hardMultiple ChoiceObjective-mapped
220-1102 Practice Question: During a remote troubleshooting session, a…
During a remote troubleshooting session, a technician uses a tool that allows them to view the user's screen and control the mouse and keyboard. The user reports that the session is extremely laggy, with noticeable delay between the technician's actions and the screen update. Which of the following is the most likely cause of this lag?
⚠ Common exam trap
CompTIA often tests the concept that remote desktop lag is primarily a network issue (latency/bandwidth), not a hardware or OS compatibility problem, and the trap here is that candidates may incorrectly attribute the lag to the user's local hardware (RAM) or encryption overhead instead of recognizing the network as the most likely culprit.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
The network connection between the technician and the user has high latency or low bandwidth.
The lag described is a classic symptom of network latency or insufficient bandwidth, which directly impacts the responsiveness of remote desktop protocols like RDP or VNC. These protocols transmit screen updates and input events in real time; high latency delays the round-trip of packets, while low bandwidth can cause frame drops or compression artifacts, resulting in the noticeable delay between the technician's actions and the screen update.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
The remote desktop software is using an outdated encryption protocol.
Why it's wrong here
While outdated encryption protocols (e.g., older TLS versions, weaker ciphers) could potentially introduce a slight processing overhead due to less optimized algorithms, their primary impact is on security vulnerabilities or compatibility failures, not typically the significant lag described. Modern remote desktop protocols are designed to minimize encryption overhead, and even older, less efficient protocols would likely manifest as a connection failure or security warning before causing severe, persistent lag.
- ✗
The user's computer has insufficient RAM to handle remote desktop sessions.
Why it's wrong here
Remote desktop clients and servers are generally designed to be lightweight applications, consuming minimal RAM themselves. While a user's computer with severely insufficient RAM might struggle with other applications running concurrently, leading to overall system sluggishness, the remote desktop session itself is optimized to transmit screen updates and input efficiently. Significant lag specifically within the remote session is rarely a direct result of the remote desktop software's RAM consumption but rather points to network or CPU bottlenecks.
- ✓
The network connection between the technician and the user has high latency or low bandwidth.
Why this is correct
Remote desktop protocols rely on constant, low-latency communication to provide a responsive user experience. High latency, measured by round-trip time (RTT), directly translates to a noticeable delay between the technician's input (mouse clicks, keystrokes) and the corresponding visual update on their screen. Conversely, low bandwidth restricts the amount of screen data that can be transmitted per second, resulting in a choppy, pixelated, or slow-to-refresh display, both of which are perceived as significant lag.
- ✗
The technician's computer is running a different operating system than the user's.
Why it's wrong here
Remote desktop software is specifically engineered to be cross-platform compatible. For instance, a Windows technician can remotely control a macOS or Linux machine, and vice-versa, using appropriate client/server software. The underlying operating system differences are abstracted and handled by the remote desktop application layer, which focuses on transmitting graphical updates and input commands, not raw OS-specific data. Therefore, OS incompatibility would typically result in a connection failure or feature limitations, not performance lag.
Go deeper
Related to this question
About these practice questions
One of 495 original 220-1202 practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This 220-1202 practice question is part of Courseiva's free CompTIA certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the 220-1202 exam.