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

Organization

Each chapter of this book is devoted to one topic, and is
self-supporting. The first two chapters provide an overview of PC
hardware and standards, as well as detailed advice about buying,
building, upgrading, and repairing PCs; describe the tools and
software you'll need; explain basic procedures such
as installing expansion cards; and detail the tips and tricks
we've learned during 20 years of working on PCs.
These chapters include:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

The second group of chapters covers the core components of any
PCmotherboards, processors, and memory. These chapters take
the form used throughout the rest of the book, beginning with brief
background information about the component, followed by an
explanation of the important characteristics, guidelines on choosing
among competing products, instructions for installing and configuring
the component, troubleshooting information, if applicable, and a
final "Our Picks" section, which
tells you which products we recommend. This group includes the
following chapters:

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

The third group of chapters covers removable magnetic storage,
including the pedestrian floppy disk drive, one of the few PC
components that survives largely unchanged from the earliest days of
PCs; "super-floppies" such as the
Iomega Zip and the Imation LS-120; removable hard disk drives; and
tape drives, which despite the arrival of new technologies remain the
best choice for backing up data. This group includes the following
chapters:

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

The fourth group of chapters covers optical storage, an increasingly
important component in modern PCs. We detail what you need to know to
choose, install, configure, and use CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, and
writable DVD drives. This group includes the following chapters:

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

The fifth group of chapters covers Parallel- and Serial-ATA (IDE)
hard disk drives, which are ubiquitous in modern PCs, as well as SCSI
models, which provide better performance at correspondingly higher
prices. We explain the important characteristics of hard drives,
provide guidelines for purchasing a hard drive, and explain how to
install, prepare, configure, and troubleshoot hard drives. This group
includes the following chapters:

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

The sixth group of chapters covers sight and sound. We describe the
important characteristics of video adapters, monitors and LCD
displays, sound cards, and speakers, and explain how to choose,
install, configure, and troubleshoot them. This group includes the
following chapters:

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

The seventh group of chapters covers input deviceskeyboards,
mice, and game controllers. We explain how they work, how to choose
the best ones for your needs, and (as usual) how to install,
configure, and troubleshoot them. This group includes the following
chapters:

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

The eighth group of chapters covers serial, parallel, and USB
communicationsthe technologies that PCs use to connect with
external peripherals and the outside world. We explain how each
works, how to choose the best technology for your needs, and how to
configure and troubleshoot communications. This group includes the
following chapters:

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

The ninth group of chapters covers three componentscases, PC
power supplies, and backup power suppliesthat receive little
attention, but are important to system reliability and usability. We
detail the important characteristics of each, and provide guidelines
for choosing the best case and power supplies for your system. This
group includes the following chapters:

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Finally, Chapter 28 puts it all together,
illustrating how to turn a pile of components into a working PC.

Most chapters end with an "Our
Picks" section. In the first edition of this book,
we made specific recommendations in these sections. The problem with
recommending specific makes and models in print, of course, is that
PC hardware changes in Internet time. Products that were the hottest
things on the market (or even preproduction engineering samples) when
we started working with them had become mainstream when we went to
press, and may even have been discontinued by the time the book
reached the stores. So instead of focusing on ephemera in print, we
instead concentrate here on important characteristics and guidelines,
which don't change nearly as fast.

We recognize, though, that many people want specific advice by make
and model"Which motherboard/drive/monitor
should I buy?" is one of the most common questions
we getso we've gone to some trouble to create
and update pages on our web site that provide detailed
recommendations. We still provide general recommendations in the
"Our Picks" sections, but
you'll now find our specific
recommendationsby brand name and modelon our web site,
at:

http://www.hardwareguys.com/picks/picksl

We base these recommendations on our own experience, not after using
the product for a day or a week, but after extensive day-in, day-out
use under realistic conditions. If we say we found a particular DVD
burner to be durable, that means we used that DVD burner extensively
and burned a bunch of DVDs with it. If we say a particular
motherboard is stable, that means we used it in one or more of our
own systems over a period of weeks or months and found that it
doesn't crash, even when performing stressful tasks
such as running a full benchmark suite or compiling a Linux kernel.
If we say a particular display is the best we've
used, it's because we sat in front of it for many
long hours while writing this book. And so on.