Dell PowerEdge 1750 Ser's Manual page 27

NIC
Acronym for network interface controller.
NMI
Abbreviation for nonmaskable interrupt. A device sends an NMI to signal the microprocessor about hardware errors, such as a parity error.
noninterlaced
A technique for decreasing screen flicker by sequentially refreshing each horizontal line on the screen.
ns
Abbreviation for nanosecond(s), one billionth of a second.
NTFS
Abbreviation for the NT File System option in the Windows NT operating system.
NVRAM
Abbreviation for nonvolatile random-access memory. Memory that does not lose its contents when you turn off your system. NVRAM is used for maintaining
the date, time, and system configuration information.
partition
You can divide a hard drive into multiple physical sections called partitions with the fdisk command. Each partition can contain multiple logical drives.
After partitioning the hard drive, you must format each logical drive with the format command.
parity
Redundant information that is associated with a block of information.
RAID 5 volumes, for example, stripe data and parity intermittently across a set of hard drives. Within each stripe, the data on one hard drive is parity data and
the data on the other hard drives is normal data. RAID 5 volumes therefore require at least three hard drives to allow for this extra parity information. See
RAID 0 and RAID 5.
PCI
Abbreviation for Peripheral Component Interconnect. PCI is a standard for local-bus implementation developed by Intel Corporation.
PDU
Abbreviation for power distribution unit. A PDU is a power source with multiple power outlets that provides electrical power to servers and storage systems in
a rack.
peripheral device
An internal or external device—such as a printer, a disk drive, or a keyboard—connected to a system.
PGA
Abbreviation for pin grid array, a type of microprocessor socket that allows you to remove the microprocessor chip.
pixel
A single point on a video display. Pixels are arranged in rows and columns to create an image. A video resolution, such as 640 x 480, is expressed as the
number of pixels across by the number of pixels up and down.
POST
Acronym for power-on self-test. Before the operating system loads when you turn on your system, the POST tests various system components such as RAM,
the disk drives, and the keyboard.
program diskette set
The set of diskettes from which you can perform a complete installation of an operating system or application program. When you reconfigure a program, you
often need its program diskette set.
protected mode
An operating mode supported by 80286 or higher microprocessors, protected mode allows operating systems to implement:
A memory address space of 16 MB (80286 micro--processor) to 4 GB (Intel386™ or higher micro-processor)
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Multitasking
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Virtual memory, a method for increasing addressable memory by using the hard drive
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The Windows NT and UNIX 32-bit operating systems run in protected mode. MS-DOS cannot run in protected mode; however, some programs that you can
start from MS-DOS, such as the Windows operating system, are able to put the system into protected mode.