Title: PC Hardware in a Nutshell

Author: Robert Bruce Thompson et al.

Publisher: O’Reilly

ISBN: 1-56592-599-8

Over the past few years PC hardware standards, design and layouts have as you’d expect moved on. The world inside the case is very different to what it was. Knowing what is and isn’t compatible is a bit of a mine field. The book starts with an introduction to hardware for the beginner, covering issues like static and safety.

The tables in the book cover the different types of processor and motherboard combinations, discussing memory, caches, IRQ’s and DMA channels. The book will form a good base to a technical library and is very useful for building your own system from a technical view point.

These books will go out of date, this latest edition will be good for a few years and is therefore worth the investment. By solving one hardware problem, the book will more than pay for itself.

Having looked at a number of  books on PC upgrading, this title has the quality of technical information, clearly presented to be of use to the IT professional.