A+ CPU question!!!

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

Hi Guys,

Just wanted to ask how much do you need to know about the generations of CPU's there has been for the exams? I am studying these at the moment and taking notes but seem to be getting bogged down with all the imformation on the generations of CPU's. I am supposed to be taking notes but seem to be almost writning the whole book word for word, bearing in mind i am a begineer. I have read the book through a couple of times and have decided i would be a good idea to take some notes and hope to make things stick a bit better. Any help or advice would be great!!!!!!!!!!!


Regards,




Thanks in advance!!!!

 

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

Try and lean the slot type and package type of each cpu, you may get lucky and get no questions on cpus but I did, so it's best to learn it.

 

CPU collection.

The are a weath of other sites out there with detail via Google.

 

Learning things like this is quite difficult. Really, on the job you don't need to know every single socket, processor and everything about it. I'd concentrate more on the ones that are a bit different, the Slot 1 Pentiums for instance. I got a question about that, something about it's connection I believe. It's rare nowadays that you even encounter them, since they're PII/PIII era.

I don't know what to tell you really. You could gamble and learn just the basics, or you could just force yourself to know it inside out. Thing is, you're likely to stumble upon other areas of the course where you're presented with the same options.

 

I was in a similar dilemma and, after some advice on these forums, have decided to follow the socket/slot only path suggested above. I think the effort to learn all the given attributes for the 27+ processors mentioned in Meyers book is disproportionate to the potential marks that can be achieved.

 

You will likely have the same troubles with the RAM types as well ;)
I'm doing what has been said above-learning the processor chip's package and socket/slot. A lot of AMD's are Socket/Slot A, the newer ones are 940/939/AM2.

I'm sure you'll get there

 

Can you explain why, just in case I've missed something.

 

If you want to learn all the RAM types with the pin-counts to identify them, it gets a bit crazy... if you include SDRAM, DDR, DDR2 in DIMM, MicroDIMM and soDIMM, along with RIMMs and some of the older SIMMs.
Personally, I just memorised the three numbers for your basic DIMMs in basic, DDR, and DDR2.

The other thing that can be a bit of a head-screw with RAM is speeds.
What does PC133 mean? How fast can you pull data off a DDR-400? etc. How do these relate to system clock speed?
If you can remember the relation between the numbers, this isn't so bad.

Also stuff such as what does ECC do? What does dual-channel mean? Why might it be a problem if you change just one RAM stick in a set.


Personally, I took the same approach as on the CPU issue, and just memorised the concepts in detail, especially where something new was introduced or where something could cause issues, and I only commited to memory details that held some real current relevance (i.e. features of very common memory types).

Get the basics covered - I figured - stuff I might need on the job: there can't be too many points tied up in esoteric knowledge about stuff that's so old it's a paperweight.
(What's the pin-count of an abacus?)

 

RAM didn't confuse me at all until I read that. Maybe a quick revision is in order

 

The way I look at it is through the package ;)
DIMM: 168 (SDRAM) 184 (DDR RAM) 240 (DDR2)
soDIMM: 72 144 200 (SDRAM) 200 (DDR)
mDIMM: 68 144 172 (SDRAM) 172 (DDR)

and I did that from memory You've also got to remember to divide the PC by 16 (for DDR) or by 32 (DDR2) to get the clock speed

 

rep given

 

Hi,

I what evilwheato put basically what you need to know about all the various CPU packages?



Cheers!!

 

I'm doing CPU's at the moment as well, there's a load of detail. I've got 20+ CPU's, with package and socket in my notes. Is there anyway to strip this down further or should I just learn the lot? For example can I skip some rare CPU's like the Itanium etc?

 

I didn't have a single question relating to CPU's or socket types in the Essentials exam, but you never know.
I have made a list of each of the CPU's, the Socket type (and in some cases the amount of pins).

Example:
Pentium 2: SEC Package: Slot 1
Pentium 3: SEC2 + PGA: Slot 1 + Socket 370
AMD Athlon: SEC: Slot A
AMD Duron: PGA: Socket A

I can't see you needing much more, but you never know. Attempting to learn it all could make it really difficult.

 

Yup I figure I'll just learn the socket/slot for every CPU in the chapter of MM's book then, roughly 22 at my count.

 

I'm sure I counted at least 27. Maybe I was counting the different types of sockets/slots some have as a separate thing.
Personally I'm not going to bother too much, I'm consistently hitting over 80% now and if I'm unlucky enough to get a question on this topic I'll just take it on the chin, make my best guess and move on, safe in the knowledge that I can afford to do that once or twice.

 

This has got to be the best quote I've seen in a long time... really made me chuckle thanks for that.