Rating: 
Summary: An excellent resource for classroom or job
Review: The chief problem with the book is the difficulty of finding a problem among the hundreds of troubleshooting symptoms that Mr. Bigelow has included throughout the text. The symptoms at a glance, pp. xxxvii - LXXVIII is weak in that it is very difficult to use it to drill down to the actual problem.For instance, I was encountering a fatal exception error during a Windows 98 installation. There are fatal exception errors all over the "Symptoms at a Glance" but good luck finding them all! I suggest listing all the fatal exception errors together. Likewise for other problems such as keyboard, DVD or numerous components. Group them logically together! Having said that, I love the book! With some effort, a technician can find almost any problem and solve it. Hope the next edition includes my suggestions and also Windows 2000 and Windows XP. I purchased the 5th edition in August 2001 for my class and was dissapointed that Windows 2000 or NT wasn't included in chapter 40.
Rating: 
Summary: This book is the real thing!
Review: Theory books and others offering "deep background" certainly have their place, as well as their limitations. When the time comes - and it will - that you need to solve a difficult pc problem or one of those pesky hardware headaches, this is the book you want within reach.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book
Review: This is a great book. Great guides to your everyday troubles of PC's. It sure is well worth the price. Trust me this book will answer just about any question you would have. Great refrence guide.
Rating:
Summary: Truly outstanding, and it pays for itself
Review: This is one of the finest books on PC troubleshooting ever written. Each chapter contains a list of symptoms, suggestions, and solutions in an accessible format, helping a technician solve even the most obscure hardware problem quickly. Any book that keeps you from looking like a fool in front of a customer is worth its weight in gold (and it hasn't let me down yet). This book is also good for aspiring technicians, presenting exhaustive (but not overwhelming) coverage of topics you are sure to see on the A+ or CST exams. The author is kind enough to include useful diagrams and historical tidbits throughout the work, making the arcane comprehensible and the boring bearable. How many computer books can you think of that accomplish such a feat? Mr. Bigelow, if you're reading this, I would like to thank you for producing such a wonderful book. Suggesting it to others is the least I can do.
Rating:
Summary: A great book for older pc systems
Review: This is the easiest to follow instructual manual I have seen on pc repair & upgrade...It's only flaw is that the content is of little value (other than historic perspective) to owners of systems built since 1995.
Rating:
Summary: complete but take time to find what you want
Review: very complet book but it's hard to find easely what you need. The failures' list are complete but not very well indexed.
Rating:
Summary: Good Book
Review: Very informative book. Would also suggest "Upgrading and Repairing PCs" by: Scott Mueller. It covers everything that this book doesn't.
Rating:
Summary: Bigelow has done it again!
Review: Want to take the A+ exam? Want to take the CST exam? Want a book that covers both? Want to make sure that the author is giving you the best possible answers and information? Then grab a copy of the fifth edition and you'll find the information completely updated to the current technology. Starting off the book is monitors and video, followed up with operating systems from DOS 6.X to 95, OS/2 Warp4, Windows CE, NT, 98, ME and 2000. Backups, Bios and Busses have separate chapters of coverage. You'll move from there to storage, chipsets and CMOS. Topics like the CPU from the 8086 to the Pentium 4, hard drives, RAID and SCSI. Hundreds of pages filled with error codes from a number of manufacturers. Bigelow's coverage of peripherals like keyboard, mice, joysticks, sound and modems. There is discussion about memory and seven chapters just for trouble shooting. Bigelow includes a cd filled with over 100 utilities and the DLS4 test. Once again Stephen Bigelow has done it again.
Rating:
Summary: This guy really knows his stuff.
Review: When I started in the pc industry over 13 years ago the fastest pc on the market there was 286/16 and the DOS was version 3.3 and there was Windows 3.0 was just coming out. Staying current with technology was a whole lot easier then. But as things change everyone needs a helping hand and this book is the hand. Expecting Stephen Bigelow to once again produce a book that should be required reading for all technicians of all skill levels is becoming status quo. Once again the author has put together 2,000 pages packed with information that not only helps with the A+ exam but also the CST exams. From monitors, operating system and boot processes, tape backups, batteries, the BIOS and buses to CD-rom technologies, chipsets, CMOS, troubleshooting, data recovery, RAID and DVD you have only covered 600 pages. Along with those topics comes Error Codes, cooling devices, floppy technologies, hard drives, gaming, keyboards, memory and this gets you to page 1065. From there you move to mice, modems, 300 pages of troubleshooting techniques covering over 2000 problems and solutions. Wrapping all this up are chapters for sound cards, SCSI and preventative maintenance. The cd-rom included has over 100 shareware and demo programs to try out. There is also 10 additional chapters on the cdrom not in the book covering topics like USB, touchpads and virus software.
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