220-1101 Practice Test 48 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A user at a small office reports that they can access the internet but cannot connect to the company's internal file server using its hostname (\\fileserver). The user can ping the file server's IP address successfully. The technician checks the workstation's network settings and sees that it is obtaining an IP address from DHCP and the default gateway is correct. The DNS server address is set to the company's internal DNS server (192.168.1.5). Other workstations on the same network can access the file server by hostname without issue. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause of the problem?

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

Accepted Answer

The workstation's hosts file contains an incorrect entry for fileserver.. The user can ping the file server by IP but not by hostname, and other workstations resolve the hostname correctly. This points to a local name resolution issue on the affected workstation. The hosts file (located at %SystemRoot%\System32\drivers\etc\hosts) is checked before DNS queries, so an incorrect entry mapping 'fileserver' to a wrong or unreachable IP would cause the failure while DNS remains functional for others.

Answer

The file server's firewall is blocking ping requests.

Answer

The workstation's DNS cache is corrupted.

Answer

The file server's network cable is faulty.

Question 2

A technician is building a new desktop computer using an AMD Ryzen 5 5600X CPU and a B450 chipset motherboard. After assembling all components, the system powers on. The case fans and CPU fan spin, but there is no display output. The motherboard's CPU debug LED remains lit. The technician has already reseated the CPU (no bent pins), verified the RAM is seated correctly, and tested the power supply with a multimeter (voltages within specification). The GPU works in another system. Which of the following should the technician do NEXT?

Accepted Answer

Update the motherboard BIOS to a version that supports Ryzen 5000 series processors. The AMD Ryzen 5 5600X is a Vermeer (Zen 3) processor, while B450 motherboards originally launched with support for Ryzen 2000 (Pinnacle Ridge) and Ryzen 3000 (Matisse) CPUs. A BIOS update is required to add the AGESA microcode that enables Zen 3 support. The CPU debug LED staying lit indicates the motherboard cannot initialize the CPU, which is the classic symptom of an incompatible BIOS version.

Answer

Replace the power supply unit with a higher wattage model

Answer

Reseat the GPU in a different PCIe slot

Answer

Replace the CMOS battery and clear the CMOS

Question 3

A user reports that their Android smartphone cannot complete contactless payments at NFC terminals. The user has NFC enabled in settings and has tried multiple payment terminals. Other smartphones work at the same terminals. The phone’s screen and case are in good condition with no visible damage. Which of the following should the technician advise the user to check FIRST?

Accepted Answer

Remove the phone case and try again. The correct first step is to remove the phone case because many cases, especially those with metallic components or thick materials, can interfere with the NFC antenna's ability to communicate with the terminal. NFC operates at 13.56 MHz and relies on near-field inductive coupling; a case can block or detune the magnetic field, preventing payment completion even when NFC is enabled and the phone is otherwise functional.

Answer

Clear the cache for the payment app

Answer

Reinstall the payment application

Answer

Disable and re-enable NFC in system settings

Question 4

A company runs a web application on a virtual machine (VM) in a public cloud IaaS environment. The application experiences unpredictable traffic spikes throughout the day, sometimes lasting 30 minutes. The company wants to ensure consistent performance during spikes while minimizing costs. The current single VM (4 vCPUs, 8 GB RAM) is sufficient for normal load but becomes slow during spikes. Which cloud characteristic should the administrator implement to address this requirement?

Accepted Answer

Elasticity. Elasticity is the correct answer because it allows the cloud infrastructure to automatically scale resources up during traffic spikes and scale down when demand decreases, ensuring consistent performance while minimizing costs. In an IaaS environment, this is typically achieved through auto-scaling groups that add or remove VM instances based on metrics like CPU utilization or request count, matching the unpredictable, short-duration spikes described.

Answer

High availability

Answer

Load balancing

Answer

Fault tolerance

Question 5

A technician is troubleshooting a workstation that intermittently loses network connectivity. The workstation has an integrated Gigabit Ethernet NIC. During an outage, the technician checks the network adapter status in the operating system and sees 'Network cable unplugged' even though the cable is securely connected to both the workstation and the switch. The technician has already replaced the Ethernet cable, the switch port, and the NIC driver. The issue occurs more frequently when the workstation's power supply is under heavy load (e.g., during gaming). Which of the following is the MOST likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The power supply unit (PSU) is failing and cannot provide stable voltage to the motherboard under load, causing the integrated NIC to drop link.. The intermittent loss of connectivity under heavy PSU load, combined with the 'Network cable unplugged' message despite a known-good cable and switch port, points to voltage instability from a failing PSU. When the PSU cannot maintain stable voltage to the motherboard, the integrated Gigabit Ethernet NIC may drop its link because the PHY (physical layer transceiver) requires a clean power rail to maintain the 1000BASE-T signal. This is a classic symptom of a failing PSU causing link drops under load, not a cable or driver issue.

Answer

Electromagnetic interference (EMI) from power cables running near the Ethernet cable is disrupting the signal.

Answer

The workstation has a duplicate IP address on the network, causing intermittent disconnections.

Answer

The switch port is experiencing a broadcast storm, flooding the network interface.

Question 6

A technician is setting up two virtual machines on a Type 1 hypervisor. The VMs need to communicate with each other using private IP addresses, and the traffic must remain within the physical host—it must not traverse the physical network. The hypervisor host is connected to the physical network via a single NIC. Which of the following should the technician configure to meet these requirements?

Accepted Answer

An internal virtual switch. An internal virtual switch on a Type 1 hypervisor allows VMs to communicate using private IP addresses while keeping all traffic within the physical host. Since the switch does not connect to the host's physical NIC, traffic never leaves the host, meeting the requirement that it must not traverse the physical network.

Answer

A virtual network interface card (vNIC) on each VM connected to a bridged adapter

Answer

A NAT network adapter for each VM

Answer

A VLAN ID on the physical switch port that connects to the hypervisor host

Question 7

A technician is troubleshooting a laser printer that produces pages with vertical white streaks. The toner cartridge has been replaced with a new OEM cartridge, and the imaging drum is clean. A test page printed from the printer's control panel also shows the streaks. Which of the following components is MOST likely causing the issue?

Accepted Answer

Laser scanning assembly. Vertical white streaks on a laser printer page indicate that the laser beam is being blocked or obstructed before it reaches the drum. Since the toner cartridge and imaging drum have been replaced and the issue persists, the most likely cause is a dirty or obstructed laser scanning assembly, which prevents the laser from exposing certain areas of the drum.

Answer

Fuser assembly

Answer

Transfer roller

Answer

Paper pickup rollers

Question 8

A technician is troubleshooting a workstation that cannot connect to the network. The link light on the NIC is off. The technician tests the Ethernet cable with a cable tester and it passes all four pairs. The workstation is connected to a wall jack that leads to a patch panel in the server room. The technician verifies that the patch cable from the patch panel to the switch is good. Which of the following should the technician do NEXT?

Accepted Answer

Check the port status on the switch. The link light being off indicates no physical layer (Layer 1) connectivity. Since the cable tester passed all four pairs and the patch cable is verified good, the issue likely lies with the switch port itself. Checking the port status on the switch (e.g., using 'show interfaces status' or verifying PoE/administrative shutdown) is the logical next step to confirm if the port is enabled, not error-disabled, or configured correctly.

Answer

Replace the NIC

Answer

Re-terminate the wall jack

Answer

Change the workstation's IP address to static

Question 9

A user reports that their wired desktop computer loses network connectivity for a few seconds at random times. The technician observes that when the issue occurs, the network activity LED on the integrated NIC turns off. The technician has already replaced the Ethernet cable, tested the switch port with another device (which works fine), and updated the NIC driver. Which of the following should the technician check NEXT?

Accepted Answer

B) Check the NIC's power management settings in Device Manager and disable 'Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power'. The symptom—random, brief connectivity loss with the NIC activity LED turning off—strongly suggests the operating system is powering down the NIC to save energy. Disabling the 'Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power' setting in the NIC's power management properties prevents the OS from entering a low-power state that drops the link. Since the cable, switch port, and driver have already been verified, this is the logical next step.

Answer

A) Replace the motherboard

Answer

C) Disable IPv6 on the NIC

Answer

D) Manually set the NIC speed and duplex to 10 Mbps Full Duplex

Question 10

A technician is installing a 2.5" SATA SSD in a desktop computer that already has an M.2 SATA SSD installed in the primary M.2 slot. After connecting the SATA SSD to a SATA port, the computer boots normally but the new SATA SSD is not detected in Windows. The technician verifies the SATA cable is secure and the drive has power. The motherboard manual shows that the M.2 slot shares bandwidth with SATA port 5. The technician has connected the new drive to SATA port 3. Which of the following should the technician do NEXT to resolve the issue?

Accepted Answer

Check Windows Disk Management to initialize and format the new drive.. The new SATA SSD is not detected in Windows, but the technician has already verified the cable is secure and the drive has power. Since the drive is connected to SATA port 3, which does not share bandwidth with the M.2 slot (only SATA port 5 does), the issue is likely that the drive is simply not initialized or formatted. The next logical step is to check Windows Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc) to see if the drive appears there and needs to be brought online, initialized, or formatted.

Answer

Move the SATA SSD to SATA port 5 to avoid potential bandwidth conflicts.

Answer

Disable the M.2 SSD in the BIOS to free up bandwidth for the SATA port.

Answer

Replace the SATA cable with a known-good cable.

Question 11

A technician installs an NVMe SSD in a desktop, but the drive is not detected. The motherboard manual states that one M.2 slot supports SATA only. What should the technician do?

Accepted Answer

Move the drive to an M.2 slot that supports PCIe/NVMe. The NVMe SSD requires a PCIe-based M.2 slot to function, as NVMe uses the PCIe bus for communication. The motherboard manual indicates that one M.2 slot is SATA-only, which means it cannot detect or communicate with an NVMe drive. Moving the drive to an M.2 slot that supports PCIe/NVMe resolves the detection issue.

Answer

Disable all USB ports

Answer

Replace the HDMI cable

Answer

Format the drive from the printer control panel

Question 12

A technician is setting up a small office network. The ISP provides a modem with a single Ethernet port and a single public IP address. The office has eight computers that all need to access the internet simultaneously. Which of the following devices should the technician connect directly to the modem to allow all computers to share the internet connection?

Accepted Answer

Router. The router is required because it performs Network Address Translation (NAT), which allows multiple devices on the local network to share a single public IP address provided by the ISP. It also routes traffic between the local subnet and the internet, handling both IP address assignment (via DHCP) and packet forwarding. A switch alone cannot translate addresses or route between networks, so it would not enable internet sharing.

Answer

Switch

Answer

Hub

Answer

Modem

Question 13

A technician is upgrading a desktop computer with a high-end graphics card that requires an 8-pin PCIe power connector. The existing power supply unit (PSU) only has 6-pin PCIe connectors available. Which adapter should the technician use to safely provide power to the new graphics card?

Accepted Answer

6-pin to 8-pin PCIe. The correct adapter is a 6-pin to 8-pin PCIe adapter because the existing PSU already provides a 6-pin PCIe power connector, which shares the same +12V and ground pinout as the 8-pin PCIe connector but with fewer sense pins. This adapter simply adds the two extra pins (typically ground and a sense pin) to meet the 8-pin connector's physical and electrical requirements, allowing the high-end graphics card to draw up to 150W safely.

Answer

Molex to 8-pin PCIe

Answer

SATA to 8-pin PCIe

Answer

4-pin to 8-pin ATX

Question 14

A technician is troubleshooting a desktop computer that fails to boot after a power surge during a thunderstorm. The computer's power LED illuminates briefly when the power button is pressed, but then nothing happens. The technician has tested the power supply with a multimeter and it outputs correct voltages. Which of the following components is MOST likely damaged?

Accepted Answer

Motherboard. (Motherboard). Even though the power supply outputs correct voltages under multimeter testing, a power surge can damage the motherboard's voltage regulation modules (VRMs) or power management IC, preventing the system from completing the POST sequence. The brief power LED illumination indicates the PSU is functional, but the motherboard fails to sustain the boot process, which is a classic symptom of motherboard damage from a surge.

Answer

CPU

Answer

RAM

Answer

Hard drive

Question 15

A user reports that their network printer is not responding to print jobs sent from their Windows workstation. The technician can successfully ping the printer's IP address (192.168.1.50) from the user's computer. The printer's web interface shows it is online and ready. The technician checks the print queue on the workstation and sees documents stuck with an 'Access Denied' error. Which of the following should the technician check NEXT?

Accepted Answer

Verify printer permissions and ensure the correct driver is installed.. The 'Access Denied' error in the print queue indicates a permissions or driver mismatch issue, not a connectivity problem. Since the printer is reachable via ping and its web interface shows it is online, the network and printer hardware are functional. The next logical step is to verify that the user has the necessary permissions to print and that the correct printer driver is installed, as an incompatible or corrupted driver can cause access errors.

Answer

Replace the Ethernet cable connecting the printer.

Answer

Restart the Windows Print Spooler service.

Answer

Assign a static IP address to the printer.