Where to learn about hardware?

[hop-frog]

I've been using computers for the last 6 years without really getting into very deep into learning about internal hardware. All of the computers I have ever used are more or less borrowed so I don't have experience taking appart and breaking computers and I won't have that chance anytime soon. Is there a hands-off approach to learning about hardware? books? online refrence? how does my monitor work? etc.

[MorphiusFaydal]

sorry, but in all my computyer experience, the old adage holds true, 'you cant make an omelet without breaking some eggs', just ttranslated to mean that you need to get your hands dirty

i learned all i know by playing with the inside of my computer and asking questions. and a lot of it is reading the manual and remembering the non-specific stuff, like how to tell whats what.

just buy some old cheap computer parts from a store, and try to put them together. put *nix on them, and your up and running.

but you really need to experiment

[Alex Cavnar, aka alc6379]

I would second that idea, but you do kind of need a guidebook if no one's around to help you.

For that, I'd suggest All-in-one A+ Certification by McGraw Hill Publishing. It's $60 US, but it will tell you everything you need to know about computer hardware. It explains the basics of processors, types of RAM, hardware installation (PCI/ISA/AGP cards, hard drives, memory, etc), and it even goes a little into the setup of a network. But, it really doesn't give any information on Linux, as the A+ test doesn't cover Linux, AFAIK.

But, there are already plenty of good Linux books out there. If you just want to learn PC hardware, I'd say All-in-one A+Certification is $60 well spent.

[noidea]

I agree with the posts before.

The A+ is basic computer knowledge. Just make sure to get the latest version of any book.

Check amazone.com for books, the Dummie series also has some books about building or upgrading PC's. Or just visit your local library.
Look through the magazines Computer Shopper (or is it Computer Buyer - I haven't read it for years)
Then lookmif you can visit a PC trade show. I got the basic parts - MB, AMD K6/400 and 64 meg RAM - for 200 bucks in 1999. You get good deals on yesterday's hardware.

Then just start and build it together ... it is as easy as Lego.
The last computer I bought stock was an Amiga 2000 somewhen in the late 80's, but that thing got customized to the limit. Was a lot of money that time. But nowadays it's dirt cheap to build your own machine. And a lot of fun!

[RWiggum]

I started with a couple of years of tinkering on my system - upgrading hardware, adding drives, 3D accelerators, etc. In 1999 I decided to try a motherboard/cpu upgrade. If you can do that, you can pretty much build a system from scratch. I picked up Scott Mueller's Upgrading and Repairing PCs (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0789727455/qid=1055262931/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/102-6804323-0552132?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) to do some background reading before I started the project. It's also about $60 (Amazon has it a lot cheaper, though). A new edition comes out every year, but once you've studied one of them, you can keep up to date by following resources online. It's hefty (current 14th edition is 1600 pages!) but easy to read a chapter at a time. Some of the info becomes obsolete quickly - my copy ends CPU coverage at 233MHz PIIs. Some of it, like how magnetic or optical drives work, doesn't change much. You may want to check it out in a store/library first to see how far the coverage goes. It may be worth waiting for the next edition if 14th is too far behind. It was released last August, so you may not have to wait long before the 15th ed. is out.

Some of the best online hardware sites are www.tomshardware.com and www.anandtech.com. If you've picked up enough from your reading you can follow anything on those two sites fairly easily. I've found they're better for researching new technologies for your next project than troubleshooting existing rigs. YMMV.