John’s laptop will access the memory in a similar standard way as it does for all users.
When John turns on his laptop,
- CPU first access the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) which is resided on a non-volatile chip on motherboard.
- The BIOS will load the bootloader (a program present on hard disk responsible to load operating system into memory) for Windows 10.
- After Operating system is loaded, CPU accesses the RAM which is a volatile memory. Necessary system files and device drivers are also loaded into RAM so that OS can communicate the hardware components.
- When John launches Microsoft Office 2016, CPU loads necessary program files and data into RAM,
- As John types the assignment, the CPU continuously accesses RAM to read and write that data.
- When he saves the assignment, CPU writes that data from RAM to hard disk.
- When the laptop is turned off, data will remain saved on hard disk because hard disk is non-volatile storage.
- When laptop is turned off, the CPU stops accessing the RAM and the operating system is unloaded from memory. The laptop saves any unsaved data from RAM to the hard disk before shutting down completely.