. So if I can actually get this guy out, here we go. So with the headset like this, it provides me the ability. and it's got a USB connector on the end. And with this, I can listen to a game. I can have a microphone for output if I'm doing web conferencing. This is the one. If you've ever done a Mike Myers Web conference, you’ve literally seen this headset on my head. And what else do we have? Yes. Last, but certainly not least, is my big phone. Now, this is a bit of overkill when it comes to microphones, but it makes for a really good sound. The headset functionally does the exact same thing, but microphones allow you to talk outside of my computer for communication. So I want us to do for this episode is make sure you recognise all these different components. We have entire episodes dedicated to system units and monitors and printers and speakers and microphones, so make sure you're comfortable with the nomenclature because I'll be using it over and over again throughout the rest of this series.

Hide