First Time Builder needs suggestion on Reference books

[Mynzaboxer]

I've changed out my video cards, sound cards, & cd player before, but I'm planning on building my own system from scratch this time. I have several books on building/upgrading your own computer ....including the 10th anniv. edition of Muellers "Upgrading & Repairing PCS" but they are almost 2 years old and only cover handling up to a Pentium II or similar AMD chip. Since I'm considering going for a 1.2-1.4GHZ system I'm thinking they won't be of much help. Has anyone seen a book out there yet that might cover the newer boards & chipsets as well as DDR memory, etc.? Even better....be geared for the first timer? (maybe asking too much Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Tim

 

[MaxImuMAdVaNtAgE]

the "dummies" series has some good material for first-time building, but hey, you're posting in the forum of the best damn hardware site around! just read the articles here on the products you want (cpus, reccomended motherboards, etc...)

if you've done upgrades then you already know how to build a system from scratch, it just takes longer...

just read articles here on hardware, or if you don't care enough about the details to read the whole thing, just bring up the first page of a review and there will be a rating of how it stacks on a scale of 10...doesn't come much easier than that!

MaxImuM

 

[Chaotic42]

The best place to get such info is the internet. By the time a book on such a
subject is written, checked, printed, published, and distributed, it's out
of date.

 

[SocrPlyr]

the books you have will basically give you the basics on how to get the thing started ... i wouldn't worry too much about needing them... basically just get online pick the hardware you need... put it together (not much more work than you have already done before) and then install ur OS. the OS install is probably the hardest part depending on what OS etc and just as long as you have access to the net from some computer you can always post your questions... i tried using a book on my first computer try about 4 years ago but i gave up and just fudged it... hey the thing worked great etc and the only thing i needed help on was installing win95 which at the time u needed the whole boot disk etc... but now w/ the pretty much automated winME and win98 and win2k installs that tell you everything and can be booted through the cdrom drive it is cake... well i just took entirely too long to say "screw the books, use the net"
good luck man
Josh

 

[Brian48]

Putting together a box from stratch is no where near as hard as it may seem, even for the uninitiated. I agree though. The best place to get info about this is actually the Net and user forums such as this.

If you have time, GO HERE and surf through a few of the URLs in the Beginners Sections. You might find all you'll ever need there. For the more advanced stuff, just stroll down into the other sections.

 

[mlvance]

good sites....
www.sysopt.com/guides.html
www.pcguide.com
of course, this forum at AT

www.viahardware.com/faq/kt7/kt7faq.htm
(if Athlon/abit mobo)

this site has many links you could check out....http://users.erols.com/chare/hardware.htm#assembly

GO FOR IT

 

[Mynzaboxer]

Thanks guys! You've given me more self confidence than my folks ever did The links give look like they're really going to help. Now it's off to decide which of the latest motherboards and chipsets to go for.......thanks again.