Errors in 801/802 Exam Cram by Prowse

ratbuddy

Just a heads up, I'm only about 10% of the way through this book, and I've noticed a few errors. The biggest one relates to TDP. The author says that TDP is the amount of power used by the cooling system to cool that processor. That's flat-out wrong. TDP is how much heat the cooling system needs to be able to dissipate.

Hope the test itself doesn't get such basic stuff wrong, and I'll update if I find more errors. Anyone else notice bad info in this book?

403Forbidden

I can see what the author was trying to say, but he worded it in a way that made it incorrect. From an engineering perspective the TDP is the Thermal Design Point, the TDP is how much power/heat (in Watts) the cooling system would be required to dissipate, not the amount of power the cooling system needs to provide adequate cooling.

Most cooling systems in modern PCs now are active, meaning they use power to push or pull air at or away from the heat sink/processor so I understand the misconception and how it could confuse some.

A processor rated as "65W" is usually provided a cooling system designed to support an TDP of 80W (usually larger depending on budget) to account for safety and to allow margins of error. This is also why aftermarket heat sinks say which processors they are compatible with so as to match with the processor's TDP. Keeping in mind that over clocking a CPU will raise its TDP.

The term TDP is attached to the processor, not the cooling system. Heat sinks and other methods of cooling are not rated in TDP but are designed to provide sufficient heat dispersion to support the TDP of the indicated processor(s) listed in their specifications.

--chris--

I made a similar thread in this section about a month ago, again with David L. Prowse's exam cram book. It was regarding his RAID descriptions, I cant remember which one...but it was wrong. There are a few problems in the book, but from what I can see there are a few problems in almost all materials.

techtia

I have noticed many typos. Boy hope this doesn't ruin the reputation of the book or anything.