August 2004
Beginner
352 pages
13h 42m
English
Content preview from Building the Perfect PC
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Things You Need to Have
The following sections detail the items you should have on hand before you actually start building your new system. Make a checklist and make sure you check off each item before you begin. There are few things as frustrating as being forced to stop in mid-build when you belatedly realize you’re missing a cable or other small component.
Components
Building a PC requires at least the following components. Have all of them available before you start to build the system. Open each component box and verify the contents against the packing list before you actually start the build.
| Case and power supply, with power cord |
| Motherboard, with custom I/O template if needed |
| Processor |
| CPU cooler, with thermal compound or pad |
| Memory module(s) |
| Hard drive(s) and cable(s) (and S-ATA power adapter(s), if applicable) |
| Optical drive with data cable (and audio cable, if applicable) |
| Floppy drive and cable (if applicable) |
| Tape drive, cable, and tape cartridge (if applicable) |
| Card reader and cable (if applicable) |
| Video adapter, unless embedded |
| Sound adapter, unless embedded |
| Network adapter, unless embedded |
| Any other expansion cards (if applicable) |
| Supplementary case fan(s) |
| Keyboard, mouse, display, and other external peripherals |
| Screws, brackets, drive rails, and other connecting hardware |
Hand tools and supplies
You really don’t need many tools to build a PC. We built one PC using only our Swiss Army Knife, just to prove it could be done. Figure 1-1 shows our basic PC building toolkit. Yep. It’s true. ...
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O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.Julian F.
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.Addison B.
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.Amir M.
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.