Register your product to gain access to bonus material or receive a coupon.
Helps students rapidly get up to speed with the latest PC technologies, as they understand how these enhancements fit into the evolving PC platform.
Helps students make intelligent decisions about hardware, and successfully integrate new technologies in any computer system or environment.
Enables students to actually watch PC repairs and upgrades—even when they only have access to a DVD player, not a computer.
Gives students a single source for understanding all aspects of PC maintenance and troubleshooting.
Helps students rapidly solve the problems they are most likely to encounter.
Helps students troubleshoot problems with older, more failure-prone PCs.
Gives students practical guidance for understanding and troubleshooting problems with networks and Internet connectivity.
Gives students a single resource for understanding virtually all contemporary PC hardware terminology.
Runaway best-selling PC hardware book of all time and one of the best-selling computer books ever!
Buying a Non-Branded "White Box" PC
Managing Disk Partitions Over the Network with Ghost Corporate Edition
PC Components, Features, and System Design
PC Components, Features, and System Design
Introduction.
1. Development of the PC.
Computer History-Before Personal Computers.
Timeline. Mechanical Calculators. The First Mechanical Computer. Electronic Computers.
Modern Computers.
From Tubes to Transistors. Integrated Circuits. The First Microprocessor.
History of the PC.
Birth of the Personal Computer. The IBM Personal Computer. The PC Industry More Than 20 Years Later.
What Is a PC?
Who Controls PC Software? Who Controls PC Hardware? PC Design Guides.
System Types. System Components.
Pre-PC Microprocessor History. Microprocessors from 1971 to the Present. Processor Specifications.
Data I/O Bus. Address Bus. Internal Registers (Internal Data Bus). Processor Modes. Processor Speed Ratings. Processor Speeds and Markings Versus Motherboard Speed. Cyrix Processor Speeds. AMD Processor Speeds. Overclocking. Cache Memory. How Cache Works. Level 2 Cache.
Processor Features.
SMM (Power Management). Superscalar Execution. MMX Technology. SSE and SSE2. 3DNow!, Enhanced 3DNow!, and Professional 3DNow! Dynamic Execution. Dual Independent Bus Architecture. Hyper-Threading Technology.
Processor Manufacturing.
Processor Remarking. PGA Chip Packaging. Single Edge Contact and Single Edge Processor Packaging.
Processor Socket and Slot Types.
Zero Insertion Force. Socket 1. Socket 2. Socket 3. Socket 4. Socket 5. Socket 6. Socket 7 (and Super7). Socket 8. Socket 370 (PGA-370). Socket 423. Socket 478. Socket A (Socket 462). Socket 603. Socket 754. Processor Slots.
CPU Operating Voltages. Heat and Cooling Problems.
Heatsinks. Active Heatsinks. Installing a Heatsink.
Math Coprocessors (Floating-Point Units). Processor Bugs. Processor Update Feature. Processor Codenames. Intel-Compatible Processors (AMD and Cyrix).
AMD Processors. Cyrix.
P1 (086) First-Generation Processors.
8088 and 8086 Processors. 80186 and 80188 Processors. 8087 Coprocessor.
P2 (286) Second-Generation Processors.
286 Processors. 80287 Coprocessor.
P3 (386) Third-Generation Processors.
386 Processors. 386DX Processors. 386SX Processors. 386SL Processors. 80387 Coprocessor.
P4 (486) Fourth-Generation Processors.
486 Processors. 486DX Processors. 486SL. 486SX. 487SX. DX2/OverDrive and DX4 Processors. Pentium OverDrive for 486SX2 and DX2 Systems. AMD 486 (5x86). Cyrix/TI 486.
The errata for the book is available here in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) format. You will need Adobe's Acrobat Reader to view these files. If you do not have the Acrobat Reader installed, you may go to Adobe Systems' web site to download this free reader.
Click on the links below to display the PDF file in a new window. Right-click on the link and select Save As if you want to download it to your hard drive.
Errata for the book - 191 kb -- 0789729741errata.pdf