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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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