Product Description

This visual guide offers advice on how to install new components into an existing computer. Each piece of hardware is identified, its position located and the potential problems with its installation addressed.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2519013 in Books
• Published on: 2000-08-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 168 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Corey Sandler, in his Upgrade Your Own PC acknowledges an inescapable truth that many aspiring hardware hackers will find more than a little grim: what you find inside your computer case is likely will be significantly different from what appears in any set of instructions. With that out of the way, Sandler proceeds to explain how to perform a whole slew of useful hardware upgrades on a testbed machine--a Pentium 133 with insufficient memory, a too-small hard drive, an old-fashioned video card, and a slow CD-ROM drive. By the book's end, the once-humble box has a 10 GB hard drive, a DVD-ROM drive, a Zip drive for removable storage, 128 MB of RAM, better video, and a host of other improvements. The machine is absolutely suited to running Windows 98 or Windows Me when the surgery is done.

As you'd expect, Sandler documents the whole process with words, photographs, and a few line drawings. The photos look "pixellated" and a bit bland--publishers of computer books aren't used to including photos in their publications--but they do the job of clarifying the procedures Sandler undertook on the testbed machine. The text is of decent quality, too, and you'll be able to use Sandler's presentation as a guide if you're willing to experiment a bit and apply common sense to the specific machine you're upgrading. If you want details on many different hardware devices (especially older models), look at Upgrading and Repairing PCs. If performance is what you're after, look at Tom's Hardware Guide. --David Wall

Topics covered: The mechanics of opening up a computer's case, spotting hardware that needs to be upgraded, and replacing it with more capable equipment. Sections address IDE hard drive replacement, memory addition and replacement, CD-ROM and DVD-ROM installation, video card replacement, and other upgrades suitable for a two- or three-year-old home machine.

From the Back Cover

Learn to install new components into your PC with confidence!

Want more memory on your PC? Or a DVD drive instead of the CD-ROM that came with your computer? Adding and installing these kinds of components to an existing computer is a smart idea and can be a cost-efficient way to improve your computer's functionality. But it's not always easy to find clear instructions for these procedures, especially if you're a computer novice. This highly visual guide is packed with over 100 easy-to-follow photographs that walk you through each step of installing new components into your PC. Complete with a troubleshooting section, this is an ideal resource for everyone wanting to upgrade his or her computer.

This crystal-clear guidebook explains:

-Reasons for upgrading
-How to get the best price
-Video, sound cards, and DVD
-All types of storage including hard drives, CD-ROMs, Zip and Jazz
-Migrating data to a new system
-Windows installation on hard drives

About the Author
Corey Sandler (Nantucket, MA) is a professional writer and the President and founder of Word Association. He was the first Executive Editor for PC Magazine and has written about personal computers for over 20 years. He is the author of Fix Your Own PC, and dozens of other boo for the computer market.