Customer Reviews

Build Your Own PC, 4th Edition

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This is an excellent book for anybody who wants to build their own computer. Even if you don't know any of the computer parts, this book fully details every part of the computer and how they work. The author introduces computer terms and allows the reader to understand what they mean in simple terms. I am 13 years old, and am making my own computer thanks to this book. The book makes things simple, building a PC is not half as hard as it seems. The book is filled with photos, allowing you to see every process of assembling the computer. This book will teach you in normal language how to make a desktop or tower. Not to mention, this book was written recentely and includes PIII cpu's, AMD processors, and even DVD-ROM drives. However, to make your own computer following this book, you must be willing to specd at least $500.00. I highly recommend this book to any person, any age, who wants to make their own computer. However, this book seems to leave some questions about assembly unanswered, and a little research by yourself might be necessary. Overall, this is a simple, fun book to read that makes PC building very easy. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Im typing this review from the PC I just built with help from this book. I would have given it 5 stars only if they had made it more clear that this was not for the absolute beginners. This book is for intermediate to advanced users, but even if you are a beginner there's still a chance you'd be satisfied with it. You have to refer to some background knowledge to understand some of the concepts and terminology, but by in large thats really not that big a problem if you're not prone to being easily frustrated. The bottom line is if you're patient, then you'll get the job done, but if you're looking for a quick build, then dude.....just buy a Dell. Here are the basic specs for the system I built:

Tower case (love the big casing)
Pentium 4 processor
256 MB DDR Ram
64 MB video card
Intel Mobo
Windows 2000

This guy has built some computers before. He has some excellent insights into the computer parts and functions. What you need versus what you want..."don't buy tomorrows technology today...you can easily upgrade it later saving hundreds ($500). Some good advice. I felt good about going forward with the build.

As the author states, he can't write in detail about everything. So, you should be prepared to pay ten cents per page for his book. He's not wordy...and he's got a sense of humor if your in the right frame of mind. The computer building business must be getting tougher to make a buck these days.

I researched my parts using what Vendors were using in thier builds and then researched them via the internet. Try Pricewatch.com; Motherboards.com; and use a search engine for computer component reviews. Then talk to the sales people...they'll help you for a sell.

Even if you buy your computer prebuilt, you should go through the reading and research so you can pick out a computer with right components you need and not just buzzword names.

Go ahead a try to build one. If you get in trouble, just be prepared to let the computer store down the road bail you out for a nominal fee.

If you asked me what the diffrence between a moniter and a video card was, I would be clueless! That's until I read this book. Now I know what every single pc part looks like, how each pc part works, how to build a pc, and the average of how much each pc part costs! This book has 250+ photos of each part of a PC and it has a photo for each and every single step of building a pc! I'm only 13 years old and know nearly everything about computers now! It even talks about recent brands of pc parts and each brand's advantages and disadvantages to help you buy the right pc parts! And it's all thanks to this book!!! Of course for first-time-builders, some of it my be a little bit hard to understand at first, but it won't be that hard. Trust me, you'll be building your computer in no time!I "HIGHLY RECOMEND THIS BOOK TO BEGINERS OR EXPERTS"!

This is an inexpensive book, and for the price you get a lot of good practical knowledge. My goal was the following. After buying a brand new computer complete with trimmings I wanted to get some more use out of my old computer. I run Windows on the new and Linux on the old -- I need both OS's and prefer to avoid a dual boot system. After researching in this book and on the web I decided to buy a minitower with motherboard (a "bare bones" setup) and to re-use the monitor, keyboard, mouse, disks, network card, and CD-ROM from the old computer. This book gave me the confidence I needed to plan and perform this job. It worked fine, and my refurbished old computer became far more productive. The money I spent on the book was recovered several times over.

I was amazed at how easy it was to build my own PC with the help of this highly organized and well-written book. After reading throught the book once, I had enough information to decide on the type of system that I really needed; assembling it was a snap because of the detailed instructions with pictures. I highly recommend this book for anyone who likes putting together their own customized computer system!

This book is great. Although the book does not explain every part in details (230 pages), it does a hell of a good job. I bought the Third Edition. I do have to say that if you are a true beginner, and what I mean by a beginner, is that you don't know anything about a computer, you might have a hard time, but is up to the beholder to get what he/she wants to achieve. I also have to say that the first 3 chapters are an "Introduction to PC Hardware and in general how they work".
Let me give the specs of the system That I build:

1 PENTIUM III 1.13GHZ-tualatin
2 ASUS MOTHERBOARD(cpu range up to 2.0GHZ)
3 RAID 0+1 Controller Card
4 Two 80GB MAXTOR 7200RPM
5 ONE GB CRUCIAL PC-133MHZ SDRAM
6 CREATIVE LAB VIDEO CARD 64MB RAM (DDR)
7 NIC (Network Interface Card)
8 MODEM V.90
9 CREATIVE LAB SOUND CARD WITH TRUETABLE AND POLIPHONY
10 SONY-DVDROM 16X
11 TDK-CDRW - 24x10x48(BEST BURNERS!!)
12 IOMEGA-100/250MB ZIP DRIVER
13 REGULAR FLOPPY DRIVER
14 350 WATTS POWER SUPPLY.

By the way, I also overclocked the motherboard to maximize the speed of my CPU(The speed of my CPU now is 1.8GHZ, the default was 1.13ghz) although I WARN YOU, be very careful, you might end up burning your motherboard and not to mention ruin your processor or your complete system. In order to OVERCLOCK try getting a more detail book and reading the manual that comes with your motherboard. ...

One of the greatest how-to books there are on building your own pc. It goes into great detail with how to install all the components and put them together to build a computer. It doesn't only tell you how to build a Pentium. It also covers AMD, like Athlons. One of the great feutures about this book is that it is up to date. Another great reason to buy this how-to book is because the author does not care to waste any ink, so he describes it ALL in great detal, as mentioned before. If you buy this book and after reading it, dont know where to buy any parts, ... The author should mention this site, but he didn't. After reading this book you will have more knowledge about building computers then you had before reading it. Even if you are a profesional. There is always something you will miss and this book will just make your life easier if you plan to build a computer that will fit your personal needs, even if you are going to sell it.

UPDATED DECEMBER 2008 to add: This book is now very much out of date, and I have to recommend that you search out something newer. The core principles are sound, but don't follow any of the more specific advice - this book was right on the money immediately before dual-core began dominating the market, which has been several years.


[Original review from 2005]
This is a REALLY great book. It's not quite "PC Building For Dummies," but it also isn't all confusing and scary. It's maybe "PC Building For People Who Have Used Computers A Lot And Have Brains." It has lots of photos, some highly informative overview chapters, three different step-by-step builds, and a final chapter explaining how to get from hardware to software by installing Windows and the appropriate drivers, etc. Even tells you what the most commonly made mistakes by novice builders are and how to avoid them. If I hadn't found this book, I probably wouldn't have tried to build my own machine.

This book shows and explains ,exactly how to build sevral systems (amd tower, pentium 4 in midtower case ect).It is full of well detailed photos and there is a comprehensive buyer's guide. So no matter what type of system you are building, no matter what the technology (serial ata,eide,pci express,agp,scsi,p4,athlog,ect)you will find what you need.