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PC Hardware in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

PC Hardware in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference relies on an eternal truth of the computer industry: legacy systems never die. This book focuses on the technologies that have provided Wintel personal computers with various capabilities over the years. Like most of its competitors, this book addresses the PC on a subsystem level, and deals with video cards, hard-disk interfaces, memory, and other pieces of the componentry puzzle that hardware integrators need to figure out. The authors do a great job of explaining the differences between (and relative merits of) IDE and SCSI hard-drive interfaces, various video buses, competing processors, and other technologies. They also prove themselves adept at explaining general assembly procedures and troubleshooting strategies.

This book distinguishes itself from its most popular competitors by emphasizing the authors' opinions on hardware products. It's refreshing to see authors recommend Product A for high-performance systems in which price is not an issue, Product B for economical home systems, and Product C for organizational workstations. On the other hand, the recommendations, prices, and similar values will change over time. The authors maintain a great Web site, at which you can find their current recommendations. (The Web site, on the other hand, doesn't include the book's high-quality tutorial on designing and assembling a system from zero.) Even the photographs that appear in this book--traditionally a weak point among hardware books--are clear. --David Wall

Topics covered: Personal computers that comply with Microsoft Windows and Intel compatibility requirements. The authors address processors, memory, hard disks, optical media, removable magnetic disks, video cards, power supplies, and more. Also, there are instructions for assembling a machine from scratch, and some coverage of troubleshooting problems. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

'An excellent book for both novice and advanced users, shame GNU/Linux is not covered in more details.' Rating 8/10 Linux Format, February 2001 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

Paperback: 804 pages
Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 2 edition (June 24, 2002)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0596003536
ISBN-13: 978-0596003531
Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (33 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,449,103 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Barbara Fritchman Thompson

Robert Bruce Thompson

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Customer Reviews

33 Reviews

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4 star:		(7)
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Average Customer Review

4.8 out of 5 stars (33 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Information-dense, error-free, and relevant, September 16, 2002

By	Steve Smith (Atlanta, Georgia, USA) - See all my reviews

I buy a lot of PC hardware books for my job as a PC manager. Most of them are me-too knockoffs of Muellers Upgrading and Repairing PCs. This one is different. It's smaller than U&R PCs, but incredibly information-rich. The authors don't waste time and space with obsolete information. Everything here is up-to-date and reflects the real world of systems based on modern Intel and AMD processors. This book has no errors that I can find. I thought I'd found a couple, so I emailed the authors. They responded within half an hour (!) and explained things. As it turned out, what I thought were errors weren't. I'd been wrong about those things all these years. I'm ordering copies for all my technicians and recommending they read it through from start to finish. If you're looking for the best PC hardware book available, get this one.

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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More common sense than a Thomas Paine anthology, February 23, 2001

By	Timothy Walker (Orlando, Florida USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: PC Hardware in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference (In a Nutshell (O'Reilly)) (Paperback)

Short review: it's O'Reilly, buy it.

Longer review: this is a fantastic book. It is concise, current, inexpensive (how often do these words apply to computer books?), enjoyable to read, and, above all, USEFUL. The authors mingle sound advice and dry humor with a casual writing style, keeping the reader engaged and entertained as s/he absorbs the most (by nature) boring technical details. Technicians who charge by the hour should buy this book immediately... it will pay for itself in a week or two.

That said, this book is NOT "the only book you'll ever need". Though I agree with most of the authors' opinions, honest debate is always a good thing (for example, they write that, as of June 2000, Socket 7 is obsolete. I think now is the time to buy, as several of my clients are budget-conscious and still essentially happy with their 486s). Additionally, this book needs a chapter on modems, and more second-tier reviews would be nice, but I suppose that's what the website is for.

Bottom line: get yourself a big thick "phone book" on PC repair (Bigelow and Mueller come to mind) and this book and you'll be equipped for most any upgrade or buying decision that comes your way. But without a strong technical background or a huge reference work nearby, don't open the case.

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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best PC book Ive ever read, November 21, 2000

By	Mark Miller (Denver, Colorado) - See all my reviews

This review is from: PC Hardware in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference (In a Nutshell (O'Reilly)) (Paperback)

Written by a husband and wife team, PC Hardware in a Nutshell proves that technical books don't have to be dry. This book touches all the bases that you'd expect in a PC book but it goes much further. Beyond the purely technical stuff it focuses on what you need to know to make good purchase and upgrade decisions, and it's obvious that these people know what they're talking about. I bought this book intending to use it as a reference but this is a very easy book to get into as a straight-thru read. It's sometimes funny, at times outrageous, and never boring. It's refreshing to read something that ignores all the marketing hype. When a product is great, they say so. When a product sucks, they tell you that too.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Pull-no-punches opinionated and highly detailed
Robert Thompson is a man who doesn't hold back from giving his opinion on why something is good or bad, either on his website or in his books. Read more

Published on May 22, 2005 by Joseph A. Admire

5.0 out of 5 stars Power to the People!
Let me start out with a huge thanks to O'Reilly. I'm not a big fan of large corporations or publishers - but I have come to trust O'Reilly implicitly wherever technical issues are... Read more

Published on February 3, 2005 by Joseph Pellerin

4.0 out of 5 stars A bit dated
This is a great book that covers every aspect of building a PC. However, as of August 2004, the 3rd edition of this book is a bit dated. Read more

Published on August 15, 2004 by M. Chabot

5.0 out of 5 stars All you need for PC hardware
This book is amazingly concise and thorough, yet also very easy to read. It contains many helpful photographs, and the authors maintain a great website that is tremendously useful... Read more

Published on July 13, 2004

4.0 out of 5 stars A Gem of a PC primer!
O'Reilly's an up and coming publisher of computer related books. Maybe a kingpin already. This selection is a true quick reference guide. Read more

Published on June 21, 2004 by Frank Beckendorf

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful book!
After years of buying pre-configured PC's I decided it was time to look into building my own. What I really liked about this book was it's "no-nonsense, straight to the... Read more

Published on January 28, 2004 by Karen Krant

Published on January 27, 2004 by Karen Krant

5.0 out of 5 stars Complete and Up to Date Reference
If you want to keep up with all the latest PC hardware changes, especially chipsets and motherboards, then this is the book to obtain. Read more

Published on September 6, 2003 by Steven L. Trahan

5.0 out of 5 stars Informative, well organized guide to hardware
This book covers virtually every aspect of PC Hardware, for both AMD and Intel based PC systems. The Thompsons continue to update the information to stay current with the latest... Read more

Published on May 9, 2003 by T. Mead

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential
One of the things that has gone right in the computer business the overall assumption that the user can service the machine as much or as little as desired. Read more

Published on April 6, 2003 by David M. Schnute

› See all 33 customer reviews...

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