Dell Interview - Help!!!

[BuddMan]

Ok, I still need the answer to this: Why is NT 4.0 and lower not plug and play?

[az]

Probably because PnP was new then and never worked right (remember the phrase "plug and pray"?), and NT were business OSes, where stability is one of the greatest concerns

Or so

AZ

[ZokesPro]

Originally posted by ALBPM
Just be upbeat, positive and don't show any signs of getting fustrated by their questions. I think they are more interested in your people/teamwork skills than the technical stuff. DELL probably will give you lots of training on the technical part. But you have to show them you can work/help the worst of the gene pool without getting impatient or fustrated.

Back when I was a total NOOB and owned a couple DELL systems their Customer Support people were cool. They would actually spend the time to help you upgrade your DELL system wether you got the parts from them or not.

"Your system is fine..... It's the interface between the keyboard and chair that's causing the problems"

Paul

Listen to this dude he knows his stuff , except for the techs, sometimes you can get a few on their off days, but mainly Dell Tech Support representitives are there to help as much as possible within their support boundires. It all depends on which tech you get.

It also depends on the customer too, sometimes a customer will try and be a jerk to test your patience, but if you call in and your nice chances are you'll receive the same treatment.

[BuddMan]

Well, having worked at an ISP for a good while I know enough about customer service (I hope), so that shouldn't be a big problem. I just hope I know enough for the people that are interviewing me....

[ZokesPro]

Personally I think you'll be fine, if they really need you and they say your not qualified enough they can train you to be.

[BuddMan]

Ok, another question (yep, and plenty more to come I bet). Allocation Tables, specifically FAT32 and FAT16. What are the main differences between the two? Also, what does NTFS stand for and what is its difference over FAT32/16. Thanks in advance for any answers.

[az]

Read my first post regarding differences between FAT16/32. There's nothing more to it (Maximum partition size for FAT32 should be 2 Terabytes).

NTFS stands for New Technology (what the NT in Windows NT stands for) File System, but I can't explain how it works, since I don't know

AZ

[BuddMan]

Ok, thanks for the response az, and thanks for everyone else as well.

Well....I think it's time to start taking some quizes now. I will try cramsessions, but does anyone else have any recommendations on online quizes?

EDIT: Cramsession isn't responding right now??? Arggg...what a time to do it....

[{PainCresT}DAn]

Originally posted by az
Wasn't it an SX then?

AZ

386 didn't have mathco and I think they didn't have any SX 386's until the 486's came out and what made the difference between 386 and 486 was a FP unit (Mathco). The 486 had it built in (or should I say on-die) the 386 did not, and I think the SX in 486's was kinda like a celeron type thing weaker FP and L1. For the 386 SX chip I remember after the 486 DX2 66 came out there was a buget board that had get this soldered on 386 SX chip and the whole kit cost about $50.00 CND it was unbelievable but they worked ok with windows 3.1 and could connect to BBS's.

[{PainCresT}DAn]

Originally posted by az
Read my first post regarding differences between FAT16/32. There's nothing more to it (Maximum partition size for FAT32 should be 2 Terabytes).

NTFS stands for New Technology (what the NT in Windows NT stands for) File System, but I can't explain how it works, since I don't know

AZ

I don't think anyone really know how NTFS works since M$ software is closed source so only maybe tidbits but nothing else.

[Sasq]

386 DX and SX came out at more or less the same time from memory, the dx was 32bit external and the sx was 16 bit external, which made it cheaper and more or less drop in compatable with the 286 board designs. Neither had on chip FPU
The 486 DX had on board fpu and the SX did not (although I think you had the option of adding an external one)

[Wombat]

Sasq has it pretty much nailed. The FPU was disabled/missing on the 486SX, and enabled on the DX. The 486 had 32/32 A/D external busses, as did the 386DX. The 386SX had 24/16 A/D external busses.

NTFS: Yes, it's pretty closed, but you can look at the Linux kernel - They've had solid reading capability and (officially) experimental writing ability for a couple years now. There <I>are</I> people outside of MS that have figured it out. The NT kernel itself was originally a very Mach kernel, but they've integrated many components as time goes on.

FAT16/32-Don't forget that FAT32 supports VFAT, a poor man's solution to the 8.3 problem.

[BuddMan]

Ok, it's 2:15am and I am almost through studying. I have another question though about BIOS flashes.

Here is how I understand it. The BIOS is written to EEPROM (Electronically Erased Programable ROM), so when flashed, you basically are erasing parts of the BIOS from the EEPROM that it is written to and reprogramming that ROM with the updated parts. Am I correct on this or way off?? Thanks for any help. Interview is in 8 hours....

[GT98]

Originally posted by SpiralDragon
BTW.... concerning MAC PCs.... do they use IRQ, DMAs and I/O ports as well ... in comparison to X86 systems that is....

Since when did Dell start selling Macs? LOL

[BuddMan]

Well, did the interview today. I dunno, it didn't go as well as I thought it would, but maybe I am being too down about it. But basically they said they would contact me when they've made a decision. I pretty much did good on the technical part of the interview (was one or two questions I didn't know the answer to). There was a part where they wanted me to troubleshoot a monitor problem, would hear it come on, etc, but would be a black screen. I went through a whole slew of solutions, but get this, the solution was simply to adjust the contrast and brightness, one I didn't even think about....

So now I must wait, and....the waiting sucks. I will call them Monday to see if I can get a status on it though (I hate waiting for things like this). But she could tell I was nervous, etc. Do they take that into account for the interview?? Well, the waiting begins....