Customer Reviews

Repairing and Upgrading Your PC

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I bought this book about a year ago when I was contemplating stretching the life of my 4+ year old PC. The book proved very useful for me to zero in on the biggest bang-for-the-buck upgrades, and which ones were best to avoid because they yield low performance for the dollar.

About a month ago, I decided to build my own PC. This book again proved useful in helping guide me in making decisions on what equipment to choose.

It's rare that I spend over twenty bucks for a book. This book has paid for itself a few times over in helping me save money by not spending unnecessarily, or spending unwisely.

The instructions are written clearly. There are many photographs illustrating the steps being described, sometimes a few different photos of variations of different types of components. There is plenty of "theory of operation" on how various components work and how different standards compare (IDE vs SATA, for example). There are specific brand recommendations. There are specific techology type of recommendations. And there is just the right amount of humor throughout the book.

You may think this sort of book is only for guy geeks. Well, I'm a woman who's just about to pass the mid-century mark, and I found it to be a valuable reference for building, repairing, and upgrading PCs. You can pay the Geek squad lots of money to fix your stuff, or you can pay a bit over $20 and learn how to fix it yourself. That's a great feeling.

This book is a terrific follow on to the authors' earlier "Building the Perfect PC." It's got the same great style with outstanding photographs, and clearly-written directions.

The Thompsons do a great job of explaining a wide range of upgrade options -- and they're adamant about where the sweet spots in the performance/price curves are. Their knowledge of hardware and software is greatly enhanced in this book by sidebar inputs from the four tech reviewers the Thompsons had -- these contributors bring a different viewpoint to the material and it's a great addition.

Sure, the upgrade sections are terrific, but I found the maintenance chapters are invaluable. Lots of great info on cleaning the guts of PCs, plus a wealth of info on tools and tricks for keeping the OS running smoothly. This book pointed me to a couple terrific apps I've already added to my collection.

The one downside of the book came in the "Securing the system" section of the System Maintenance chapter. There's a constant stream of complaints regarding security issues in Internet Explorer, Outlook, and the Windows XP operating system with recommendations for working around those. (Install Firefox, install Thunderbird, consider Linux.) Not once do the Thompsons mention using a non-administrator account as the primary logon for day-to-day use, a step everyone using XP or Win2K should have taken a long time ago.

That pet peeve aside, I'm extremely happy to have the book on my shelf. It's a great book!

Repairing & Upgrading Your PC by Robert Bruce Thompson and Barbara Fritchman Thompson is the latest addition to my "hardware repair" shelf, and it's a worthy one to be there.

Contents: Getting Started; Working on PCs; System Maintenance; Motherboards; Processors; Memory; Hard Disk Drives; Optical Drives; External and Removable Storage Devices; Video Adapters; Displays; Audio; Input Devices; Wireless Networking; Cases; Power Supplies and Power Protection; Index

The Thompsons have put together an excellent book that covers both repairing, upgrading, and just plain cleaning up your computers. The writing is clear and concise, and does an excellent job explaining the "why" behind their recommendations and techniques. There are also a large number of sidebar tips that add even more value and color to your computing experience. For instance, I didn't know that spindles of optical disks with the same brand name can contain discs manufactured by different companies (and as such could have varying levels of quality). There are even utilities that help you identify the underlying manufacturer. Interesting stuff. And if you like plenty of pictures to show you how to do various tasks, this book fits that criteria too. Full color photos document all the important steps, so there should be no confusion between what you read and what you see. There are even before and after pictures of a keyboard that has been cleaned using the dishwasher method. That's right... they cover how to clean that grungy old keyboard with your dishwasher...

An excellent book, and one that will more than pay for itself when it comes to keeping your computers running at an optimal level. Now if you excuse me, I have to go try out the dishwasher trick...

This might have been useful in 2000 when it was first printed, but references to Windows 98 don't help much in a Vista world. Why publish a 2nd edition without updating the information?

The title of this book may intimidate some people. After all, repairing and upgrading PCs are things that computer geeks do, right? Well, yes - but with Repairing and Upgrading Your PC you can do it, too, with a little effort.

There are several sections that should be required reading for every computer-owner, whether they are interested in doing repair work or not. Chapter 3 on System Maintenance is a must read: it covers everything from cleaning your computer (dust is NOT your friend) to protecting it from ad-ware and viruses. Preventative maintenance is also covered, backups especially. With the advent of inexpensive DVD-R hardware and media, there is no excuse for anyone to have data on their computer that has not been backed up properly.

Every part of the computer gets its own chapter, from the "guts" of the system (motherboard, processor) to the audio and video. Even the case and power supply get coverage, so that you understand exactly what is important about each component of your computer - and what could potentially go wrong.

There is a lot of useful information in this book. I've often entertained notions of building my own system, and I learned quite a bit about processors and motherboards from the book - enough to know I need to consult the Thompsons' website for more information, and their book Building the Perfect PC. But for basic repairs and simple upgrades, Repairing and Upgrading Your PC is a must have. It will give the novice user the confidence they need to crack open that case, and the information to not completely mess the system up.

Are you a computer user that thinks that fiddling with the insides of your PC is taboo? If you are, then this book is for you! Authors Barbara Fritchman Thompson and Robert Thompson, have done an outstanding job of writing a book that helps you get your PC unstuck and running fat and running right.

Thompson and Thompson, begin by providing detailed advice on maintaining, securing, and working on your system. Then, the authors cover the core components of your PC--the motherboard, processor and memory. Next, they cover storage devices--hard disk drives, optical drives, and removable storage such as external hard drives and USB flash drives. The authors continue by covering the components that allow you to get information into and out of your PC. Finally, the authors cover three components--cases, power supplies, and power protection--that receive little attention, but are important for system reliability and usability.

In this most excellent book, the authors base their recommendations on their own experience. More importantly, they don't base that experience after using the product for a day or a week, but after extensive day-in-day-out use under realistic conditions.

*Repairing and Upgrading Your PC* is an excellent introduction to what lies inside your PC, and how you can economically and safely make your own repairs and upgrades. Even if you're not inclined to open the box yourself the detailed and well organised information in this book will give you the edge in negotiating with hardware vendors and repairers who want to sell you the parts that they want to shift, and gives them the best margin, rather than what's best for you. And there's plenty of valuable information that will make your system run more reliably and securely even if you're not planning on a hardware upgrade in the short term.

For the dedicated tinkerer there's information on how seemingly unrelated hardware interacts, how to choose memory that suits your computer best and how to get the best out of that new sound card or flat panel screen. For the less adventurous there are sections on securing your PC against intrusion, keeping your data safely backed up and keeping your PC clean, an oft neglected but crucial task that will increase reliability by keeping the inside of the PC and heat sensitive components cool.

If you're interested in or have wireless networking it's crucially important to understand Chapter 14 and the associated free download (a zipped PDF) from the O'Reilly website of material that was excluded due to space considerations, which discusses this technology in detail. The difference between the easily hacked WEP (Wired-Equivalent Privacy) and the much more secure WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) is discussed in detail. The Thompsons then walk through an example of configuring and securing a wireless network. They use a specific wireless router as an example, but the steps involved should not vary too much from other consumer grade wireless equipment. Understanding this material is vital if you want to set up a wireless network, or identity theft and stolen bandwidth could be the least of your problems.

This book is very similiar to the authors' other volume, "Building the Perfect PC". This one however, deals with upgrading an existing pc instead of building a new one. A great deal of attention is given to maintenance (both preventive and corrective) and troubleshooting techniques in addition to upgrades.

It is loaded with numerous close up photographs that are very clear and in full color. The writing is straightforward and to the point instead of either being bogged down in techno-babble only a true geek could understand or dumbed down like the ubiquitous series of yellow covered books.

I would recommend that anyone interested in repairing or upgrading their pc use this book as their first resort.

Having read other books by the Thompson's <a href="http://www.oreillynet.com/catalog/pchardnut3/">PC Hardware in a Nutshell</a> and <a href="http://www.oreillynet.com/catalog/buildpc/">Building the Perfect PC</a> I had very high expectations before I opened the cover on this book, their latest offering. I have to say that they have outdone themselves, which is no mean feat.

This book is an absolute mind of useful information. It covers just about every device or piece of hardware that one would ever reasonably want to install in or connect to a PC, pretty much every physical connection and great advice on assembly techniques. Although a lot of the book focuses on hardware, it also contains many useful operating systems and device driver debugging tips, including references to free software downloads. The book is also fairly agnostic in that it covers some Linux material as well as the expected Windows material.

When they say that they are going to tell you how to do something step by step, they really do mean it. Other books that I have read make the same promises but often make assumptions about your level of knowledge. Accordingly this truly is a book for all levels from beginner to professional.

What's more they have succeeded in presenting the material in a way that is easy for the beginner but not necessarily annoyingly simple for the more experienced amateur or professional. The book is very readable both from a prose and layout standpoint. The illustrations are well thought out to complement the prose and are clear and understandable. There is something for everyone in this book!

Their advice is very sound and reasoned. We benefit from the 20 years of experimentation and experience (40 person years in reality) that they have. For example, they really emphasize the routine maintenance tasks; you know the things that we all hate and keep putting off. This came home to me very recently when, having moved my PC's to new location in my home, we had unseasonably warm weather and suddenly the processor temperature alarm was going off at 70C on one of them! Yikes! A thorough clean and I was down to 55C, which is still too high. Tomorrow I will be going to buy more fans for my case and I will be looking in the book for their recommendations.

I was pleased to see that they have now moved to offering less specific vendor recommendations and moved more towards what component characteristics we should be looking for. There is nothing wrong with vendor recommendations and they certainly make some where they feel particularly strong about it. However, sometimes people are apt to read looking for recommendations and not absorb the far more important educational content.

The material is quite current and comprehensive, in so far as anything can be in the rapidly changing computer world. Knowing where to draw the line must always be difficult. However, I think that their timing is good since what they have covered is likely to be around for some time having now moved into the era of 64 bit dual core processors, DDR2 memory and the increasing popular SATA HD's, for example. There is also some fairly limited information on their thoughts about the requirements for Vista. It is clear that they used some material from "Building the Perfect PC", which I guess gave them a good base to probably get the book out quickly enough to remain current and they have clearly learned from the feedback on their previous publications.

My one disappointment, which admittedly comes with an apology from them, is the rather sparse section on Wireless Networking (Chapter 14). Their explanation was one of space constraints. I believe this to be a sufficiently important topic today for the home and SOHO user that this somehow should have been accommodated. There is supposed to be a pdf download on the O'Reilly site with additional information but so far I have been unable to locate it. This must be incorporated into any future Editions.

As a reasonably experienced home PC user/builder, if I could only have one practical, easily readable, objective book on PC repair and maintenance for reference when I needed advice or help, this would be it! If someone wishing to get started with their own PC work, asked me for a recommendation I would also have no hesitation in suggesting this book. In fact this book could easily be called, "Building, Repairing, Upgrading & Maintaining Your PC" and still fit the bill. I give it an enthusiastic 5 stars.

Graham Jones
President
Vancouver Technology User Group - www.vantug.com
Vancouver, Canada

Most of the pertinent details have been covered by other reviews. You may think you don't have the time, inclination, or interest to upgrade or repair your PC. This book shows in clearly written prose and with excellent illustrations that computers are quite simple to repair, and with a little maintenance, will last for a very long time. The book covers many topics, such as repair or upgrade, when it's reasonable to buy a new PC, and a topic that most of us forget, how to maintain our data integrity.

The Thompsons also maintain a web page where you can ask computer related questions. They also quickly answer those questions, usualy within 24 hours.

It's difficult to think of items or issues that they've left out. You may find it easier to develop competencies in this area than you thought.

Highly Recommended!