Haynes Build Your Own Computer book review
As a journalist, engineer and car nut enthusiast, I can easily find myself spending hours upon hours poring over technical documents and workshop manuals, among them tomes published by Haynes. This time, however, I’m looking at something less mechanical and more digital: the latest in Haynes’ Build Your Own Computer series, …
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Re: Books
googling is all well and good but as other people have said, you dont know the quality of the information you find, it might only have a "bit" leading you to a trail of tabs being opened. One concise book that has a pedigree for showing how to do things is a good idea.
Re I think so I am?
>Implying that someone could Google something with no means of an connected Internet Device. e.g. a Home PC.
Ahem! Don't you have to have a computer or some such to do a Google search? If you don't then this tome might help. Then once you've built your computer you can then do a Google search to see if you got it right (or not)
Re: £15.39 on Amazon
... but it's only actually worth £1.54. The review fails to notice the copious mistakes, the ineptitude with which components are handled and tools used. I'm very surprised that "Haynes" put their name to this turkey!
The problems with a book of this sort include the fact that it's out of date before it's even published.
I think it's time for a really good "Build Your Own Computer" website, including reviews of components, suggested modifications and improvements, a one-stop-shop for drivers for the hardware reviewed and plenty of links to suppliers....
Done right, it would be a fabulous resource and could easily be self-financing!
Wow an anti-static strap!
How come the person on the front isn't wearing a pink shirt?
Re: Wow an anti-static strap!
"isn't wearing a pink shirt?" - I've read this as "isn't wearing a pink skirt"
Everyone...
was a noob at sometime.
My first PC was an Epson PCe, my second was a 386SX33. Through various upgrades over many years that 386 is now an i5 2500k. Every component has changed several times so that nothing of the original remains, but in essence it is still that old 486. I was a mobile engineer at one time, I wonder which is the greater, the number of miles I drove or the number of machines I built or setup.
Re: Everyone...
Ah, the old "PC of Theseus". Rule I use is "new CPU = new computer", at least when it comes to naming the thing.
New disks, gfx, other cards - not new computer. I rarely upgrade so often that swapping a CPU out doesnt involve a new m/b and ram as sockets/architectures and so on have generally changed since my last upgrade.
Re: Everyone...
For me it's the motherboard. That's the backbone to the thing, in my mind.
Re: Everyone...
That is genuinely creepy... My first computer was an Epson QX-10, second was a 386DX, which is now an AMD Phenom quad-core. The last (semi-) original component was the 5 1/4 drive that got pitched in 2004. (Semi- because it got replaced in '95, but only the once).
My definition of a "new" build is if you swap out more than 50% of the parts.
Re: Everyone...
Ah yes, the "Trigger's broom" of the PC world. Mine started as a P100, changed case 3x, CPU/motherboard countless times (but switched from Intel to AMD and back again at least once). It's definitely still the same "upgraded" PC though in my head :-)
Re: Everyone...
sheesh. I remember when a ram upgrade involved chipping resistors off the back. Yes im looking at you mac plus.
Re: Everyone...
I'm still using the 386 I built in about 1995. With everything replaced at least twice. Apart from the mains lead kept for continuity. So it's still the same PC. Right?
Could be just the ticket for my dad.
I built him a machine, he looked on in amazement.
Though I look on in amazement when he can change a clutch or a timing belt in an afternoon.
The motoring Haynes manuals are full of unhelpful text, obscure pictures and overly optimistic ratings.
My favourite Haynes text....
35 steps to do a procedure....
36. Reassembly is the reverse of the procedure.
Happy days. Glad I don't do my own car servicing any more.
Re: My favourite Haynes text....
Just as well you don't.
The last Haynes manual for the classic Mini had less than 1/8 of the information covering the gearbox than the edition released 15 years beforehand, yet the gearbox hadn't changed.
Most of the gearbox section said "you might be able to work out what's up with it, but just in case, take it to a Rover dealer", rather than still giving enough information to do a complete strip down and rebuild for less than a 1/4 of the price of a garage fitting an allegedly reconditioned gearbox.
<- pint of brewed beverage for the good ol' light blue 646, pint of poisoned acid for the dark blue pretender
Some of us can do both.
Not at the same time though. Computer components tend to react badly to greasy fingers, swarf and being repeatedly belted with a hammer........
"Not at the same time though. Computer components tend to react badly to greasy fingers, swarf and being repeatedly belted with a hammer........"
Whereas you just look like a bit of a bell end when under the hood of a car with an anti-static wrist band attached :-)
Am I superman then?
Built our last home PC
Rebuilt old components into a childrens PC
Changed a timing belt on my car 3 years ago, and doing again soon, and it is a quad cam engine and has multiple points of adjustment.
@some vaguely opinionated bloke - Re: My favourite Haynes text....
Agreed, Haynes car manuals have gone downhill. Much of them is now boilerplate text on 'Elf and Safety and how to change a wheel at the roadside. The electrical section of the manual for my car shows an incomplete random selection of sub-circuits.
It drones on about asbestos precautions (where would you find asbestos on a modern car anyway?), but when it comes to raising the vehicle for a major job (a far greater potential danger) it merely says "raise the vehicle and place it securely on jackstands" - but where would I put those jackstands given that I am using the jacking points for, er, jacking?
And when it comes to the gearbox, it just says take it to a dealer.
Bit late to the party aren't they? About the only people still using desktops and wanting to build there own would be geeks, IT admins and games players. I doubt any of those need a 'manual'. For everyone else an off-the shelf laptop or tablet will suffice.
AT Powerswitches
Any else ever succeed in electrocuting themselves by touching the bottom of a badly insulated in-line power switch coming off the old AT PSU's?
Back then there really was a reason not to have it turned on at the wall :)
Re: AT Powerswitches
The answer is no, unless there is an internet connection to The Register's forums from beyond the grave.
Re: AT Powerswitches
Not that one, but I've fried my fair share of boards by plugging the power connector in the wrong way around.
Polarised connectors? Kids of today don't know they're born.
Re: AT Powerswitches
"The answer is no, unless there is an internet connection to The Register's forums from beyond the grave."
Well it definitely gave me quite a buzz, but 15 years or so on I'm still going! I can't be the only one.
The ATX style digi switch is definitely a big improvement.
Re: AT Powerswitches
Yes, and not because it was badly insulated, but because the wiring and the case front switch arrived 'unconnected' and the only guide to the correct pin-out was written in Chinese.
These days, the most you have to do is get the HDD LED cable the right way round on the motherboard, but back in the 90's, you'd have to wire up the LCD 'speed' display correctly so that it showed both the correct 'standard' and 'turbo' speeds. Otherwise you were nothing!
Oh, it was all ships and giggles back in them days.
Re: AT Powerswitches
I remember years ago showing my GF at the time how to build her very own PC
She looked me in the eyes & asked "there's nothing in here that can hurt me?"
I said no; Cue a very LOUD Zzzzattt and one very unhappy GF
She had managed to short the PWS switch in the front of the case to the case itself
The screwdriver took most of the damage
I took the rest as she tried to beat the living daylights outa me while was laughing my arse off
Ahhh, the good old days
*sniff*
"Finally, there’s a short guide on free software"
Would be keen to know that this consists of. The type of person who is interested enough to build their own computer is also likely the type of person who is interested and open-minded enough to want to install something other than Windows on it.
@handle - Re: "Finally, there’s a short guide on free software"
Wrote :- "The type of person .. to build their own computer is also likely .. to want to install something other than Windows on it."
Indeed. One good reason for building your own is to avoid sending more money to Microsoft.
Roll your own, keep your sanity and your checkbook safe (maybe)
Considering the crucial role computers play in most of our lives (sample limited to Register readers), do you REALLY want to trust your on-line presence and digital life to wankers like the Geek Squad et. al.? These "service facilities" in the big box stores are parts changers, nothing more. Good friend of mine just got back from the Apple joint, his hard drive failed and they replaced it. What about all the data on it? His entire business? All his e-mail contacts? "Oh, your old drive has been recycled already." (No, he didn't know enough to back things up. Betcha he does now.)
I *insist* on being able to do my own maintenance on my computers (and cars, and airplane, and boat, and motorcycles, and most of the items in my home as well as the home itself) because I *refuse* to be at the mercy of incompetent, avaricious, ignorant parts changers who will gleefully charge me out the wazoo for making things worse and then I have to go back and fix it myself anyway. About the only thing I won't do is medicine, and we see how well THAT works - in the US, we *waste* $750 billion on fraud, duplicated tests, unneeded treatments and procedures, etc. EVERY YEAR. That is ten times what we spend (or waste) in Afghanistan in the same time.
If you own ANYTHING, you must a) learn how to fix it yourself, or b) bend over and pay handsomely for others to screw it up for you, then you'll just have to learn "a" anyway, so you might as well cut out the middleman and learn to do it yourself in the first place.
Re: Roll your own, keep your sanity and your checkbook safe (maybe)
Sing it, brother! I was raised in a family that had a total fear of anything as complex as a screwdriver. There was no getting anything fixed, it was break it and buy a new one. My folks' notion of "teaching me money" was to give me $100, put it in a savings account, then deny me access to it.
So I was a right mess when I went off to college. I had no idea how to even shop for a car mechanic, so I got screwings that would make a New Orleans hooker proud. I couldn't afford to keep the car running, so I bought a bike, and when it died, I couldn't afford to have it fixed, so I got a Clymers (cheap US ripoff of Haynes) and fixed it myself. When I put it back together and it fired up, I was on cloud 9 for a week.
Hell, I took a front tire to the bike shop a couple years ago, and they couldn't even line up the arrows on the rim & the tire to fit the damn thing on in the proper direction. How can you mess that up?
My ex-roommate just spent $1600 to have the local car shop swap parts out until they discovered the $20 power supply wire to the ECU was bad. Does he get a refund on all the extra parts he now owns? No.
A neighbor just bit the asphalt because that intermittent ignition coil the bike shop "fixed" killed the engine while he was leaned over in a corner. That's what he gets for buying a Harley.
Back to the book however, this is useful as something to give a noob. He'll at least look at the pretty pictures, and if he doesn't have halfway intelligent questions afterwards, then I know not to waste my time with him.
And speaking of building PCs: I just built one, and which part was bad out of the box? The only American-made part, the CPU.
Re: Roll your own, keep your sanity and your checkbook safe (maybe)
I do as much as I can,
Strip a quad cam V6 to change valve seals - check
FIt LPG to a car - check
Build a PC - check
I used to run an old car and I knew it inside out, replaced lots of bits, bigger engine, forest suspension ect.
Now I would not trust a mechanic to do the cam belt - one said to me do not need the locking kit - so why is it adjustable to fractions of degree?
LPG - seen professional systems mess up, my DIY install didn't
Re: Roll your own, keep your sanity and your checkbook safe (maybe)
I've been swapping bits in and out of PCs for a couple of decades, and I've been inside things slightly larger too.
However, when my machine failed recently, I decided to call in a pro. The cool, quite, methodical way that we went through the machine, plugging, unplugging, isolating, testing, until within not very minutes he held up on hard disk and said, "that's it" put me to shame. My mistake? I'd already decided it was a dead motherboard. He didn't decide, he checked, and it wasn't. I should have known better.
Old, but not too old to learn, I hope.
Re: Roll your own, keep your sanity and your checkbook safe (maybe)
Your first step with that problem would be to unlpug the hard drive. ( and cd, and video card , and anything else the pc could possibly boot up without )
That would narrow it down for you - no need to get the expert in - no need to test the hard drive
Just boot with the minimum MB,mem,CPU,psu - and if that dosent work swap those bits out in this order:
psu,mem, (cpu & mb whichever you got)
Upgrades
Although I can’t really see many people buying this book, the volume of information that is available on the web, and it’s variable quality, does make things difficult for people to use. I think this is particularly true for upgrades. Even if, like myself, you’re just trying to upgrade a pc graphics card to cope with a change from 17” to 23” monitor (very new fangled here), clear sources of up to date accurate info are hard to find and it’s not as if you can even rely on finding a PC shop with knowledgeable staff either. Where are people going nowadays for such advice?
Anything to keep the un-initiated out of PC world
Don't understand the nay sayers. I'd guess most reg readers are already at the level of being able to build their own, or at least knowing where to look.
There's a whole mob of people out there with a base level of knowledge, at least to the point of know what the individual components do, but don't have the confidence to do it themselves. if books like this teach them how to build or repair their own, then great.
My old man is at a level where he could change a RAM DIMM but wouldn't want to mess with anything else. He finally plucked the courage at PC world (Fool) to ask what motherboards they do. The guy showed him to a selection of creative sound cards and said they were motherboards.
In 10 years when the level of tech aptitude among the general public will invariably step up, i'm looking forward to the demise of PC World. Knobs.
Re: Anything to keep the un-initiated out of PC world
Demise?
It is PC World that is putting local independent computer parts companies out of business.
"A Mini ITX i5 board? Don't know what you mean, but I can sell you a Packard Bell Celeron! Would you like covercare with that? Hmmm? What if it goes wrong? Covercare, ey? Covercare."
A warranty company with a sideline in selling packard bells.
Easier than Lego
No need for a book on how to build computers, it's easy.
Also, books are best for information of the reference kind that doesn't become out of date in a year or three.
<trigger>I used the same broom for over 25 years. It's had 12 new broomheads and 8 new handles, but I never needed a new broom</trigger>
Warning!
I hope this book contains a warning about the real hazard of building your own computers.
In a few years your house will be filled with bits of obsolescent yet perfectly functional hardware. I recently spent a weekend pulling stuff out of a cupboard and sorrowfully consigning it to the bin. IDE disks, some with capacities up to 500Mb. AGP video cards, and PCI video cards, too. Ethernet cards, some old enough to have coax connectors (when did I last use a motherboard without its own network interface?). CD-ROM drives, usually boasting speeds of 8x and 16x. Fans that fit no known processor. Power supplies that would barely light the LEDs on a modern motherboard. And drifts of motherboards, each with its little tin thing to fit round the ports.
I must resolve not to hoard.
It's not that I'm a bleeding-edge enthusiast. If you build PCs for kids, then sooner or later you succumb to the complaints that the current one won't run any decent games. And now and again I find that I just can't do serious development on a Pentium 4 with 256Mb, so I have to upgrade my own.
Cue replies saying things like "you could install Microbe Linux on that and run your own nuclear power station", or "I develop software using edlin on an IBM PC-XT, and it's never done me any harm".
Re: Warning!
this. seriously. spot on
so much i have so much cack that might one day hgave a need., IDE cables, SD Ram. a floppy drive (just in case dad / old person / luddite girlfriend) wants an old file recovered. A loud crappy PSU. just in case my current one blows and i need a short term stopgap. A DX486 66 chip just for the happy memories of my first upgrade.
most can probably go, but will probably stay, just in case. I'll just keep slowly expanding the box of "dad's spare stuff".
Most important instruction?
Do not tell anyone what you are doing.
I built my first PC a poor student from a very similar book back in the mid-90's and made the rookie error of telling people. To this day I still get calls and emails from family and friends asking for help on their various broken bits of misery.
I'm a VP for a large investment manager in the City managing multiple IT projects and teams.
Re: Most important instruction?
"Do not tell anyone what you are doing."
"I'm a VP for a large investment manager in the City managing multiple IT projects and teams."
You've contradicted your own advice.
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