Specifications

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 Glossary
Dell™XPS™M1730Owner'sManual
Terms in this Glossary are provided for informational purposes only and may or may not describe features included with your particular computer.
A
AC — alternating current — The form of electricity that powers your computer when you plug the AC adapter power cable in to an electrical outlet.
ACPI — advanced configuration and power interface — A power management specification that enables Microsoft®Windows®operating systems to put a
computer in standby or hibernate mode to conserve the amount of electrical power allocated to each device attached to the computer.
AGP — accelerated graphics port — A dedicated graphics port that allows system memory to be used for video-related tasks. AGP delivers a smooth, true-color
video image because of the faster interface between the video circuitry and the computer memory.
AHCI — Advanced Host Controller Interface — An interface for a SATA hard drive Host Controller which allows the storage driver to enable technologies such
as Native Command Queuing (NCQ) and hot plug.
ALS — ambient light sensor — A feature that helps to control display brightness.
antivirus software — A program designed to identify, quarantine, and/or delete viruses from your computer.
ASF — alert standards format — A standard to define a mechanism for reporting hardware and software alerts to a management console. ASF is designed to
be platform- and operating system-independent.
B
battery life span — The length of time (years) during which a portable computer battery is able to be depleted and recharged.
battery operating time — The length of time (minutes or hours) that a portable computer battery powers the computer.
BIOS — basic input/output system — A program (or utility) that serves as an interface between the computer hardware and the operating system. Unless you
understandwhateffectthesesettingshaveonthecomputer,donotchangethem.Alsoreferredtoassystem setup.
bit — The smallest unit of data interpreted by your computer.
Blu-ray Disc™ (BD)— An optical storage technology offering storage capacity of up to 50 GB, full 1080p video resolution (HDTV required), and as many as 7.1
channels of native, uncompressed surround sound.
Bluetooth
®
wireless technology — A wireless technology standard for short-range(9m[29feet])networkingdevicesthatallowsforenableddevicesto
automatically recognize each other.
boot sequence — Specifies the order of the devices from which the computer attempts to boot.
bootable media — A CD, DVD, or floppy disk that you can use to start your computer. In case your hard drive is damaged or your computer has a virus, ensure
that you always have a bootable CD, DVD, or floppy disk available. Your Drivers and Utilities media is an example of bootable media.
bps — bits per second — The standard unit for measuring data transmission speed.
BTU — British thermal unit — A measurement of heat output.
bus — A communication pathway between the components in your computer.
bus speed — The speed, given in MHz, that indicates how fast a bus can transfer information.
byte — The basic data unit used by your computer. A byte is usually equal to 8 bits.
C
C — Celsius — Atemperaturemeasurementscalewhere0°isthefreezingpointand100°istheboilingpointofwater.
cache — A special high-speed storage mechanism which can be either a reserved section of main memory or an independent high-speed storage device. The
cache enhances the efficiency of many processor operations.
L1 cache — Primary cache stored inside the processor.
L2 cache — Secondary cache which can either be external to the processor or incorporated into the processor architecture.
carnet — An international customs document that facilitates temporary imports into foreign countries. Also known as a merchandise passport.
CD-R — CD recordable — A recordable version of a CD. Data can be recorded only once onto a CD-R. Once recorded, the data cannot be erased or written
over.