PC Upgrade and Repair Bible [Hardcover]

Barry Press (Author), Marcia Press (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0764533576 | ISBN-13: 978-0764533570 | Publication Date: December 15, 1999 | Edition: 3

PC Upgrade and Repair Bible, 3rd Edition brings together the personal and professional editions of this popular series into one enormously comprehensive volume. Whether you just bought your first computer or are an IT professional managing thousands of workstations, this book is indispensable. Virtually all descriptive upgrade sequences and graphics have been updated for today's technology, and all of the current issues pertaining to Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, and Windows 2000 are fully explained in easy-to-understand language. Plus, PC Upgrade and Repair Bible, 3rd Edition includes product reviews and comparisons, a Q&A, and an exhaustive online vendor list. This book is ideal if you want to:

• Evaluate the suitability of upgrading an existing computer.
• Determine the upgrades needed to make an under-powered machine suitable for your specific purposes.
• Specify an effective new configuration of an existing machine to meet your requirements.
• Build a new machine from components that precisely meet your needs.
• Design an approach for integrating personal computers into local area networks, wide area networks, and the Internet.
• Tune your computer system for peak performance.
• Repair or install upgrades into an existing machine.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

I loved reading this book; I read a good chunk of it, despite its being over 1,300 pages long. It's not that the book is chock-full o' good information, either--mostly, it is--but it seems to have been rushed through editing. It lacks a polish. There are several silly mistakes, such as the random text "Microsoft beta tester T-shirt." Huh? Also, the book occasionally mentions Barry doing this or that in the third person, which makes me wonder if Marcia wrote this book all by herself.

A lot of the book gets right to the point. Some of it meanders, such as the various stretches of "dumped" text, which could have been formatted better. The language is plain, and overall the book is well written. I enjoyed many of the sidebars, the style of which seems somehow freer than that of the main text. I was fond also of the Q&A sections--being a big fan of Q&A in my own books.

Sometimes the book gets cute, as with many of the punning headlines ("Specs, Lies, and Duct Tape"). Sometimes it's really clever, as in the headline "Should you wait six months to buy or upgrade?"--followed by the single-word paragraph, "No." I like that; it shows honesty from the writer. Then, again, the book has product recommendations, of which generally I'm suspect.

Overall, this book lacks the rich history and folksiness of other books in this category, specifically its companion Mac Upgrade and Repair Bible and Mueller's Upgrading and Repairing PCs. I gather that Barry and Marcia know their stuff, but the history and wisdom of the older, original books are missing here. When they're isolated from the others, you don't notice, but once you look at them next to this one it's painfully obvious.

On the key issue of hard-disk partitioning, this book does an OK job. It's not that the information is lacking, but that it's all over the place! There's a page on it in the hard-drive chapter, but also information in the building-your-own-computer chapter. And information on the PartitionMagic software isn't indexed under hard-disk partitioning, as it should be.

So, I give this book three out of five Phillips screwdrivers. By itself, it's great, but within the category of computer upgrading it pales next to the Mueller text. --Dan Gookin

From the Back Cover

If PC upgrade and repair experts can do it, you can do it, too… Whether you have thousands of machines on a corporate network, a few machines in a small office, or a single machine at home shared between work and family, PC Upgrade and Repair Bible will help you get the most out of your hardware investment. Tune your PC for optimal performance — or build a new one, customized to your exact specifications. Detailed photos, hands-on examples, and in-depth reference material walk you through every step you'll need to take and every decision you'll need to make. Inside, you'll find complete coverage of PC upgrade and repair

• Build a computer from the ground up, component by component
• Evaluate an existing computer for an upgrade
• Create a plan for integrating PCs into a LAN, WAN, and the Internet
• Tune your computer for peak performance
• Benchmark and diagnose every part of your system, from motherboard to memory, disks to serial ports
• Determine the upgrades needed to configure an underpowered computer
• Explore the many peripheral options available to you
• Assemble a complete darkroom on your desk, including digital camera and photo-quality printer

FreeBSD UNIX O.S. application packages on CD-ROM!

• Get advanced networking, performance, and security features
• Set up a powerful intranet server

www.idgbooks.com System Requirements: Intel, AMD, Cyrix, or compatible 486, or Pentium CPU. An ISA, EISA, VESA, or PCI bus. 8MB of RAM (16 recommended) and 100MB of disk space is required for a minimal installation

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 1386 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 3 edition (December 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764533576
• ISBN-13: 978-0764533570
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 7.6 x 2.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,944,869 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great content, but title could be more descriptive..., October 16, 2004

By 

Thomas Duff "Duffbert" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: PC Upgrade and Repair Bible (Paperback)

Since I'm not "hardware oriented" when it comes to technology, you have to work hard to help me understand it. One book that does a great job is the PC Upgrade and Repair Bible Desktop Edition by Barry Press and Marcia Press (Wiley).

Chapter list: Getting Ready; Why Isn't the Same Computer Right for Everyone?; PC Overview; Processors, Cache, and Memory; Buses, Chipsets, and Motherboards; Video; Monitors and Flat Panels; Hard Disks and Disk Arrays; CD and DVD; Removable Storage; Modems; Wired and Wireless Networking; Hubs, Switches, Routers, and Firewalls; Configuring a Windows Network; Internet Services, Antivirus, and Anti-Spam; Sound Cards, Speakers, Microphones, and MP3 Players; Digital Cameras, Video Capture, and DVDs; Keyboards and Game Controllers; Mice, Trackballs, and Tablets; Printers, Scanners, and All-in-One Units; Cases, Cooling, and Power; Laptops and Handheld Computers; You're Going to Put That Where?; Diagnosis and Repair; Building an Extreme Machine; Glossary; Index

As I mentioned above, I'm a software developer and I just want my hardware to work. One of the hardest things for me to do would be to try and build a computer from scratch. But watching my son (who has no fear of hardware) has made me a bit more at ease with it. And with this book, I think I could actually try it. Each of the chapters gives an excellent explanation about how that piece of hardware works and how it fits into the larger picture of a full computer. For instance, in the CD chapter you'll get an understandable write-up of how information is stored and read on a CD-ROM disk. Then they transition into how a DVD is read and how the drive functions. And I actually understood it!

The only place where I thought this book was a little weak is that there doesn't seem to be a lot of upgrade or repair instructions. I expected more along the lines of step-by-step pictures and instructions on how to replace or repair certain parts in your machine. There is some of that towards the end when you get into the Diagnosis and Repair chapters, but little as you're working through the book. Some buyers might be a little upset that the title doesn't quite mesh with the content of the book. Still, the actual content *is* quite good... just not what you might expect.

Overall, I like the book a lot as it helps me understand my computer hardware better than I did before. Just a minor deduction for possible title and content confusion...

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a great tool of reference for computer technician, November 17, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: PC Upgrade and Repair Bible (Paperback)

The writing style along with the many diagrams and photos are incredible. This book covers hardware, software, even networking and shows you 5W + 1H. You can depend on this book to build up your knowledge. This book is not only a good reference for computer service professional, but also a great book in preparing for the A+ certification exam. The price of this book is reasonable.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars THIS BOOK SHOULD BE RENAMED, December 21, 2005

By 

Robert A. Tucker (Arkansas) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: PC Upgrade and Repair Bible (Paperback)

This book should has little to do with repairing computers. If you want to know how a monitor works, how to take a digital image, or set up a computer surveillance system it does a good job of expaining this and how the stuff inside the computer works. If you've been around computers a while you probably will know a lot of this.

The book has 20 pages on diagnosing and repairing computers and 25 pages on building one; this is explained very vaguely.

If it didn't cost so much to ship it back, I would return it.