220-1101 Practice Test 2 — 10 Questions

Question 1

A technician is upgrading a desktop PC with a new high-end graphics card. The card requires two 8-pin PCIe power connectors. The power supply unit (PSU) has two 6+2 pin PCIe cables. After installing the card and connecting both cables, the system powers on, all fans spin, but there is no display output from the graphics card. The technician has verified the card is fully seated in the PCIe slot, the monitor is connected to the card's output, and the monitor works with another computer. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause?

Choose an answer to begin — your selection is scored in the full session.

Accepted Answer

The 6+2 pin PCIe connectors are not fully inserted into the graphics card.. The 6+2 pin PCIe connectors are designed to be used as 8-pin connectors by clipping the 2-pin section alongside the 6-pin section. If the 2-pin portion is not fully latched or the combined connector is not pushed in completely, the graphics card will not receive proper power delivery on all pins. This can cause the card to power its fans but fail to initialize the GPU core, resulting in no display output despite the system appearing to power on normally.

Answer

The PSU wattage is insufficient to power the new graphics card.

Answer

The motherboard's PCIe slot is configured for Gen 3, but the card requires Gen 4.

Answer

The graphics card drivers have not been installed yet.

Question 2

A user reports that their iPhone 12 is not receiving incoming phone calls from unknown numbers. When an unknown number calls, it goes straight to voicemail after one ring. Known contacts in the user's address book ring normally. The user confirms Do Not Disturb is off. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The phone has 'Silence Unknown Callers' enabled.. iOS includes a feature called 'Silence Unknown Callers' that automatically sends calls from unknown numbers to voicemail without ringing. This feature is separate from Do Not Disturb and is designed to reduce spam calls. It also affects legitimate unknown callers. Checking this setting is the first step.

Answer

The phone's SIM card is faulty.

Answer

The phone is in Low Power Mode.

Answer

The phone's software needs to be updated.

Question 3

A user reports that their iPhone does not charge when plugged into the USB port of a Windows laptop, but it charges normally with the included wall adapter. The laptop recognizes other USB devices such as a mouse and a flash drive. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause of the issue?

Accepted Answer

The laptop's USB port does not provide enough power to charge the iPhone. The iPhone charges normally with the wall adapter, which provides higher current (typically 5V/1A or more), but fails when connected to the laptop's USB port. Standard USB 2.0/3.0 ports on laptops typically supply only 0.5A (USB 2.0) or 0.9A (USB 3.0), which may be insufficient to charge an iPhone, especially if the device is in use or the port is shared among multiple internal components. The laptop recognizing other low-power devices (mouse, flash drive) confirms the port is functional but likely cannot deliver the required charging current.

Answer

The Lightning cable is damaged and cannot carry enough power

Answer

The iPhone battery has reached the end of its lifespan and cannot hold a charge

Answer

The laptop's USB driver is outdated or corrupted

Question 4

A technician is replacing a CPU on a desktop motherboard. After carefully installing the new CPU and reattaching the heatsink, the technician powers on the system. After a few minutes, the system shuts down due to overheating. The technician verifies that the CPU fan is spinning and the heatsink is firmly attached. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause of the overheating?

Accepted Answer

No thermal paste was applied between the CPU and heatsink. The most likely cause is that no thermal paste was applied between the CPU and heatsink. Thermal paste fills microscopic air gaps between the CPU's integrated heat spreader (IHS) and the heatsink base, ensuring efficient heat transfer. Without it, air acts as an insulator, causing the CPU to rapidly overheat and trigger thermal shutdown, even if the fan spins and the heatsink is firmly attached.

Answer

The CPU is not compatible with the motherboard socket

Answer

The CPU fan is connected to the wrong motherboard header

Answer

The heatsink is installed upside down

Question 5

A technician is troubleshooting a desktop computer that randomly reboots under heavy CPU load. The technician has verified the CPU cooler is properly seated with thermal paste, run memory diagnostics (no errors), replaced the power supply, and updated all drivers. Running a CPU stress test causes the system to reboot after approximately 10 minutes. Which of the following should the technician check NEXT?

Accepted Answer

Check the CPU voltage settings in BIOS. The technician has already ruled out overheating (cooler seated with paste), memory errors, power supply issues, and driver conflicts. Under heavy CPU load, the system reboots after a consistent 10 minutes, which strongly suggests the CPU is not receiving stable voltage under load. Checking and adjusting the CPU voltage settings in BIOS is the next logical step because incorrect or insufficient vCore can cause the CPU to crash or trigger a thermal/voltage protection reboot when the CPU draws high current during a stress test.

Answer

Replace the CPU

Answer

Update the motherboard BIOS

Answer

Replace the motherboard

Question 6

A user can access the internet and browse websites normally, but when they try to access a shared network drive by its hostname (\fileserver\share) the connection fails. Other users on the same network can access the drive using the hostname without issue. The technician can successfully ping the fileserver's IP address from the affected computer. Which of the following should the technician check NEXT?

Accepted Answer

The DNS server configuration on the computer. The user can browse the internet and ping the fileserver by IP, indicating basic IP connectivity and DNS resolution for external names are working. However, accessing the share by hostname fails while other users succeed, which isolates the issue to the local NetBIOS or LLMNR name resolution on the affected computer. Checking the DNS client configuration (including the primary DNS suffix and connection-specific suffixes) is the next logical step because the computer may not be appending the correct domain suffix to resolve the single-label hostname 'fileserver' to an IP address.

Answer

The firewall on the fileserver

Answer

The file and printer sharing service on the computer

Answer

The network cable connection

Question 7

A technician is building a new gaming PC. After installing all components, the system powers on but there is no display output. The motherboard has no onboard video, and the dedicated GPU fans spin. The monitor is connected to the GPU and is known to work. What should the technician check FIRST?

Accepted Answer

Verify the GPU power cables are connected. The GPU fans spinning indicates the card is receiving power through the PCIe slot, but the dedicated 6- or 8-pin PCIe power cables from the PSU may be missing or loose. Without these supplementary cables, the GPU cannot deliver enough power to initialize the display output, even though the fans spin due to minimal power from the slot. This is the most common oversight when building a gaming PC, so verifying the GPU power cables is the logical first step.

Answer

Replace the GPU

Answer

Reseat the CPU

Answer

Update the BIOS

Question 8

A company uses a private cloud with 10 virtual servers running on a single hypervisor host. The VMs are configured with dynamic memory allocation. Recently, performance has degraded, and the hypervisor shows 90% memory utilization. The IT team wants to add two more VMs without purchasing additional hardware. Which of the following is the most likely limiting factor?

Accepted Answer

The total physical RAM installed in the host. The hypervisor shows 90% memory utilization, and dynamic memory allocation allows VMs to share physical RAM. Adding two more VMs without increasing physical memory will likely exhaust the host's RAM, causing excessive swapping or out-of-memory conditions. This makes total physical RAM the most likely limiting factor.

Answer

The hypervisor's CPU core count

Answer

The storage I/O bandwidth

Answer

The network interface card speed

Question 9

An ISP provides a cable modem with a single Ethernet port. A technician needs to set up a small office network with 25 workstations that require internet access and must be on the same subnet. The technician has a 24-port unmanaged switch and a 48-port unmanaged switch. Which of the following is the MOST appropriate method to connect the devices?

Accepted Answer

Connect both switches to a router, and connect the modem to the router.. A router is required to perform Network Address Translation (NAT) and routing between the ISP's public IP and the private subnet. The cable modem provides only a single Ethernet port and does not route traffic between multiple devices; connecting both switches to a router allows all 25 workstations to share the internet connection while remaining on the same subnet. The router acts as the default gateway and DHCP server, enabling proper IP address assignment and traffic forwarding.

Answer

Connect the modem directly to the 48-port switch and then daisy-chain the 24-port switch from the 48-port switch.

Answer

Connect the modem to the 24-port switch, then connect the 48-port switch to the 24-port switch.

Answer

Connect the modem directly to the 48-port switch and connect the 24-port switch to the 48-port switch.

Question 10

A system administrator is configuring a virtual machine (VM) on a VMware ESXi host. The VM runs a critical database application that requires a guaranteed minimum amount of memory to perform well. The host has memory overcommitment enabled. Which setting should the administrator configure to ensure the VM always has at least 4 GB of physical memory available?

Accepted Answer

Memory reservation. A memory reservation guarantees that the ESXi host will allocate at least the specified amount of physical memory to the VM, even when memory overcommitment is enabled. This ensures the critical database application always has a minimum of 4 GB of physical RAM available, preventing performance degradation due to contention.

Answer

Memory limit

Answer

Memory ballooning

Answer

Swap file size