" A+ Certification "

I'm going to get my A+ certification and I wanted to ask those of you that already have this is it better to go to a tech school or college or would you suggest self study.

Obviously, it would be cheaper to study on your own but I would think that there are advantages to a classroom or a lab?

Also, how long did it take you all to finish the self study and/or school before you took the two exams?

Did you take the hardware and software exam the same day? I realize that there will be different opinions but that will be helpful to me. Thank you all in advance for your help on this!

 

It's best to get instruction for some.
Mainly because instruction can focus your studies toward passing the certification tests.
Then again if you have an extensive knowledge about computers already then you may just have to bone up a bit on what you know.
It all depends on your knowlage of computers and what your comfotable with.

The certification test at this time focuses on DOS (95,98,ME) and NT(NT,2000,XP) operating systems.
Soon it will also include Vista. Not sure when it's added. I think sometime in September.

The tests are also split into 2 parts...
Hardware and Operating systems. You can schedule to take the two tests at two different times.
Witch I would suggest so you can study up for each.

Whether you get instruction from a collage or a trade school I don't think makes any difference as long as they are reputable.
But if your short of cash you may want to think about using the self study route.
$2000 or higher is what your looking at with an instruction class.
Not to mention it will cost between $300 and $500 to take both of the certification exams.

If you have any more questions... feel free to ask.

 

I went to New Horizons (many moons ago)- not that great. Everyone has their focus on what you should know, some stress IRQs and never mentioned Hayes commands.. get a book or two.. look into certification newsgroups (they post alot of questions from people who've tested recently) and study...
I say *most* of those "exam cram" places you might not get much hands on - 2 or more people per PC...
At my last job they sent everyone to a class and afterwards the ones that didn't pass, I had to tutor.. either they didn't pay attention or the instructor was weak. They said he spent a lot of time talkin about games, ect...

http://www.passitnow.com/ good test site to practice.

I believed the instructor at NH who told us we were prepared and went and sat both tests... got one.. like I said they seemed to miss a lot of info.. so I got a few books and studied, then went back and got the second part.

If you study and go around some of the sites and prep you'll be ready come test time.

 

You didn't mention how much experience you have with computers; if you've been repairing them for several years now, that would put you ahead of someone with less experience. Though I tend to do things the hard way, I would urge you to consider formal training, instead of trying to learn everything on your own. Years ago, when I first considered A+ certification, I asked a friend with multiple certs what kind of questions I could expect on the exam; he told me "everything that could possibly be known about PCs is testable".

What he meant was, there is no one area to focus on; you might never have installed a laser printer, or added a SCSI drive to a SCSI cable, but you could see questions about either one on the exams. Do you understand IRQs? Can you recite the priority of each IRQ? Which IRQ has a higher priority, IRQ 14 or IRQ 8? Do you understand how drive letters are assigned in Windows 9.x? What speed (in MHz) does the ISA bus run at? Do you understand the difference between a logical partition, and an extended partition? Which one do you remove first when you are making changes to a harddrive using the MS-DOS FDISK program? Do you know what a Master File Table is? What is a FAT? What is a DAT? How big are the clusters (in KB) on a 40GB harddrive with a single partition that has been formatted with FAT32? Believe me, I could type questions for you all night, and those are fairly basic; they can be a LOT more complicated than those...

Do you know how a laser printer works? Could you diagnose a problem with a laser printer if someone called you on the phone and described the symptoms? Do you know the difference between a TRUE / REAL / ACTUAL low-level format, and zero-filling a harddrive? What is a MIDI port used for? Have you ever flashed the BIOS on a videocard? Have you ever flashed the BIOS on a motherboard? Have you ever upgraded the firmware on an optical drive? What RPM does a 5.25" floppy drive run at? What RPM does a 3.5" floppy drive run at? Is there a correlation between the two? Which DOS command do you use to wipe the Master Boot Record on a harddrive which has a drive overlay program installed? What is the function of the NVRAM in the CMOS? How does the Cable Select option work? What is the difference between an ordinary IDE cable, and a CSEL cable? Many people know that the four-pin power connector on a harddrive is known as a "Molex" plug; what is the correct name for the for the four-pin power connector on a floppy drive> Why do ATAPI devices use IDE cables to connect to motherboards? How does an ATAPI device work in DOS, when DOS was written and released YEARS before the ATAPI standard was established? These questions are more complicated than the earlier ones, and we haven't even BEGUN with the questions about the various operating systems...

When you're doing a fresh install of WinXP on a brand-new harddrive, what other software do you install after the OS? You have the OS itself, the latest version of DirectX, Service Pack 2, the latest videocard driver, and the motherboard chipset drivers; which one gets installed immediately after the OS has been installed? Of those four items (DirectX, Service Pack 2, the videocard driver, and the motherboard chipset drivers), which one do you install last? What functions do the motherboard chipset drivers perform? Can you name the five file extensions that are commonly considered "executable" in Windows 3.1? Can you explain the difference between "internal" and "external" DOS commands? You have a Windows 98 Second Edition computer that won't boot into Windows, and you need to create a DOS boot disk; how do you get the computer to boot to a DOS prompt without a bootdisk? Which DOS command do you use to create a DOS bootdisk, once you get the system to boot to a DOS prompt on the Win98SE system?

I'm not saying you'll see all, or ANY of those questions, on the A+ exam; I AM saying that if you don't know the answers to MOST of those questions, you really aren't ready to take the A+ exam, IMO. I work with SEVERAL A+ certified techs who can't answer MOST of those questions, because they got certified a LONG time ago, back in the days of DOS and Windows 3.1, and they don't really want to be bothered staying current. They certainly couldn't pass the newer versions of the A+ certification exams... yet they don't hesitate to tell others that they are "certified" technicians.

The bottom line is, if you can't answer those questions, you should consider how much time you're willing to devote to this; I know several people who claim to be able to "fix" computers, but I'm the type of guy they call when they run into REAL problems... maybe now you can see why a program of formal training can really pay off, and I'm NOT referring to one of those "diploma mills" people pay a lot of money to attend, in the hopes that they can pass the exams and get hired somewhere. Passing the exams and being able to fix computers are two different animals, as you can see.

Still, I'm NOT trying to discourage you; depending on your level of experience troubleshooting computer problems in DOS, Win3.x, Win9.x, and WinNT/2k/XP, you could really benefit from formal instruction. Back in the bad old days, I volunteered my "services" to anyone who would risk their data in my hands; while trying to repair the problems, I did my best not to make matters worse than they already were. When I couldn't fix the problem(s), I returned the system intact so someone else could take a shot at fixing it.

I started with DOS 5.0 and Win3.1; I later switched to DOS 6.x, and Windows for Workgroups 3.11. I built and rebuilt my own system countless hundreds of times; I wiped my harddrive so often it cried whenever I touched it. I stripped down Win95OSR2 so that I could install it on a 350MB harddrive, with more than 275MB of free space. I learned which useless folders I could delete, then went looking for individual programs to kill. I deleted any unnecessary .TXT, .WRI, and .DOC files, then the .AVI tutorials which were included in Win95 (deleting those .AVI files alone saved more than 7MB of space)... you get the idea. I installed Win95OSR2 on an AMD 386-40 system with 4MB of RAM, just because people told me it wouldn't work (they were wrong). In other words, I did everything I could think of to improve my understanding of operating systems and hardware; I spent a small fortune on books and magazines, reading things I didn't understand, in the hopes that something I read would ring a bell sometime in the future, and increase my knowledge. I learned how to use FDISK and FORMAT, then experimented with just about every DOS command known to mankind. I made LOTS of mistakes along the way, and got so confused I didn't know what day of the week it was, but I hammered on the hardware and operating systems until I how not to break them, and sometimes, how to UNbreak them. If I slept 15 hours a night for the next 25 years, I still wouldn't make up for the sleep I lost trying to fix a computer just for the sake of getting the experience.

Well, enough about me; only you know what you're willing to endure, and how much accomplishing this means to you. I did everything the hard way, and hope you'll choose to avoid that path; if you find a suitable school in your area, then roll up your sleeves and get started. As long as the class isn't too expensive, you'll have a better idea of what to focus on, and what you can simply skim through, which will save you from what I went through.

Good luck; let us know what you decide to do.