Amazon.com Review
Rather than try to compete with the up-to-the-minute product information on Web sites or the encyclopedic brilliance of Scott Mueller's
Upgrading and Repairing PCs, the authors of
TechTV's Upgrading Your PC fill a separate niche. They explain to their readers, in an eminently readable and clear fashion, how to think about upgrading their Intel-compatible personal computers and then set about doing it. For starters, they acknowledge that upgrading isn't always the best thing to do with an elderly machine (the most cost-effective thing, they note, is often retirement and replacement). Continuing on the assumption that you want to improve some aspect of your machine, they provide the information you need to choose and install an after-market part. In their coverage of graphics cards, for example, the authors provide lots of technology-specific information (about the different kinds of AGP ports, among other things) while leaving recommendations of specific products to other publications. It's a winning strategy, and they apply it to CPUs, motherboard chipsets, and other upgradeable system pieces.
On top of that kind of coverage, the authors provide general technical advice that will come in handy regardless of the product you're installing. In the section on sound cards, they note that if you have sound circuitry on your motherboard and want to upgrade it, you're not out of luck: most BIOSes let you disable the built-in sound card so you can put in a replacement. In their chapter on RAM, they explain how to make sure you order the right thing from your supplier. Throughout, they frequently make reference to diagnostic utilities and other helpful software on the Internet. Even the photographs, which traditionally are a weak point of hardware books, are clear and generally helpful. This is a quality hardware book. --David Wall
Topics covered: How to upgrade a Wintel-standard PC that's a year or two old. Sections show how to replace (and, to a lesser extent, diagnose) CPUs, RAM, video cards, storage devices, and network cards.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From the Back Cover
Time doesn¿t stand still¿which means your perfect computer setup from a year ago, perhaps even six months ago, is no longer the latest and greatest. Here to help you navigate the maze of decisions involved in any major upgrade is TechTV¿s popular upgrade guide, completely updated to cover the latest upgrade-worthy hardware and software. In clear, jargon-free language, TechTV¿s Upgrading Your PC answers all your upgrade questions: When is it time to upgrade? How do you know when an upgrade is worth the price of admission? How do you protect your current applications and data?
In the first section of this guide, veteran author Mark Edward Soper tackles the pre-upgrade process, detailing everything you need to do (and ask) before you upgrade. Each of the remaining chapters focuses on a different device or technology¿from hard disks to Surround Sound¿beginning with a list of the top ten reasons for upgrading. The book¿s companion DVD includes a zoomable, interactive tour of a typical computer; interactive tutorials on using the Windows Control Panel and other Windows software components to configure and control new hardware; video clips from TechTV shows demonstrating upgrading issues, and more.
