Table of Contents

FIRST QUARTER: ASSESSING WHETHER UPGRADING IS REALLY NECESSARY. 1. Making the Call: When, Why, and Whether You Should Upgrade. Assessing What You Really Want from Your PC. What Should You Upgrade? What Can You Upgrade? Repairs That Enable You to Avoid Upgrades. Is Your Old Computer Worth Fixing or Upgrading? Nonobvious Factors That Render Your PC Nonupgradeable. Why Upgrading a Notebook PC Might Not Be Doable. 2. Now, Let's Find Out What Kind of Computer You Have. What You Can Tell by Looking at the Outside. What Your BIOS Can Tell You Before You Look Inside. Matching Your Computer to Your Operating System's Requirements. 3. What It Takes to Upgrade Each Part of Your Computer. Parts Is Parts. The Motherboard Makes the Right Connections. The Brain of Your PC: The CPU. Basic Functions Are in the System BIOS. The PC's Think Tank: RAM. Save It for the Hard Disk. Your PC's Video System. 4. What You Need to Know Before You Open Your PC. Creating an Emergency Diskette. Now Back Up Your Data. Putting Your Toolkit Together. Avoiding Frying Yourself on Your PC. SECOND QUARTER: PREVENTATIVE MAINTENANCE AND OTHER WAYS TO AVOID UPGRADING. 5. Fixing the Most Common Problems. General Hardware Dilemmas. Keyboard Calamities. When the Mouse Becomes a Rat. Infrared Devices: Not Entirely Cordless. When Your Printer Makes You Feel Powerless. Monitoring Your Monitor Troubles. Fixing a Drive That's Floppin'. Optical Drives and Sonic Discrepancies. When Your Modem's on the Fritz. What to Do When You're Not Sure What the Problem Is. 6. Cleaning Windows. Crud Windows Leaves on Your Disk. Avoiding Crashes. Attitude Adjustments. Keeping Your Programs Installed. 7. "Repairing" the Hard Disk Instead of Replacing It. What to Do When Your Hard Disk Plays Hide and Seek. Checking the Hard Disk for Problems. Reorganizing the Hard Disk. Converting from FAT16 to FAT32. THIRD QUARTER: TAKING EVERYTHING APART. 8. The Easiest Things to Upgrade. Replacing Your Keyboard. Replacing the Mouse. Acquiring or Replacing a Printer. Improving the View with a New Monitor. Scanners: The Latest Standard Equipment. Digital Cameras. 9. Accelerating Your PC with a New CPU. The Size and Shape of Things. The Manufacturers and Their Products. Speed: Illusion and Realities. The Issue of Lower Voltage. Performing Brain Surgery (Replacing the CPU). 10. Replacing the Motherboard and Its Parts. Shopping for a New Motherboard. The Importance of the Chipset. Motherboard-ectomy Illustrated. Yes, You, Too, Can Replace Your BIOS! Replacing a Dead Battery. 11. Memorize This! Upgrading Memory. Memories Through the Years...or Rather, Months. Buying the Right Kind of RAM. Installation: You Must Remember This... 12. Face the Interface. Everything You Didn't Want to Know About Busses. Enabling Your External Parallel and Serial Ports. Installing and Replacing Expansion Cards. Storage Device Controller Interfaces. What You Need to Know About USB. Gearing Up for FireWire. 13. The Online Line. The "Telephone" Modem. Installing a Telephone Modem. The Cable Modem: Real, Live Broadband. DiSiLlusionment. Broadband Firewalls and Why You Need One. 14. I Can See Clearly Now: Upgrading Your Video. Shopping for a Video (Graphics) Card. Performing Video Card Surgery. The Long-Awaited Marriage of TV and PC. 15. Sensational Stereophonic Sound. Sound Card Standards. Installing Your Sound Card. Speakers of the House. 16. Hands-On Hard Disk Replacement. Issues to Keep in Mind While Shopping. Deciphering Hard Drive Characteristics. Performing Hard Drive Surgery. 17. Replacing a Diskette Drive. Shopping for a New Drive. Putting Your New Floppy in Drive. 18. Adding an Optical Drive. Of CD-ROM, CD-R, DVD-ROM, CD-RW, DVD+RW, and WHAT-NOT. The Interface Factor. Recordable Optical Drives. The Performance DiViDend. How to Install an Optical Drive. 19. Powering Up the Power Supply. Going Shopping for a New Power Supply. Installing a New System Power Supply. Power Security Outside of Your Power Supply. 20. Cooling and Ventilating Your System. Your Most Valuable Component: The Processor Cooler. Installing a Cooling Device. The Importance of Proper Ventilation. Adding or Replacing Additional Fans. 21. Classier Chassis: Consider a New System Case. Shopping for a New Case. Moving Day: Factors to Consider. 22. Installing and Maintaining a Home Network. More Than One Computer? How About a Network? The Components of a Home Network. Making Your House Network Ready. Architectural Digest. Installation: You Become the Cable Guy. FOURTH QUARTER: PUTTING EVERYTHING BACK TOGETHER. 23. Making Your Computer Boot Up Again. Configuring Your Reassembled PC. What to Do When Your COM Ports Start a Fight. Fixing What IRQs You. Messing with DMA Address Junk. Partitioning and Formatting a Hard Disk Drive. 24. Getting Windows to Recognize Your New Toys. Introducing Your Shy Operating System to Your New Hardware. Plug and Play Around. Adding Just About Anything, Except a Printer. Adding a New Printer. Using Windows Device Manager to Explore Your System. Seeing What's There. Changing Critical Settings for Installed Devices. Setting Up Your Network. The Software Parts of the Network. Getting Windows to Recognize Your Internet Connection. Index.

About the Author

Jennifer Fulton is the co-owner of Ingenus Communications, a consulting firm started with her husband in Indianapolis, IN. She has authored more than 75 books covering many areas of computing including DOS, Windows Me/98/95/3.11, and Office XP/2000/97/95. Her most recent titles include How to Use Office XP, Easy Microsoft Outlook 2000, How to Use Publisher 2000, and Teach Yourself Excel 2000 in Ten Minutes.