Solutions to Chapter 3 Lab Exercises

Mike Meyers’ A+ Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Lab Manual Solutions Chapter 3

Solutions to Chapter 3 Lab Exercises

In this section, you’ll find solutions to the lab exercises, Lab Analysis Test, and Key Terms Quiz.

Lab Solution 3.01

Step 1 The chip features are as follows:

Maker / CPU Type / Package / Clock Speed
(MHz) / FSB Speed (MHz) / Cache
L2 (KB) / Clock Speed Multiplier
Intel / Pentium III 750 / PPGA, FC-PGA, or SECC-2 / 100 / 100 / 256 / 7.5´
AMD / Athlon XP 1500+ / Socket A PGA 462 / 133 / 266 / 512 / 10×
AMD / Sempron 3100+ / Socket 754 / 200 / N/A (effective 1600) / 256 / 9×
Intel / Celeron 2200 / Socket 478 / 100 / 400 / 256 / 22×
AMD / Athlon 64 X2 3800+ / Socket 939, or Socket AM2 / 200 / 2000 / 2 × 512 or 2 × 1024 / 10×
Intel / Pentium D 2800 / LGA 775 / 200 / 800 / 2 × 2048 / 14×
Intel / Pentium 4 2540 / Socket 478 / 133 / 533 / 512 / 19×
Intel / Core DUO T2300 / mPGA479M Socket / 100 / 400 / 2 × 1024 or 2 × 2048 / Up to 28´
Intel / Itanium / PAC / 100 / 400 / 96 KB / 8.5´

Step 3 The top four chips pictured in Figure 3-1 are PGA types, while the fifth at the bottom is an SEC type. The top two are older 32-bit AMD and Intel chips (Athlon XP at left; Celeron at right), while the two in the middle are newer dual-core 64-bit processors (Pentium D at left; Athlon 64 X2 at right). Each of the PGA chips shown here has a different pin or contact grid. The Intel Pentium D and the AMD 64 X2 have even denser pin grids than the original Pentium 4 and AMD Athlon XP chips. You should be able to point out all of the orientation notches and identification marks.

Step 4 The first type of fan is a screw-down fan. This type of fan has two separate parts: the base and the fan itself. The base normally attaches to the central processing unit (CPU), using grooves on the bottom to slide onto the CPU, where it is held in place. The base has a large, circular opening at the top with screw grooves on the inside. The fan is designed to screw into this opening, eventually pressing against the chip underneath to hold the fan securely in place. The second and most common type of fan is a clip fan. This type of fan comes in one piece, with the heat sink and fan combined. The clip is actually a piece of metal running through the center of the heat sink with metal loops on each end that fit over small protrusions on the socket to hold the fan assembly in place. Some of these fan assemblies can be rather large.

Step 5 Note the CPU package type, fan assembly type, and power plug type on your system.

Lab Solution 3.02

Step 1 The different socket types are as follows:

A. Socket LGA-775, Pentium 4, Pentium D, Core 2 Duo

B. Socket 478, Pentium 4, Celeron

C. Socket 939, AMD Athlon 64, Athlon 64 X2

D. Socket AM2, AMD Sempron, Athlon 64 X2

Step 2 The chip/socket pairs are as follows:

Pentium D 820 is Socket LGA-775.

AMD Opteron 248 is Socket 940.

Athlon 64 X2 4200+ is Socket 939.

Pentium 4 is Socket 478.

Athlon XP 1500+ is Socket A (PGA-462).

AMD Sempron 3500+ is Socket AM2.

Answers to Lab Analysis Test

1. This will not be possible on two fronts. First, AMD and Intel now use proprietary sockets, so even if they were close to the same model, they would not be interchangeable. Second, the Duron is older and uses Socket 462, where the Pentium D uses an LGA-775 socket.

2. The first main difference between an AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ and an Intel Pentium D, for example, is that the 3800+ indicates that the AMD processor runs at an equivalent performance of an Intel processor clocked at 3.8 GHz. The actual clock speed of the Athlon 64 X2 3800+ is 2.4 GHz. The other features that add to the overall performance are the on-chip Integrated DDR Memory Controller and the on-chip HyperTransport Bus.

3. Yes, because both of these early AMD processors used AMD’s Socket A (PGA-462). Barring any clock multiplier issues on the motherboard, the Thunderbird should perform better.

4. Macky probably does not need to introduce water cooling to his system if he is not going crazy with intense, real-time games such as FEAR. Gaming computers demand high-performance graphics processors (possibly SLI or CrossFire configurations) and are often “overclocked” to increase performance and reduce “lag.” Both of these demands increase the overall heat generated by the system. The general ventilation of this system will be improved, usually by including some sort of liquid cooling for the overclocked (overheated) processor.

5. The dual-core processor won’t necessarily improve David’s game. Currently, dual-core processors most improve performance where multiple applications are running simultaneously. As programmers begin to take advantage of the dual-core design, individual threads of the program can be split between the cores, improving performance on a single application such as a game.

Answers to Key Terms Quiz

1. land grid array (LGA)

2. Socket LGA-775

3. fan assembly

4. microprocessor

5. clip connector