Upgrading and Fixing Computers: Do-it-Yourself For Dummies®

Chapter 3. Keyboards, Mice, Game Controllers, and Monitors

Topics and tasks in this chapter

• Choosing a new keyboard, mouse, controller, or monitor

• Installing a new keyboard

• Installing or replacing a mouse

• Installing a new game controller

• Attaching a monitor to a PC or laptop

• Displaying your computer on a TV

• Installing a second monitor to a PC

• Adjusting monitor settings

This chapter deals with the common folk of computing: your keyboard, mouse, monitor, and game controller. Your hands or eyes are on them constantly, but you rarely notice that they're there.

In fact, you notice their existence only when something's wrong: a key no longer works, the mouse pointer jumps haphazardly, the monitor displays odd stripes, or the game controller's cable rips apart.

When that happens, turn to this chapter to choose your replacement, install it, and begin to happily ignore it, once again.

Updating Your Keyboard

Keyboards contain more than 100 moving parts, popping up and down hundreds of times during the day.

Keyboards don't die very often, but when they start to go, the problem is easy enough to diagnose. A few keys start to stickkkk or stop working altogether. And when almost any type of liquid hits a keyboard, every key stops working at the same time.

This section helps you choose a replacement keyboard. It describes the types of keyboards in today's market and explains which works best in different situations. The "Installing a Keyboard" task near the end of the chapter shows how to replace a keyboard ...