My Recent Tech Test

[Brassman101]

I recently was offered a position at a company that deals with computer desktop support. As the fourth step in the 5 step application process/interview process, i have to answer this tech test from the IT manager. They allow any way to find the answers, asking people, using the web, etc. So after working on this for most of the day today, because he wants detail on the test. I have come up with what i have so far.

I really have no idea for the answer on number 3, part b (and why doesnt the answer matter?) but other than that i have all the answers filled in. Also number 11 is a very opinionated question and i'm sure everyone could do it differently, so if there's anything to suggest on that build for that question let me know.

If you have ANY SUGGESTIONS at all (good or bad), or anything to comment on please do so, as i am trying to make this as concrete as possible.

Thanks,

Brassman

Network:

1. What is the difference between a gateway and a router?

Router: A device that determines the next network point to which a data packet should be forwarded enroute toward its destination. The router is connected to at least two networks and determines which way to send each data packet based on its current understanding of the state of the networks it is connected to. Routers create or maintain a table of the available routes and use this information to determine the best route for a given data packet

Gateway: In a communications network, a network node equipped for interfacing with another network that uses different protocols. *#A gateway may contain devices such as protocol translators, impedance matching devices, rate converters, fault isolators, or signal translators as necessary to provide system interoperability. It also requires that mutually acceptable administrative procedures be established between the two networks.

The difference between a gateway and a router is that the router makes the choice for the data to travel from point A to point B, and by doing so, chooses the best path dependant upon the credentials of the information, while the gateway ensures that the protocols match up and are read correctly when entering the network, so that the source and destination addresses can communicate with each other accurately.

2. How many usable addresses does a 172.16.52/8 network have?

Using the Advanced Subnet Calculator from Solarwinds, the usable addresses available are 16777214. The program is pretty easy to use, and saves lots of time in the field.

3. What's a class C, and why doesn't the answer matter?

“In a 32-bit IP address, the number of bits used to identify the network and the host vary according to the network class of the address. In a Class C network, the first 3 bits, or the high-order bits, are always "110." The next 21 bits are used to define the Class C network, and the final eight bits are used to identify the host. The IP address is represented in dotted decimal notation of four 8-bit fields, or octets, that have been converted from binary to decimal numbers”. Network addresses with first byte between 192 and 223 are class C, and can have 256 hosts.

Hardware:

4. How do you add a second hard drive to a computer?

Open the side of the case. Ground yourself to something to prevent Electrostatic Discharge. Insert the second hard drive with the jumper set to what you would like it to be, most likely Cable Select or Slave, assuming you already have a master/primary to boot from. Put the hard drive onto the ribbon cable, supply power to the new hard drive, and fasten it into the case. Reseal the case, boot into the bios, check and make sure that it recognizes the hard drive and at the proper size/block assignment, then restart and boot into windows. Once in windows, if it's a new drive, it will need to be initialized. Right click, My Computer, and then Manage. In the Management Console, under "Storage" select disk Management, and select the new device that was just installed. Right click the drive in the right hand pane of the window and "Initialize" the drive or if it was a used drive, you can Right click the drive in the right hand pane, and "Format" the drive to be ready to use in the new machine.

5. Identify the SPOFs in an IBM x335.

The single points of failure in the IBM x335 are the Power Supply Unit, the Main board, and the Network Interface Card. All of these can be the SPOF's due to lack of redundancy. Easily solved are the Power Supply and the Network Interface Cards, because those can be added into the server to prevent those SPOFs from happening due to backup and redundancy.

6. What is the difference between PCI and PCI-X?

PCI is a 64-bit bus, though it is usually implemented as a 32-bit bus. It can run at clock speeds of 33 or 66 MHz. At 32 bits and 33 MHz, it yields a throughput rate of 133 MBps.

PCI-X is backward-compatible with existing PCI cards. It improves upon the speed of PCI from 133 MBps to as much as 1 GBps. It was designed jointly by IBM, HP and Compaq to increase performance of high bandwidth devices, such as Gigabit Ethernet and Fibre Channel and processors that are part of a cluster.

PCI expansion slots are primarily used in Desktop PCs, and some low end servers. PCI-X is a high speed variation of PCI and is used as seen above for high speed and intense application devices, such as Gigabit Ethernet. Using PCI-X, the server can produce much faster hits on databases, web applications, and overall speed while using devices connected via PCI-X, as opposed to PCI.


Software:

7. What are three reasons to use Windows XP over Windows 2000 Professional?

Fast User Switching for Windows XP is a very good feature especially in a fast paced user environment. One designer can log on, work on a project, then just switch users to someone else that needs to access the resources on that computer for a little while. This allows two users to be logged on at the same time and can keep both active desktops available to switch between the two users. This is extremely better than hibernate, which made the memory dump onto the hard drive, then put the system in hibernation, which awaited the keystroke to be awaken, only to read the memory dump back into memory.

Security is handled better in Windows XP over Windows 2000. This is apparent because they are trying to incorporate the most security tools and features into their newest service patches. This will be including the soon to be implemented Antivirus and Antispyware along with the personal firewall that was included in service pack 2. XP will also be the standard soon for companies releasing products and support. Microsoft will shortly begin to focus less and less on 2000 and more onto Windows XP.

The Remote Desktop Connection feature in Windows XP is a good step in the right direction for administration. From a single terminal anywhere on the network, or even internet (firewall permitting) you can easily administer support for the desktop and end user no matter where you are. This prevents companies to buy or use freeware such as VNC Server, NetOps, and other services and freeware to access remotely to fix problems. Remote Desktop Connection is also good for doing server tasks and applying small updates or routine maintenance.

8. What is the difference between Simple File Sharing and Classic File Sharing and why would you prefer one over another?
Simple File Sharing: If a disk or folder is shared, everyone on the network can access it. There are no user permissions and no passwords.

Classic File Sharing: Enable the Windows 2000 file sharing features, of passwords, and usernames along with permissions to access certain things.

The difference is that using Simple File Sharing basically allows anyone with access to your network, access to that drive/file/folder. As opposed to using Classic File Sharing, which enables the setting of permissions, policies, usernames and passwords on specific shares/folders/files, Classic File Sharing allows much more security and control over the network shares and allows specific individuals to have control over their own work only.

I would prefer using the Classic File Sharing over the Simple File sharing even if you just set up the Classic File Sharing options to set to “Everyone” and “Full Control” because when you setup a new drive, you can easily remove that option and start setting specifics to usernames and permissions and so on. Using Classic File Sharing just gives you more flexibility overall for managing the network and resources.

Misc:

9. An employee complains that his system has become unbearably slow. How do you diagnose and resolve the problem?

Test the hard drive and memory using some hardware testing program on boot.
Shut the machine down for a couple minutes; this resets the memory and other resources.
Reboot into safe mode. Check msconfig, and remove any unneeded startup applications.
Scan for spyware and viruses.
Check virtual memory/hard drive space.
Run scan disk and defrag if possible.
Clean out Temp Files, Internet Cache, Recycle Bin, and uninstall programs that aren’t needed/being used anymore.
After that, Do a control alt delete, check what is hogging all of the system resources including processor and memory.
If the problem still occurs, look into adding more memory, or other possible hardware upgrades.

10. An employee says to you, "I can't connect to my network drive." How do you diagnose and resolve the problem?

Start by checking the network cable for connectivity.
See if other users connected through the same switch/hub are experiencing the same problem.
Have the employee reboot the machine.
I would then log on as my Administrator account, onto the same machine and see if the drives for me come up.
If I can see my drives when in log in, then the problem lies with the user, and possibly some policy issues.
Try re-mapping the drive to him/her, unless they are hard mapped through policy inheritance, then you will need to change the policies.

11. How would you set the priority of the following issues: the HR Director cannot print, someone in QA needs a network cable, and an artist cannot save her work.

The first priority would be the HR Director that cannot print. The management team needs to be always active in running the company, and without being able to print could mean less efficiency. Second would be the Artist that cannot save their work. Artists sometimes are working on game graphic sets for the terrain, and designing one of them could take many hours of work. Without being able to save that information, they would have wasted all that time for that session of work. Last would be the QA person that needs a network cable. The reasoning for needing the network cable could be as a spare, could be for another machine as a backup, it could be any reason.

[doctorgonzo]

I'm guessing that the "and why doesn't it matter" part to question 3 is the fact that you can use subnetting to creating networks with the number of hosts that you need, instead of just being limited to the number of hosts defined in class A, B, and C networks.

A class A network, with around (I think) 16 million hosts, isn't going to be useful unless it is divided up using subnetting.

[Brassman101]

Very very good idea. Thats what i'll be going with after i asked a few people and they thought the same thing once i brought it to their attention.

yay

[piasabird]

On question number 5 you might want to mention you have to turn the computer off and unplug it before you work on it. This applies to most hardware repair issues. IDE is not hot pluggable and most SATA cables are not hot pluggable either. While USB tends to be somewhat hot pluggable Parallel printer cables and PS2 mouse and keyboard plugs are also not hot pluggable. I guess you could go nuts on these hardware questions. Like for instance how do you know you have enough power from the power supply to support a second hard drive? They may not be looking for that info, but you may mention it once.

Class C Licenses. Some IP addresses are reserved and not usable. One or two are for loopback and testing and identify the network group.

I think the /8 means you are only buying 8 of the available network IP addresses or address ranges. I may be wrong on this. I think they started selling smaller amounts like this so more would be available. You may want to research this. Someplace where they give out domain addresses. If this is the case the size of a class C License is not important. I see no reason why this is a valid question myself because the network is probably set up and they probably have all their network addresses mapped out or written down somewhere. You would have to be upper level management in IT to decide if you need to add more or purchase additional space. This might be importatnt if you were working on the Main Router that connects your Network to the internet. You want to publish the correct addresses so you dont have a hole where some of your addresses should be on the World Wide Web.

Item number 10: Look at the network icon in the status bar and see if it says they are connected to the network. Try logging out and logging back in. Look at the share address in My Computer to see where the server or the share is located and see if you can connect to it of ping it manually. If you can connect to other network devices and not the device with the share, physically check the shared device (or call the server room and check the device out). It may be damaged and possibly need attention. Drives sometimes fail or the server may just need rebooting. If no one has been playing with the wires there is no reason to assume a cable has gone bad. If the person has a network connection to some other device it can not be the wiring or the network card. If there is no network connection at all then check the network card and the wiring after rebooting. However, if this person is around other people, ask them if they have network issues also. If they do this indicates some kind of centralized or group problem other than just one computer acting up. If no one else is having a problem, then this may be a single computer with hardware or wiring problems, or software/OS problems. See if the computer's network patch cable is plugged in. Most computers now have integrated Ethernet so check to see if it is configured right and it has a driver. If you trace the wire back to the hardware device look at the device and see if it is connecting or if just the one connection is not connecting by checking the status lights. If you wiggle the cable and you see some action it might be a cabling issue. One way to check this is to get an extra cable and run it to the same location and see if it comes on. You might need a cable tester to test the cable. You might try an empty port to see if you get a connection signal. If it is not the cable it may be the ethernet adapter. If it is not either one it may be the software or the configuration. XP has a hardware wizard and it can detect if the network adapter is not working. Or you can just ping the adapter with the IP address reserved for network adapter testing.

Normally it is not the computer but a network device like a server being down. Sometimes the user has downloaded junk and the computer just becomes corrupted. So just ask them. Where you doing anything right before all this started happening? When did you first notice this problem? Have you been downloading things from the Internet? Virus Protection?

[1badtech]

Here's more info about Class C address which is the most common class of IP.

* Class C - Class C addresses are commonly used for small to mid-size businesses. IP addresses with a first octet from 192 to 223 are part of this class. Class C addresses also include the second and third octets as part of the Net identifier. The last octet is used to identify each host. This means that there are 2,097,152 (221) Class C networks each with 254 (28 -2) possible hosts for a total of 536,870,912 (229) unique IP addresses. Class C networks make up an eighth of the total available IP addresses. Class C networks have a first bit value of 1, second bit value of 1 and a third bit value of 0 in the first octet.

You might want to change the order on question #9. You should do a disk cleanup and delete temp files before running scandisk and defrag.