Good PC repair/upgrade book for beginners?

Does anyone have any recommendations for a good text on repairing and/or upgrading a PC for a relative novice; or 2 books; one that would be simpler to start with and then one a little more detailed. Thanks.

 

you can find a lot of free info just by searching the topic.

 

I should have given more detail. My son would like the books to become more knowledgeable about computers and eventually take some competency tests, so he is interested in obtaining some textbooks, but he is not experienced with working on the inside of a computer. Thanks for your reply.

 

If you were building a computer, the main reference would be the motherboard manual. After that, the motherboard manufacturer's website should have additional information. For the added hardware you would refer to their manual or user guide. Again, their website should have additional information and instructions.

If you were building a computer, before deciding on the motherboard I would download a few manuals and compare them. Do they have good clear instructions? Are they written well? Do they have diagrams? (And even how many pages...a 10 page motherboard manual is not going to tell you anything )

Repairs: Hardware repairs...this forum is the place to look . Malfunctioning hardware may be easy or difficult to trace. Say you have no picture on the screen, is it the monitor, the graphics card or the motherboard? Because of all the interactions of the electronics, troubleshooting is not always straight forward.

A good reference site:
www.pcguide.com

Most good bookstores will probably have something like "How to build a computer ", although it will not relate directly to your machine. It should give you the basic instructions, after that you will definitely need to refer to the manuals.

The internet has a vast amount of information, especially about computers. My library is several hundred megabytes of "copy and pastes"

Matt

 

Barb L, you posted while I was making up my reply.
What I think would make it interesting for your son would be to go to the magazine store and select a computer (hardware) magazine that looks interesting for him. What he does not understand, relate back to information at the website I posted above or search and find it on the internet.

I, at least, think this way would be more interesting than trying to digest a dry old text book.

Get him to build an imaginary computer (but you want it to stay imaginary until he can pay for it himself )

Matt

 

Barb L,
From someone with over 50+ years in Electronics Background and Loads of Experience with a multitude of Equipment during that time period I'd like to suggest Scott Muellers "Upgrading and Repairing PC's" for your Son. In it Scott covers everything from Development of the PC on up to current PC's Info. I've purchased 2 and find the Book to be very good reference. They are Expensive to Purchase but loaded with good info and the DVD that comes with it (at least on my version) has a primer for some certification tests.

Here's the website:
http://www.quepublishing.com/promotions/promotion.asp?promo=1626&rl=1

Hope this helps.

 

Thanks for your recommendations. I will tell him to check them all out.

 

Books on Computers

I also highly recommend Scott Mueller's books--they are well thought out, have an incredible wealth of knowledge, are easy to follow and interesting to read!
Dave H

 

Barb L

Books are fine, but experience is the best teacher. Spend a couple or 3 hundred dollars (about the price of 2-3 college credits) for the parts of a computer he can build himself. Follow the advice above re: searching for and downloading manuals that are readable before deciding on the parts. Asus.com is a good place to start looking, and asking questions here as he goes along is desireable.

 

Thanks for the good advice. This board is definitely helpful!

 

My advice would be to have him attend A+ Certification classes and then try for a part time or even an internship at a retail PC repair shop.

In the retail Repair shop you see it all!

A+ classes are ushally broken into 2 parts each lasting a week.

I think the average for those classes is from 900 to 1200 dollars.

 

Good stuff!

Barb L, you will have to keep us informed of our "foster son's" progress.
I have three daughters.
Daughter 1: "Dad, there's something wrong with the computer ".
Dad: "It's a simple problem, you could fix it yourself "
Daughter 1: (filing nails) "Is it fixed yet? "


Matt