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| Building the Perfect PC, Second Edition | 
| Authors: Robert Thompson, Barbara Fritchman Thompson
Publisher: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Category: Book
List Price: $34.99
Buy New: $19.97
You Save: $15.02 (43%)
Buy New/Used from $17.83
Avg. Customer Rating:  (72 reviews)
Sales Rank: 156554
Format: Illustrated
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Edition: 2nd
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 422
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.2
Dimensions (in): 9.6 x 7.9 x 1.2
ISBN: 0596526865
Dewey Decimal Number: 004
EAN: 9780596526863
ASIN: 0596526865
Publication Date: December 22, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 A good book in theory, but not in practice December 2, 2007
32 out of 36 found this review helpful
This book has gotten some pretty good reviews, which is one reason I chose it over other, similar titles. So I hate to be the voice of dissent, but here's how I feel about this book.
I think this book is extremely useful in theory. What I mean by that is you can sit back and read the book without actually doing the projects and learn quite a bit about PC components. For example, I now know that Antec is a really good brand to choose for the case. I saw the layout of a motherboard and have a better understanding of what the different sections of it are for. And maybe most importantly, I learned about the little things to look for when choosing the individual components, especially to make sure that they are all compatible with each other and, of course, with the motherboard.
However, when I finally started reading one of the chapters on actually *building* a system, that's when it fell apart for me. I read the gaming PC chapter, because what I'd like is a gaming PC. Well, it didn't take long before I was thoroughly confused. I felt like a lot of the steps were given in broad strokes and weren't detailed enough for a novice like myself.
Now, I know what you might be saying: you can't just read these sections "theoretically" like you can the first few chapters. You need to sit down and actually put the pieces together yourself. Well, that's fine and all, if someone gave me a bunch of free components to use. But I have no desire to spend $1000+ when I don't even understand the instructions I'm reading in the book in the first place. Example:
"Position the free-floating retention bracket over the plastic nub on one side of the black plastic retention module base."
Uh...what? And no, I'm not even taking that out of context. The instructions were just difficult to follow. And yes, like I said, it might be easier if you had the components in your hands, but this isn't like picking up some cheap items at the grocery store to perform a high school science experiment just for fun. This is serious and expensive stuff.
Something else that didn't give me too much hope was the fact that after inserting the motherboard into the case and putting it all together, the authors discovered that the back-panel I/O template had some metal tabs that actually blocked the ethernet ports on the motherboard. First off, if *they* make this mistake, I can certainly imagine myself doing much worse. Second, they don't even tell us how to fix it. They simply say that they would have "started over" -- which is absolutely no help at all, since it isn't at all clear how you would prevent this from happening a second time (none of the other ports were misaligned, so it can't simply be a matter of trying it again and hoping the tabs don't block the ethernet ports the second time around).
I also browsed the other sections and found another interesting dilemma they got themselves into. In the budget PC chapter, they chose to use a CPU cooler that ended up not fitting properly against the motherboard, and only after a lot of work and "minor surgery" did it finally fit. In other words, a hardware compatibility issue -- exactly what the authors had been warning us to avoid.
A final example of what I would call the "impracticality" of this book is this: in the chapter on building a mainstream PC, we are given this advice before installing the motherboard:
"Check the motherboard documentation to determine if any configuration jumpers need to be set."
Again...what? The authors don't explain what this means or how to do it, and they don't even mention this step in the chapter on building a gaming PC. I suppose it's possible that the particular motherboard they used in that chapter does need any jumpers set, but I doubt it. I think they just left it out of that chapter. I shudder to think what else could have been left out, and having to face that problem all alone when I'm in the middle of putting all my components together.
Don't get me wrong -- I'm not listing these things just to show how incompetent the authors are. They seem to really know a lot about what they're doing. My point is, if they can make these types of mistakes, then certainly anyone new to building a PC can (and probably will). Furthermore, as I said in the case of the metal tabs, they don't even say how to fix the problem.
If anything, this book has shown me that building a PC is just as difficult as I imagined it might be, and that it isn't always a clean and easy process. It's a really exciting thought to put all these pieces together yourself, but I don't know if I'd start by doing it with new, top-of-the-line components. One thing for sure I will do is take apart my parents' current computer as soon as they get a replacement, and I might even have this book on hand just to see if I understand it better then.
Finally, the binding of this book is terrible. One section has already fully bent back, looking like at any moment the pages will start coming out. Even worse, the entire spine of the book has torn away from the back cover. If this happens in the front, then the entire cover will come off the book! And I am very careful with my books, so this isn't from rough treatment. This book has moved from my desk to my bed, a matter of two feet, and after three days it's already falling apart.
So all in all, I would recommend this book if you are interested in reading about building a PC, but I'm not so sure everyone will find it all that easy to follow when it actually comes time to build it. Furthermore, since the authors use (necessarily, I understand) very specific components in their projects, it seems possible that when you go to build your own PC using different components, some entirely different issue might pop up that the authors don't discuss since they aren't using the same equipment as you. This, of course, cannot be avoided, but to me it just shows that building a PC still might be a somewhat intimidating process.
 Great for begginers October 10, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Greg's review: I think this is a great book for beginners. It would have bean a lot harder to build our first computer without it but if we had already built some computers it would have bean a lot less helpful. It gives you a good amount of information like the price ranges that our best to buy in, what things you should look for in components you are thinking about buying, what different components do, and how to put them all together. It doesn't tell you exactly what to buy and hoe to put it together either it assumes that you will modify there examples to fit your needs better and tell you how. The only bad things about it are that it doesn't tell you how to install an operating system, and some of what it says is a bit old. Unfortunately it would be impossible to make a book that tells you how to make computers which isn't a bit old because computers are getting better so fast.
Dad's review: I think this is a great book for beginners. I would never have had the confidence to go out and buy the parts and build a PC without this kind of help, but I'm happy to say my 10 year old son and I read the book and successfully built a pretty decent computer.
A good thing about this book is that it gives you an explicit list of parts to buy, tailored to the kind of PC you want (budget, mainstream, gaming, media centre etc.). A better thing about this book is that while giving you this list, it talks about the features of motherboards, disk drives, chips, etc. that are important to look for. This means that even though we couldn't find the exact parts they listed (inevitably, because computer hardware evolves so quickly), we knew enough about what we were looking for that we could find closely similar parts and make good choices of alternatives.
One thing I think this book could add is a brief discussion of installing an operating system, since without an OS, even if you have done everything else correctly, you still just have a fancy paperweight not a working computer. We installed Ubuntu linux. It was free, easy to download, installed and ran perfectly with no special knowledge on our part in under half an hour.
For the previous poster who complained the book was out of date, I think he had the first edition (2004) not the second (2006).
VERY VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!! July 12, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Do you want to build a PC for personal or business use? If you do, then this book is for you. Authors Barbara Fritchman Thompson and Robert Bruce Thompson, have done an outstanding job of writing a book that is your guide to the world of building PCs.
Thompson and Thompson, begin by focusing on things you need to know, things you need to have, and things you need to do before you start to buy components and build your new PC. Then, the authors tell you everything you need to know about how to choose and buy the components you need to build your new PC. Next, they show you how to build a general-purpose PC that is a jack of all trades and a master of... well, quite a few, actually. The authors also focus on building a reliable, high performance SOHO server, appropriate for anything from an inexpensive server for a home office to a serious server for a small-business network. They continue by showing you how to build a gaming PC on a reasonable budget. Then, the authors show you how to build a PC that provides TiVo-like DVR functions, without the monthly subscription or the DRM features common to commercial PVR units. Next, they show you how to build a full-featured PC that is small enough and quiet enough to fit in almost anywhere. Finally, the authors show you how to build a fast, reliable PC on a minimum budget.
The goal of this most excellent book is to show you how to select the best components and assemble them into a working PC that matches your own requirements and budget. Perhaps more importantly, this book provides the advice and ideas that you need to make the net PC you build the perfect PC for your needs.
Well worth the price for the advice July 7, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I just noticed that the current edition is a revision of the one I bought from Amazon! Having said that, I'd be surprised if the quality and wisdom changed materially, and here is what I mean.
Using Thompson's book, I've built with both of my children the Home Theater PC and the Gaming PC. Both work like a champ. I'd add that much like the way the Thompson's structure each chapter, determine what you need, making a list, constructing the CPU, and what the outcome was: was our experience as well. Sometimes, the available parts just aren't. Sometimes there are driver issues and conflicts that you don't expect and it's not as though the Thompson's can know everything before the book was printed.
Some one whined a bit about the website in another review. I'd counter that with the affirmation of those who are in forum answer questions that are placed on the bottom shelf for novice builders like my family, as well as answer some truly arcane questions for advanced builders and hardware developers! That the website has "dated material" regarding hardware might be a no-brainer, but asking questions in the forum will quickly provide anyone with updates regarding anything related to hardware, drivers, and known conflicts between components.
In the build of the HT PC, we started out with an ASUS board that was (I think) recommended. But, the Plextor DVD wasn't recognized in the install. My daughter and I searched far and wide for a solution. One of the many responses to our post in the forum came in an answer from Robert Thompson, who provided the options for us regarding solutions.
The book possesses the same kind wisdom and availability to any builder from Thompson. He passes along some advice about what you can get away with in a build regarding tools-I won't disclose that secret- and just some "watch-out's" that will keep your build from becoming accidentally expensive, e.g., trying to insert the processor with the wrong orientation or incorrect application of the heat transfer paste to the processor. I'm likely to buy this new edition for the next build.
 Great build instructions, lacks the final touch July 1, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a great book. It got me excited as hell about building my own system. Since this was the first time I built a PC, I decided to pretty much follow very closely the bill of material listed as one of the options, but there were still some subtle differences that I had to sweat over. Many of the pictures of the motherboard, for example, were actually from a different engineering revision of the board that I bought, so the exact locations of connectors will be different from any board manufactured after mid 2007.
A note to one of the authors referred me to join a discussion website, which was a little disappointing since I believe the answer should have been known.
This book is very up to date, very insightful, it has tips and tricks that only can be learned after many years of experience, and is very well written.
I would recommend that a first time builder also buy Rosenthal's "Build Your Own PC". This book is a little more ancient, but it has interesting history about PC components, and it shows another point of view on the same subject. It also includes more info on the CMOS setup and installing the OS, which is just as important as the physical build if you want your computer for more than just a decoration.
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