This is the Safari online edition of the printed book.

BUILD IT. FIX it. OWN IT.

A Beginner’s Guide to Building and Upgrading a PC

Build It. Fix It. Own It. is the ultimate beginner’s guide to building and fixing your own PC. With a friendly, knowledgeable tone, this book shows the beginning PC builder everything he or she needs to know to build a computer or upgrade an existing one.

We step you through the parts that lurk inside a PC, from the motherboard and power supply to the CPU, memory, hard drive, video card, sound card, and networking hardware. In each case, you will learn how the hardware works, what it does, what types of hardware are available, and what to look for when buying the hardware.

Then we walk you step-by-step though a series of PC building projects. We show you how to build five different types of PC: a basic business PC, a home theater PC, a high-performance PC, a killer gaming PC, and a budget PC. And if building a new PC from scratch isn’t in your budget, we show you how to resurrect  an old PC by swapping out a few key components.

When you have your PC built and running, we show you how to set up a wireless network and the BIOS and maintain your new rig.

Build It. Fix It. Own It. is the ultimate PC builder’s guide, even if you’ve never ventured inside a PC case before!

Author Bio

Paul McFedries is one of the industry’s most well known and respected technical writers and is a passionate computer tinkerer. He is the author of more than 70 computer books that have sold more than three million copies worldwide. His recent titles include the Sams Publishing books Windows Vista Unleashed and Windows Home Server Unleashed and the Que Publishing books Networking with Microsoft Windows Vista, Formulas and Functions with Microsoft Excel 2007, Tricks of the Microsoft Office 2007 Gurus, and Microsoft Access 2007 Forms, Reports, and Queries. Paul also is the proprietor of Word Spy (www.wordspy.com), a website devoted to tracking new words and phrases as they enter the English language.

Category     Hardware

Covers         PC Hardware

User Level    Beginner—Intermediate

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 17 Ratings

Obsolete - 2009-04-01
Reviewer Rating:
Nothing about the core i7. most recent/modern cpus are the core 2 duo and quad cores. Well written nevertheless, but if you want to build a gaming pc, this book isn't your best source. Look for books that were recently released. No color picture. Any beginner(like me) can understand this and build themselves their own pc.

Useful - 2009-03-07
Reviewer Rating:
I keep referring back to this book. Good resource, easy to read, useful tips. I recommend it for those just getting in to PC builds - good for the novice.

Out of Date - 2009-08-18
Reviewer Rating:
This book is thorough but as a novice trying to order parts and build a computer several major parts are now not available and the author does not provide much advice for how to figure out options that are available. This has turned out to be a lot more complicated than advertised. All of the components must work together and it quickly becomes a nightmare to try and figure out what goes with what. Would be nice to have some type of website you can visit to get updated recommendations as the components go out of stock, which is quickly!

not read yet - 2009-11-22
Reviewer Rating:
like most things you save alot of money when you do things yourself so i decided to get this book so i could repair a computer i had. i ended up buying another computer from dell, but luckily i got a extended warranty. cause less than a year after buying the dell it broke down. Im hopping to go with a self built computer next time.

too little, too old - 2009-03-22
Reviewer Rating:
Don't plan on building a system based on this book. Already out of date. The author has alot of goofy ideas about computer components

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Top Level Categories:
Hardware

Sub-Categories:
Hardware > Upgrading and Repairing