PC Hardware in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Preface

PC Hardware in a Nutshell . An oxymoron, as it
turns out. When Robert began work on the first edition of this book
in late 1998, he planned to write a 300-page book in five months.
Barbara joined the project early, at first as the researcher and
later as the full coauthor. After more than 18 months of working
seven days a week, including last-minute rewrites to make everything
as current as possible, we finally completed the first edition.

Robert decided to write the first edition because he
couldn't find a good answer to what seemed to be a
simple question. Robert, who has extensive PC experience, wanted to
buy his first CD burner but didn't know much about
them. He needed information about how to choose, install, configure,
and use a CD burner. It would have been easy to check articles about
CD burners in hardware-oriented magazines and enthusiast web sites,
but Robert didn't trust them to provide accurate and
unbiased information.

He next checked the shelf of PC hardware books he owns. What he found
in those books was lots of

interesting
information, but a surprising dearth of

useful
information. For example, one very popular title devoted less than
five of its 1500+ pages to CD-R and CD-RW, and most of these pages
described only the history and low-level functioning of these
devices. Advice on how to choose a CD burner? Advice on how to
install it, configure it, use it, or troubleshoot it? Next to
nothing. That same book devoted nearly 70 pages to a list of
vendorsinformation easily accessible on the Webso the
shortage of information couldn't have been a result
of page-count constraints.

We were determined to write a book filled with

useful information. You won't
find tables of drive parameters for hundreds of obsolete disk drives,
instructions on how to change the interleave by low-level formatting
of an XT hard drive, charts of keyboard scan codes, and so on. As

interesting as those things might be, they fail
the

useful test. Pruning stuff that was merely
interesting was painful because we like to read interesting stuff as
much as the next person. But we quickly found out why
there's so much interesting information and so
relatively little useful information in most PC hardware books.

Interesting is quick and easy to write.

Useful is slow and hard, because you actually
have to

do all the stuff.

We found numerous errors repeated nearly verbatim in more than one
bookthings that were clearly wrong, but that an author had
simply repeated instead of verifying it by taking the time to check
for himself. We were guilty of that at times, too. When we listed the
pinouts for a gameport, for example, we got that information from
published sources. But surprisingly often, we found that these
sources disagreed, and so were forced to check for ourselves.

And, boy, did we expend an incredible amount of time and effort
checking things for ourselves. Rather than simply repeating what
others had said about CD burners, for example, we decided to find out
for ourselves. Doing that required building four computerstwo
IDE and two SCSI, one each with Windows 98 and Windows NTand
testing each configuration with different drive models by burning
numerous CDs with each. About ten 14-hour days and 400 CD blanks
later, we finally had a handle on CD burners. All that work turned
into just a few pages and some specific product recommendations. But
all that work was necessary if we wanted to write something more than
just a me-too book.

Our efforts were rewarded. The first edition of

PC Hardware
in a Nutshell sold well, and was widely acclaimed by
readers and reviewers alike. For example, Barnes & Noble had this
to say:

Here's one PC hardware book that pulls no punches.
It even recommends specific brands and models, and tells you
whyso you can evaluate whatever's on sale
when you're ready to buy. The authors speak to you
as if you're planning to build your own computer
from scratch. That's the "big
kahuna" PC maintenance project, so the
book's easily up to any
"smaller" challengeslike
adding a CD burner, or maybe replacing your motherboard. And
it's all newnot padded with obsolete data and
techniques. Specific, comprehensive, and relentlessly
usefulsuperb!

Given the success of the first edition, we considered doing just a
quick update, but we decided that our readers deserved better. So we
spent nearly a year building the second edition. We spent weeks on
end doing detailed testing and comparisons of numerous products, the
results of which often boiled down to a couple of paragraphs of
advice or a single product recommendation. We greatly expanded both
the breadth of topics covered and the level of detail presented. The
second edition was, in every respect, twice the book that the first
edition was.

Of the second edition, Barnes & Noble said:

O'Reilly's
straight-shootin', no-holds-barred, quality-focused
PC hardware book is back, in a Second Edition that's
even more indispensable than the first.

The "Hardware Guys"Barbara
Fritchman Thompson and Robert Bruce Thompsonhave updated

PC Hardware in a Nutshell to reflect pretty much
everything that's come down the pike in the two
years following the first edition, including Athlon XP/MP
microprocessors, USB 2.0, and the "Big
Drive" initiative for ATA drives larger than 137
gigs.

Want someone to make sense of all the DVD writable/rewritable
standards and give you some decent advice about buying one? Look
here. Want honest and specific advice about the latest motherboards
and chipsets from both sides of the Pacific? Look here. Want
troubleshooting help? There's even more of it than
in the first edition.

Want to put together your own PC? The Thompsons walk you through it
in extraordinary detail (how to make sure your
system's multiple fans are working together, not at
cross-purposes; why you should only use three screws instead of four
if you're mounting a drive in a cheap case; which
add-on cards generate the most heat and should be given the most
breathing room).

In the first edition, the authors ended most chapters with an
"Our Picks" section offering
specific hardware recommendations. But hardware changes so fast that
they've revamped these sections to be a bit more
general and moved the specific advice to the book's
companion web site. Don't worry: The
book's as opinionated as ever, and when the
Thompsons don't like something (Sound Blaster Live!
PCI cards, generic memory), believe us, they say so.

For this third edition, we again set to work, testing new components
and updating the existing material. PC hardware changes fast. We
ended up completely rewriting material we originally thought would
need only minor revisions. This new edition required much more time
and effort than we expected when we set out to write it, but at least
we had fun doing it.

We wouldn't have started this project unless we
thought we could write the best PC hardware book available. We think
this third edition of

PC Hardware in a Nutshell
meets that goal, and we hope you will too.