An old adage says, "If you want something done right, do it yourself." Building A PC For Dummies can help you get the job done right -- the first time. Author Mark L. Chambers walks you through the process of figuring out which computer is right for you and how to put it all together. Building A PC For Dummies offers tons of useful cost-cutting tips, and it gives you the facts on items like hardware and operating systems, network connections, modems, CD-ROM drives, sound and video cards, and more. When you open up the CD-ROM included with Building A PC For Dummies, you'll find a number of shareware programs, demos, tools, and utilities designed to maximize your new PC's performance.
Back in the day, before “plug and play”, before thirty gigabyte hard drives and hundreds of thousands of operating files computer users had to do things like set pins on the mother board or drives, change the boot files and just generally spend a lot of time inside the computers. Thus there was market for configuration books. This is one of several I used, providing references to drive parameters and hundreds of other now obscure and forgotten bits of data one needed just to upgrade a bit or get the thing working better. Thank goodness those days are gone, as not only do I refuse to ever learn anymore about computers, but thankfully I can use then and not need to waste limited brain capacity with all that useless data!
This isn't a book for experts, obviously , but a good source of basic knowledge of your PC. I knew that before I started, but wanted to start my computer education at a basic level, and this book does that. Worth the time to read if you want to learn right.
Wanted to build a PC with my dad. Never did. Still a good read but the content is very much outdated shortly after reading due to the nature of the industry. Now a days all of this could be found online, thus the problem with Barnes and Noble