How This Book Is Organized
Whether you are a hard-core techie, just learning the ropes of
building and tinkering with your own systems, or trying to figure out
why Widget A does not work with Widgets B, C, D, and so on, there is
a hack in here for you. You will find a hack for every aspect of your
PC from power supply to mouse port, video to network connections, and
have the chance to learn a lot about each section of a PC along the
way. It has been my goal to help make your PC more reliable,
economical, and effective whether it is five years or five days old.
Without dwelling too much on the past and the foundations that make
the PC what it is today, you will discover subtle nuances, and maybe
a few "trade secrets," that will
dispel common PC myths about how things work, or
don't, and why. Each major element of a PC and
specifics about them are covered in the following ten chapters:
- Chapter 1, Basic System Board Hacks
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This chapter covers the intricacies of normal and quirky system board
behavior, dealing with boot-up passwords, boards that
won't boot, booting faster, BIOS upgrades, and
adding or changing a boot-up graphic.
- Chapter 2, Basic System Board Setup
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From how to get into your BIOS setup program to what to do when you
get there, the subtle and not-so-subtle aspects of what all those
BIOS parameters do and cannot do. Master those drive, I/O port, Plug
and Play, and power management parameters with ease.
- Chapter 3, CPU Hacks
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This chapter is where the heart of your PC starts racing. This is
where you determine if you have a CPU and system board you can
overclock, learn how to choose components that can be sped up, and
how to turbocharge them. You'll also see how to
improve the cooling of your CPU so it will stand up to turbocharged
speeds.
- Chapter 4, Memory Hacks
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A fast, stable CPU will meet its first speed bump if you
haven't got enough RAM or if the RAM you have is
chugging along like a snail. You need to feed your CPU, operating
system, and data enough RAM to let the system achieve its potential,
and here you'll find recommendations for how much is
enough and how much can be too much. RAM can be sped up and optimized
to match your CPU byte for byte once you learn and apply the right
parameters to get it off the starting line and handling all those
speeding bits.
- Chapter 5, Disk Hacks
-
Hard drives used to be easy. Either you had one or you
didn't. When you got one, all you had were limited
options for installation and configuration. In this chapter
you'll see all of the options in
today's PCs, hard drives, and operating systems,
which offer dozens of combinations of capacity, performance,
partitioning, formatting, and filesystems to suit your needs and
learn how to select, install, and configure a proper storage system.
- Chapter 6, Disk Drive Performance Hacks
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Choosing the right hard drive system reduces the
PC's most significant bottleneck—disk storage
performance. This chapter shows you all those hard drive ratings and
parameters, then how to get the most out of what you have with simple
cabling changes, operating system parameters, and interface and drive
upgrades.
- Chapter 7, Video Hacks
-
What you see may not be all you can get. Today's PC
viewer wants video quality that meets or exceeds that of full-motion
high-definition television. PC gamers yearn for maximum
frames-per-second performance. "Frames are
life," especially when fighting the visually
superior, ultra-agile Galactigons wielding only a K-Bar knife and an
early year 2021 model focused gamma-laser torch. If you
can't see them coming to get you then you cannot
stop them. Fast video is one of a handful of aspects that define
high-quality video—you want smooth textures, crisp edges,
vibrant colors, and no hint of pixels or choppiness. Choosing the
right video card by the numbers and then cranking the numbers up is
what this chapter is all about.
- Chapter 8, I/O Device Hacks
-
Get out the soldering iron and magnifying glass, or keep the one you
have warm from performing our CPU hacks. Seriously, we cut a few
wires in one crafty hack in this chapter, then we're
back to switches, jumpers, BIOS, and Windows parameters to make sure
your PC configuration follows the PC BIOS and Plug and Play rules for
getting more and conflict-free I/O ports.
- Chapter 9, Boot-Up Hacks
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If you're not happy with just one operating system
then this is the chapter for you. In here are hacks covering
everything from DOS to Linux, and several ways to allow your system
to shift "personalities" nearly on
the fly.
- Chapter 10, Configuring a New PC
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This is our "pro" chapter. Most PC
problems are preventable with a little tender loving care. No,
scratch that: with a lot of deliberate proactive, protective,
preventive, and preemptive measures. From virus protection to
firewalls to backups, you'll see how to cover
yourself against common PC predators and recover from the damage they
can cause. Apply these hacks to all your PCs, new or old, and
you'll be glad you did.
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