[...]... current generation of technology and systems, to upgrade and repair them as necessary, or to make the decision to replace a PC with a more suitable system In these pages, we give you the essentials of PC upgrade and repair When we wrote the first edition of the PC Upgrade and Repair Bible, many people were still running computers based on the Intel 486 processor, and upgrades to those systems were an... to those systems were an important topic When we wrote the PC Upgrade and Repair Bible, Professional Edition, the Pentium and Pentium Pro were thoroughly entrenched; the Intel Pentium II and AMD K6 were just starting to penetrate the market The third edition saw the obsolescence of the Intel Pentium and its predecessors, as the Pentium II and K6-2 processors owned the industry The lifetime of products... gigabytes — to the table in the next edition About the Fourth (Desktop) Edition We’ve slimmed down this version of the PC Upgrade and Repair Bible to a smaller, less expensive book, targeting it specifically at home, home-office, and small-office users What we eliminated was specifically the topics useful only in large companies, along with some of the specific product photos and specifications What’s left is... 339 340 341 341 343 346 Chapter 22: Laptops and Handheld Computers 347 What’s in Your Laptop? Processor, memory, and bus PC Card and PC CardBus Laptop displays Disk Communications and ports Batteries Docking Stations Handheld Computers Global Positioning System Communications Security Upgrades Summary ... make home movies, store and play your music, serve as your home darkroom, and enhance a home theater They still do office automation, too As recently as when we wrote the third edition of this book, a computer with that kind of power cost thousands of dollars, and most people used a single PC Four years later, a PC costing less than $500 can handle almost everything you might do, and a surprisingly large... the topic at hand The Tip icon highlights things you’ll want to do to make sure you get the most out of your computer xii Preface One further informational point: Throughout the book, we talk about both bits and bytes (a byte is 8 bits), and about thousands, millions, and billions of those We use the notation in Table P-1 consistently Lowercase b stands for “bits,” and uppercase B stands for “bytes.”... found in every part of people’s lives PCs are now used for much more than office automation, but those applications require that you know something about the inner workings of your computer to get the best results The PC Upgrade and Repair Bible will tell you about the computer hardware you need to run today’s personal computer operating systems and Internet software, and help you to figure out what configuration... choices, including coverage of system components, upgrades, and new systems It covers hardware for current and emerging technologies, including wireless LANs, ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) and cable TV networks, and digital video This is a book both for people who will be opening up and working on their computers and for people who want to understand what goes on inside a computer You’ll see... Chapter 3 PC Overview ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ Getting Ready C omputers are indispensable for much of the work and play people do After years of stagnation during which people focused on office automation and business applications and asked where the value was in the ever faster parade of new systems, PCs have crossed a price and performance threshold Systems you can buy today for hundreds of dollars, not thousands, have... in USB-attached external storage ✦ Part V: Networks and Communications (Chapters 11–15) — Part V looks at networking, both LANs and the Internet You’ll learn the ways your PC communicates and how networks of computers work, and understand how to set up wireless networks that give you flexibility while protecting your security ✦ Part VI: Multimedia and Peripherals (Chapters 16–20) — Part VI covers one . alt=""