Bigelow's PC Technician's Pocket Reference

by Stephen J. Bigelow

This troubleshooting reference guide for the PC repair technician features hundreds of code tables, commands, symptom summaries and charts. It covers drive, input device, modem, motherboard and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0070069883
• ISBN13: 9780070069886
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies
• Length: 421 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 4.6" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Fantastic

I must say that before I got this book I though i knew it all. Then when I got it, I was BLOWN AWAY by all the usefull information and tips in this book. This is not a book for beginners. It dosent spend time explaining useless tutorials. It gives the information you need so you can use it for yourself. I reccomend this book to anyone interested in learning more about how your system works

Concise, useful, and it fits in a toolbox

Stephen Bigelow's book on Troubleshooting PCs is a personal favorite, containing (literally) pounds of practical advice and information. Alas, that great work is far too bulky to fit inside my toolkit... which is why I own this book.There are no frivilous details here, only the "meat and potatoes" a technician needs to do his or her job correctly. It is loaded with lists of facts (POST codes, AT and DOS commands, connector pinouts, and so forth), as well as instructions on diagnosing and resolving many hardware problems. My only complaint is that not all the page numbers in the index are correct, but the book is so well-organized that I seldom need the index.When troubleshooting a PC, I use this book almost as often as my screwdriver. It is a tool that few technicians should be without.

Excellent quick reference

This is an excellent quick reference, and provides valuable tips while onsite. It is not for those without a SOLID background in repair & troubleshooting though. Well worth the money....

An invaluable reference for anyone repairing computers.

This book is filled with the information computer repair professionals need to do their jobs. The reference is split into major categories, like Input Devices, Motherboard and Drive Troubleshooting. From there you can quickly look up the specific error and find a solution. Multiple solutions are almost always provided. The collection POST codes for different manufacturers is alone worth the price of this book.

Excellent reference but not intended for novices

As a person who seems to be called upon more and more to fix someone's computer, and as one who's learned by doing in several years of owning these machines (my first was a humble 8088 with a then-huge 20 megabyte hard drive, way before today's Pentiums), I've found this book to be an invaluable reference for assistance in diagnosing computer problems. This is NOT the book for the computer neophyte who knows pretty much how to turn the machine off and on, and who can type a letter and get on the Internet but not much else; it assumes a level of familiarity with computer processes considerably higher than that. However, if you know how to take the cover off, if you're not afraid to remove and replace cards, and you have a basic understanding of interrupts, COM ports and the like, this book is DEFINITELY for you. I heartily recommend this book for the tinkerer, the unofficial neighborhood computer guru, and the professional technician. Two more of his titles that I've purchased and have found just as indispensable is Bigelow's Build Your Own PC Pocket Reference, and his PC Hardware Fat Faqs: Troubleshooting, Upgrading, Maintaining and Repairing. This man KNOWS computers.