From boot-up to shutdown, keyboard to network adapter, hard disk to modem, PC/XT to P6, DOS to Windows 2000 and Linux, and CONFIG.SYS to REGEDIT, Troubleshooting Your PC Bible, Fifth Edition, is the definitive PC solution and reference guide. This wonderfully comprehensive, highly readable book promotes self-maintenance, guides technical support, and helps you improve system performance, setup and repairs. This expanded fifth edition includes coverage of Windows Millennium, Windows 2000, Linux, the Internet and more.An unfortunately large percentage of the population regards repairing a personal computer as comparable in difficulty to fixing a Boeing 747. The truth is, it’s not nearly that hard–anyone can debug the components that make up a modern PC. Troubleshooting Your PC makes the task easier by providing readers with information on the systems that make up an IBM-compatible microcomputer.
This book excels at providing background information on various kinds of components. It also does a fine job of decrypting acronyms and explaining how different subsystems relate to one another. The authors attack systems–such as the video system, disk drives, and serial devices–individually, listing symptoms, likely causes, and potential fixes for each. Unfortunately, they don’t outline solutions in much detail: they advise replacing your hard drive in certain situations, for example, but don’t adequately describe how.
Some of the information in these pages seems stale–there’s no explicit explanation of how to install RAM modules, and there’s no mention at all of modern PC-100 RAM. Similarly, the authors neglect not only the Intel Pentium III but also the well-established Celeron and Xeon chips. It’s as if they updated an old edition of this book a little too cursorily. A companion CD-ROM includes a collection of software, plus an evaluation version of Symantec Norton Utilities 3.0. –David Wall
