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CompTIA A+ Certification All-in-One Exam Guide

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watt light bulb consumes power whenever it’s on. (See Chapter 7, “Power

Supplies,” for more details about electricity.) Have you ever touched a light

bulb after it’s been on for a while? Ouch! CPUs heat up, too.

To increase the capability of the CPUs to handle complex code, CPU

manufacturers have added a lot of microscopic transistors over the years. The

more transistors the CPU has, the more power they need and thus the hotter

they get. CPUs don’t tolerate heat well, and modern processors need active

cooling solutions just to function at all. Almost every CPU uses a

combination of a heat sink and fan assembly to wick heat away from the

CPU.

EXAM TIP A heat sink by itself (no fan) on a chip provides passive

cooling. A heat sink and fan combination provides active cooling. You’ll

sometimes hear the latter described as an active heat sink.

A heat sink is a copper or other metal device designed to dissipate heat

from whatever it touches. Figure 3-39 shows the standard Intel heat sink and

fan. Here are some cooling options:

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