How to become a computer hardware expert/technician?

HAVOC said:

Aren't these books obsolete by the time they are printed?

Depends on what you mean by "obsolete"!

Sure, a book printed and published last year will not have details on diagnosing problems with hardware only built and sold this year -- but not every PC has hardware that is less than one year old.

And, lots of the basic diagnostic techniques apply regardless of the age of the hardware.

HAVOC said:

Aren't these books obsolete by the time they are printed?

Good point - but the principles still apply.

Books won't keep up with cutting edge technology, like enthusiasts do, but they will give you a good foundation to get you going.

The books are outdated already, nothing beats experience, grab a pc and start taking it apart and putting it back together, do that 150 times and you`ll be good.

Then learn how to install an Operating System.

After that start learning what a driver is and how to hunt them down, especially for old equipment, it can be a real challenge.

Plus - hang around this forum. Here you can learn a lot.

In the IT world, things don't become "outdated" like they do with us. There is a misconception that if you don't keep up with new technology, you can't properly do your job.......that's not entirely correct. I work in IT and work with outdated hardware/software day-to-day. Businesses don't upgrade or completely redo their equipment every time Intel or AMD releases a new chip or architecture. That being said, once you get a good foundation that consists of OS knowledge, CPU socket architecture, RAM, and storage solutions, etc, no matter what you face, you will have a good foundation to do your job. On the other side of the coin, an IT professional should ALWAYS read and learn new things to keep up with the changing times in order to be ready for hardware changes in the future.

You are absolutely correct. I retired from a 35 year computer carrer 21 years ago but most of the things I learned then do still apply.

Some of it is of course outdated. You don't have to calculate the rotation of your drum (which was your RAM) any more like in the late 50s and early 60s and storage dumps don't come in hexadecimal anymore like in the 60s thru 90s (that would be a real challenge for the kids).

Most of the time I was in Operating System development and the basic structure of Windows is no different than it was for the systems then. Only the nitty gritty part has changed.

The real new world is the internet - and all it's pros and cons. That did not exist then but starting in the 70s we had a company wide internal network that connected over 300.000 employees - and no malware, LOL.