pcs

This book as is good as it's title: I did manage to fix my own (Pentium II) PC by reading it! It gave me the knowledge to find the problem (a bad motherboard) and the courage to replace it. Operations that at first glance looked intimidating, were made relatively simple by the book's clear discussions, explanations and photos. It's range covers the inner workings of old PC's up through the Pentium II (as well as a little bit of info on the Pentium III.) Not a perfect book, though: the photo printing could be better; and the section on power supplies isn't complete or accurate, particularly when it comes to ATX-type supplies--oddly, the type found in most Pentium machines, for which the book is otherwise a good repair guide. (The power supply is a vital component in a PC, and is oftentimes the first gizmo to go bad.) I had to go outside the book to find that critical info. But criticism aside, I wouldn't have been able to repair my computer without this book, period, so I would recommend it. Perhaps a newer edition will correct the minor shortcomings.

This book covers everything you need to repair, maintain or upgrade a personal computer. The text covers legacy and more recent hardware. It's informative and is enhanced with plenty of photos and charts to make computer repair/upgrading easier for both veteran and novice. I built my computer using this book. The appendices include trouble-shooting flow charts, lists of companies selling what you need and lists of valuable software utilities available, amoung other items. It even covers all you need to know about peripherals. In the four months since I've purchased it, it's proven to be an invailuable reference.

Forget Bigelow and Mueller...'and all of the others too! The master has re-appeared! Corey Sandler is one of the greatest writers of our time and he knows not only how to write a great book, but he also knows how to help the reader obtain the maximum benefit from his books. This is his FIFTH Edition of the book entitled 'Fix your own PC' and I got it as soon as I possibly could as I was curious to know if he had covered everything I could possibly want to know about as regards PCs and peripherals...'I wasn't dissapointed! His previous edition of this book was marred by publisher's type-errors and badly drawn diagrams in the fault-finding charts, BUT...'this has all been sorted out in this latest edition. Not only that, but the book is 'complete' as it really does cover every aspect of the modern PC with just the correct balance struck between this and references to what he calls the 'dinosaurs'. This is probably the only book available at this present moment in time which actually covers every state-of-the-art component of the PC as he gives us a great coverage here of every processor up to date, including the Pentium II and the most recent Cyrix and AMD equivalents. He has included much new material like the use of Universal Serial Bus and the many peripherals you would connect to this interface. Scanners, printers, DVD and every concieveable device all get a meaty mention in this excellent book. Corey Sandler has a way with words, in that he knows how to teach you a seemingly complicated subject in a very easy way. This is a remarkable achievement in itself as there are not too many people who have this ability to communicate a subject effectively to a reader...'Corey Sandler has no problem with this most important of tasks! This book is not merely a re-run of the previous editions with the odd update...'it is a major work on the modern PC and should be on every PC enthusiast's bookshelf as it covers just about everything you could ever wish to know about your PC and related equipment. Whether you are a novice, a student, a home PC owner/user or an experienced engineer, you will find something of value in this book for you! As I said at the top of this review, "If you buy this book, your life will be better!!" Maybe that should have been the name of the book for this book will definetely enhance your knowledge of PCs and the world of PC technology in general. You can take this book and use it as a text-book for college, or you can use it as your 'blueprint' for building your own PC and/or diagnosing and repairing every kind of fault you will ever be likely to encounter. After giving this book a thorough going-over and comparing it with the competition (or rather, the lack of competition!), I can safely say that this is a book I can recommend 100 percent to anyone who is looking to learn more about this subjet. Corey, I thank you for putting so much time and effort into producing such a fine book as this FIFTH dition...'it's all that I expected from you..'and more! (Reviewed by George Blades).