Essential Digital Skills Level 1

111 videos, 7 hours and 55 minutes

Course Content

Buttons and ports on a computer

Video 10 of 111
2 min 32 sec
English
English
Want to watch this video? Sign up for the course or enter your email below to watch one free video.

Unlock This Video Now for FREE

This video is normally available to paying customers.
You may unlock this video for FREE. Enter your email address for instant access AND to receive ongoing updates and special discounts related to this topic.

And different computers have different buttons on them with different ports on them to connect things into them. The first thing we're going to look at is the main power button. Now, these will vary depending on the computer you have, but generally speaking, there is a power button on the front, on the back, on the top of the computer and you push it and that will start the computer up. The other function of the button is that you can hard reset the computers. If you did have a problem and it froze, if you push and hold that button, often for about 10 seconds, it will completely reboot the system. Normally speaking, to turn a computer off, you would do that from the program inside the computer. You would literally go to the shut down and you would close it on the actual software side of things. So there is the button that turns them on, but then you would shut them down from the actual computer. If you are using a laptop, then it may well be that the computer just goes into sleep functions. All you need to do then is lift the lid up and it turns it on and close the lid down and it turns it off.

Other things on the back of the computer, the USB connections, and these could be USB-C or standard USB connections. And these would be where you can connect things like data drives, other external devices, your keyboard, your mouse, anything will connect up onto them. And different computers will have a different number. Some might just have two, some might have six, eight, it depends on the computer you are actually working with. Other connections would be monitor outputs, and these can be different sizes and shapes, could be HDMI or a pin type plug. And this is how you can connect up a monitor. Or you want to connect your computer directly into your television, you can use one of these. Now, some computers will have more than one, so you can connect up two monitors, if you wanted to.

Other connections on the back can be connections that will go directly to a projector. Another one will be a connection that you can connect directly to the Internet. Now, it depends on the machine, some machines do not have a direct cable connection. Often laptops do not always have it, but desktop computers would usually have a connection, so you can hardwire your computer directly to your router and access the Internet without the WiFi. Finally, there may be sockets on it for connecting a headphones or an external microphone or speakers to your computer. These are typically a round hole on the back, and you just literally push a plug in there and you can connect up your headset or an external speakers, if you want to have sound on your computer.