220-1101 Hard Questions — 25 Difficult Questions

Question 1

A technician is building a custom workstation for 3D rendering. The components include an AMD Ryzen 7 5800X CPU, a B550 motherboard (box states 'AMD Ryzen 3000 desktop ready'), two 16GB DDR4-3600 modules (on the QVL), and a dedicated GPU. The system powers on, case fans spin, and the CPU fan spins, but the motherboard’s CPU debug LED remains lit and there is no display. The technician has reseated the CPU and found no bent pins. The RAM and GPU have been verified working in another system. The PSU is a known-good 750W unit. Which of the following should the technician do NEXT?

Accepted Answer

Upgrade the motherboard BIOS using the BIOS flashback feature. The B550 motherboard is labeled 'AMD Ryzen 3000 desktop ready,' meaning its factory BIOS supports Ryzen 3000 CPUs but not Ryzen 5000 (Vermeer) CPUs like the Ryzen 7 5800X. The CPU debug LED staying lit indicates the motherboard cannot initialize the CPU, which is a classic symptom of an incompatible BIOS version. Using the BIOS flashback feature allows the technician to update the BIOS without a compatible CPU installed, enabling support for the Ryzen 5000 series.

Answer

Replace the power supply with a higher-wattage unit

Answer

Test the system with a known-working Ryzen 3000 CPU

Answer

Replace the motherboard with a newer model that officially supports Ryzen 5000

Question 2

A technician is assembling a desktop computer using an Intel LGA1151 socket motherboard. The CPU has been installed correctly with thermal paste and a heatsink. When the power button is pressed, the system powers on for about three seconds, then shuts off, and then repeatedly attempts to restart. The CPU cooler fan spins normally during that time. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The 4+4 pin EPS12V power connector is not plugged into the motherboard. The 4+4 pin EPS12V connector provides dedicated power to the CPU. Without it, the CPU cannot initialize, causing the motherboard's fail-safe to power off after a few seconds and then repeatedly attempt to restart. The cooler fan spinning normally indicates the system is receiving basic power, but the CPU lacks the necessary voltage to complete POST.

Answer

The RAM modules are not fully seated in their slots

Answer

The CMOS battery is depleted

Answer

The power supply is not rated for the required wattage

Question 3

A technician installed a new high-end graphics card in a desktop PC. The system powers on, fans spin, but the monitor remains black. The monitor works fine when connected to the motherboard's integrated video port. The technician has reseated the graphics card, connected the necessary PCIe power cables, and verified the card is fully inserted in the primary PCIe x16 slot. Which of the following is the MOST likely next step to resolve the issue?

Accepted Answer

Check the BIOS/UEFI settings to ensure the primary display is set to PCIe. The correct answer is C because when a discrete graphics card is installed, the BIOS/UEFI must be configured to use the PCIe slot as the primary display adapter. If the system defaults to the integrated GPU, the monitor will remain black when connected to the new card, even though the card is powered and seated correctly. Checking and setting the primary display to PCIe in BIOS/UEFI directly addresses this common misconfiguration.

Answer

Replace the monitor with a 4K display

Answer

Update the graphics card driver in Safe Mode

Answer

Test the graphics card in another computer

Question 4

A technician is assembling a new gaming PC with an AMD Ryzen 5 5600X CPU and a B550 motherboard. After installing the CPU, two DDR4-3600 RAM sticks in slots A2 and B2 (as per manual), and a dedicated GPU, the system powers on but there is no display. The motherboard's CPU debug LED remains lit. The technician has reseated the CPU and checked for bent pins (none found). The PSU is a known-good 650W unit and all fans spin. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause?

Accepted Answer

B. The motherboard's BIOS needs to be updated to support the Ryzen 5 5600X.. The Ryzen 5 5600X is based on the Zen 3 architecture, which requires a BIOS version that supports AGESA ComboV2 1.1.0.0 or later. B550 motherboards were originally released with BIOS versions that only supported Zen 2 (Ryzen 3000 series) CPUs. Without a BIOS update, the motherboard cannot initialize the CPU, causing the CPU debug LED to stay lit and preventing any display output, even though all other components appear powered.

Answer

A. The RAM is not on the motherboard's Qualified Vendor List (QVL).

Answer

C. The CPU cooler is mounted too tightly, causing pressure on the socket.

Answer

D. The PCIe power cable for the graphics card is not connected.

Question 5

A technician is building a desktop computer for a graphic designer. The motherboard supports both SATA and M.2 NVMe SSDs. The technician installs a 500GB M.2 NVMe SSD in the primary M.2 slot and a 2TB SATA HDD for additional storage. The computer boots from the NVMe SSD without issue. However, the SATA HDD is not detected in Windows Disk Management or in the BIOS. The technician has verified the SATA cable is connected securely and the HDD is receiving power. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause of the issue?

Accepted Answer

The M.2 NVMe SSD disables specific SATA ports on this motherboard. The M.2 NVMe SSD uses PCIe lanes that, on many consumer motherboards, share bandwidth with specific SATA ports. When an M.2 NVMe drive is installed in the primary M.2 slot, the motherboard firmware automatically disables certain SATA ports (often SATA port 5 or 6) to avoid lane conflicts. This explains why the SATA HDD is not detected even though it is powered and the cable is secure.

Answer

The SATA HDD is too large to be recognized alongside an NVMe drive

Answer

The SATA controller is disabled in the BIOS

Answer

The SATA HDD requires a jumper setting for 2TB mode

Question 6

A technician is building a new desktop computer. When power is applied, the fans spin, the drives spin up, but the monitor shows no signal and no beep codes are heard. The technician verifies that the power supply is adequate for the components. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause?

Accepted Answer

CPU is not properly seated. The absence of beep codes combined with fans and drives spinning indicates the motherboard is receiving power but fails to complete the Power-On Self-Test (POST). A CPU that is not properly seated prevents the CPU from communicating with the chipset, halting POST before any beep sequence can be generated, while the power supply and other components receive power.

Answer

Power supply is faulty

Answer

RAM is incompatible

Answer

Hard drive is not connected

Question 7

A technician is troubleshooting a desktop computer in a machine shop. The computer experiences intermittent network connectivity loss, specifically when a large electric motor on a nearby lathe is started. The link light on the network interface card (NIC) turns off during these events. The technician has already replaced the Ethernet cable with a shielded Cat6a cable and moved the computer to a different electrical circuit on a different breaker panel. The problem persists. Which of the following should the technician do NEXT?

Accepted Answer

Use a fiber optic Ethernet cable and media converters. The large electric motor generates strong electromagnetic interference (EMI) when started. Shielded Cat6a cable reduces but does not eliminate EMI, and moving to a different circuit does not address radiated interference. Fiber optic cable is completely immune to EMI because it uses light pulses instead of electrical signals, making it the definitive solution for this environment.

Answer

Replace the network interface card with one that supports a higher level of error correction

Answer

Install a ferrite core on the Ethernet cable near the computer

Answer

Replace the power supply unit (PSU) of the computer with a model that has better electrical noise filtering

Question 8

A technician is building a workstation with a motherboard that has two M.2 slots. One slot (M2A) supports both SATA and PCIe, and the other (M2B) supports PCIe only. The technician installs a SATA M.2 drive in M2B. After booting, the system does not detect the drive. Which of the following is the most likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The M2B slot does not support SATA mode.. The M2B slot supports PCIe only, not SATA. Since the technician installed a SATA M.2 drive into that slot, the motherboard cannot communicate with the drive because the slot lacks the necessary SATA controller interface. This is a classic mismatch between drive interface and slot capability.

Answer

The M.2 drive is defective.

Answer

The SATA controller is disabled in BIOS.

Answer

The drive's firmware needs an update.

Question 9

A technician is building a high-end workstation for 3D rendering. The chosen CPU uses an LGA 1200 socket and supports dual-channel memory. The technician needs a motherboard that supports the CPU, at least two PCIe x16 slots for dual graphics cards, and should allow memory overclocking for optimal performance. Which of the following motherboard chipsets is the most suitable for this task?

Accepted Answer

ATX motherboard with Z490 chipset. The Z490 chipset is the only option that supports both dual-channel memory overclocking (via unlocked memory multipliers) and multiple PCIe x16 slots for dual graphics cards, while also being compatible with the LGA 1200 socket. This makes it ideal for a high-end 3D rendering workstation where CPU and memory performance are critical.

Answer

Micro-ATX motherboard with H410 chipset

Answer

Mini-ITX motherboard with B460 chipset

Answer

ATX motherboard with Q470 chipset

Question 10

A company has a legacy virtual machine running on a deprecated hypervisor (Hyper-V). They want to migrate this VM to a new hypervisor (VMware vSphere) hosted in a private cloud while preserving the VM's configuration, installed applications, and data. The migration must be performed with minimal downtime. Which of the following methods is MOST appropriate?

Accepted Answer

Export the VM as an OVF template and import it into the new hypervisor.. Exporting the VM as an OVF (Open Virtualization Format) template is the most appropriate method because OVF is a hypervisor-agnostic standard that encapsulates the VM's configuration, virtual disks, and metadata. This allows the VM to be imported into VMware vSphere while preserving its installed applications and data, and the export/import process can be performed with minimal downtime by shutting down the VM only during the export phase.

Answer

Perform a physical-to-virtual (P2V) conversion using third-party tools.

Answer

Use live migration (vMotion) to move the VM between hypervisors.

Answer

Rebuild the VM from scratch on the new hypervisor and restore data from backup.

Question 11

A business uses a cloud service that automatically increases the number of virtual servers during peak traffic hours and decreases them during low usage, all without manual intervention. The policy is predefined in the cloud management console. This scenario best exemplifies which characteristic of cloud computing?

Accepted Answer

Rapid elasticity. Rapid elasticity is the correct characteristic because the cloud service automatically scales virtual server resources up and down based on predefined policies, matching demand without manual intervention. This dynamic scaling—adding instances during peak traffic and removing them during low usage—is the core definition of rapid elasticity in cloud computing, as it allows resources to expand and contract elastically to meet workload changes.

Answer

On-demand self-service

Answer

Resource pooling

Answer

Measured service

Question 12

A company hosts a critical database server on-premises. They want to migrate to a cloud solution that allows them to retain full administrative control over the operating system, database software, and security patches, but they do not want to manage the physical server hardware, rack space, or network cabling. Which cloud service model should they choose?

Accepted Answer

IaaS. IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) is the correct choice because it provides virtualized computing resources over the internet, including virtual machines, storage, and networking. The customer retains full administrative control over the operating system, database software, and security patches, while the cloud provider manages the physical server hardware, rack space, and network cabling. This matches the requirement of full OS and application control without physical infrastructure management.

Answer

PaaS

Answer

SaaS

Answer

DaaS

Question 13

A company is developing a custom application that requires a specific Linux kernel version and full root access to install and configure third-party security modules. The company wants to minimize the management of physical infrastructure but needs complete control over the operating system environment, including the ability to modify kernel parameters. The cloud provider will be responsible for all underlying hardware and the hypervisor. Which cloud service model should the company choose?

Accepted Answer

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). IaaS provides virtualized computing resources over the internet, granting the customer full administrative control over the operating system, including the ability to install custom kernels, modify kernel parameters, and install third-party security modules. The cloud provider manages the physical hardware and hypervisor, while the customer retains complete control of the guest OS, meeting the requirement for root access and kernel customization without managing physical infrastructure.

Answer

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Answer

Software as a Service (SaaS)

Answer

Database as a Service (DBaaS)

Question 14

A cloud administrator is migrating a virtual machine from a private cloud to a public cloud. The VM must retain its hostname and IP address. The public cloud provider does not support the same hypervisor as the private cloud. Which of the following migration methods is MOST appropriate?

Accepted Answer

Virtual-to-virtual (V2V). Virtual-to-virtual (V2V) migration is the correct method because it converts a virtual machine from one hypervisor format to another, allowing the VM to run on a public cloud provider that uses a different hypervisor than the private cloud. This process preserves the guest OS, applications, and configuration, including the hostname and IP address, by converting the virtual disk and metadata to the target hypervisor's format.

Answer

Physical-to-virtual (P2V)

Answer

Live migration

Answer

Cloning

Question 15

A company hosts its web application on a public cloud IaaS platform. To ensure availability in case an entire cloud region fails, the company deploys identical infrastructure in two separate regions and configures a traffic management service that automatically routes all user traffic to the healthy region. The secondary region does not normally handle traffic. This architecture is an example of which of the following?

Accepted Answer

Active-passive failover. This architecture is an active-passive failover because the secondary region remains idle (passive) until a failure in the primary region triggers automatic traffic redirection via the traffic management service. The key characteristic is that only one region handles user traffic at a time, with the passive region standing by to take over, ensuring availability during a full cloud region outage.

Answer

Active-active load balancing

Answer

Disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS)

Answer

High availability across availability zones

Question 16

A company runs a Type 1 hypervisor with several production virtual machines (VMs). The physical host has 64 GB of RAM. The administrator observes that the host’s memory usage is consistently at 95%, leaving no free memory for a new VM that needs 8 GB. However, the existing VMs are only using about 50% of their allocated memory. Which hypervisor technology can the administrator use to run the new VM without adding physical RAM?

Accepted Answer

Memory overcommitment with ballooning. Memory overcommitment with ballooning allows the hypervisor to reclaim unused memory from running VMs by using a balloon driver that inflates inside the guest OS, forcing the guest to release memory pages back to the hypervisor. This reclaimed memory can then be allocated to the new VM without adding physical RAM. The scenario describes existing VMs using only 50% of their allocated memory, making ballooning an ideal solution to free up the needed 8 GB.

Answer

Thin provisioning

Answer

vMotion

Answer

Memory mirroring

Question 17

A company wants to ensure business continuity in the event of a primary data center failure. They replicate their critical virtual machines to a cloud provider's secondary region. In the secondary region, the VMs are stored as templates and are not running, but the cloud provider can instantiate them within minutes if needed. The company is charged only for the storage costs of the templates, not for compute resources. This approach BEST demonstrates which cloud computing characteristic?

Accepted Answer

Measured service. This scenario illustrates 'Measured service', one of the five essential cloud characteristics defined by NIST. Measured service means that cloud resources are metered and customers are billed only for what they consume. Here, the company only pays for storage (the templates) and not for idle compute, which would be the case if the VMs were running. While 'rapid elasticity' allows quick provisioning, it does not directly describe the billing model. 'High availability' implies redundant active resources, which is not the case here (VMs are offline). 'Resource pooling' refers to multi-tenant shared infrastructure.

Answer

High availability

Answer

Rapid elasticity

Answer

Resource pooling

Question 18

A company runs an internal web application on an on-premises virtual server that handles typical daily traffic. During seasonal sales, traffic spikes to ten times the normal volume. The company configures a public cloud service to automatically deploy additional virtual server instances when the on-premises server reaches a certain utilization threshold. These instances connect to the same database and load balancer, and they are terminated when traffic returns to normal. Which cloud architecture does this describe?

Accepted Answer

Cloud bursting. This scenario describes cloud bursting, a hybrid cloud model where an application runs primarily on-premises but can 'burst' into the public cloud during peak demand. This allows the company to handle traffic spikes without maintaining expensive idle capacity on-premises. Rapid elasticity is a characteristic of cloud computing, but cloud bursting is the specific architectural pattern that combines on-premises and public cloud resources.

Answer

Rapid elasticity

Answer

Resource pooling

Answer

High availability

Question 19

A company runs a critical database server on a virtual machine hosted on a Type 1 hypervisor. The requirement is that the database server must remain operational and accessible even if the underlying physical host experiences a hardware failure. Which of the following virtualization features should be implemented to achieve this goal?

Accepted Answer

Fault tolerance. Fault tolerance (B) is correct because it creates a secondary, shadow virtual machine that runs in lockstep with the primary VM. If the physical host fails, the secondary VM takes over instantly with no data loss or downtime, ensuring the database server remains operational.

Answer

Live migration

Answer

Load balancing

Answer

Snapshot

Question 20

A laser printer produces light ghost images of previously printed text on the following page. The technician has already replaced the toner cartridge and the imaging drum with new OEM components. The fuser appears to be heating properly. Which of the following is the NEXT component the technician should inspect or replace?

Accepted Answer

Primary charge corona / charge roller. The primary charge corona or charge roller is responsible for applying a uniform electrostatic charge to the imaging drum before the laser writes the image. If this component is failing, it may not fully erase the previous charge pattern, leaving residual latent images that develop into ghost images. Replacing the toner cartridge and drum eliminates those as causes, and the fuser is heating properly, so the charge roller is the next likely culprit.

Answer

Transfer roller

Answer

Laser scanner unit

Answer

Erase lamp