Where and how can I learn about computer hardware?

Yeah I'd say reading all the stickys in all of the different areas should get you started pretty well. As with each section they give a description on how some components work and terms and what to look at.

It's pretty much what I did. You could also read random threads that have been solved and you can recognize problems and be able to diagnose them if you've seen enough.

read the stickies on top of the main forums, wikipedia and google

and post threads with intelligent questions where u can't easily look it up on google and people will answer, and of course take part in those massive threads that are over 3 pages long with the names

Randomizer
Jennyh
Fazer_on_stun
Reynod (sometimes)
AMDfangirl (AFG)
Jaydeejohn (JDJ)
Mousemonkey(MM)

these people are the gurus of the CPU section and a few other sections

for the home built section look for Proximon
for the graphics look for the TheGreatGrapeApe
for the laptops cjl, Maziar(very good guy), jsc


one last thing, don't be afraid to add suggestions to these forums, people will correct you as long as you don't try to shove the wrong stuff in their face when they are clearly right.

Good question on your first post, congratulations.

Thank you, I'll try to do the things you stated.

Definitely read through wikipedia, its most of it is well written, not super technical, and will get a basic understanding of stuff. You will hit some parts that are super technical, feel free to skip those unless you are a microelectronics engineering major or something similar.

Always feel free to ask questions, try to keep them reasonably specific because the super vague ones are difficult to answer. Dont ask flamebait questions like "Which is better AMD or Intel?" because there isnt an answer to that question.

If you ask well worded questions, and dont mind reading through wordy answers, you will learn quickly. And always feel free to question the reason why something is better, if there arent benchmarks to back up the point then its opinion not fact and opinions can be wrong.

"If you ask well worded questions, and dont mind reading through wordy answers, you will learn quickly. And always feel free to question the reason why something is better, if there arent benchmarks to back up the point then its opinion not fact and opinions can be wrong. "

very well said.

i recently returned to the hardware scene after a 5 or so year hiatus. had alot to cath up on. but simply reading through the articles here on toms is awesome. whenever something is mentioned oyu dont understand, wikipedia it and fill in the gaps.

the hardware reviews and benchies in particular should not be missed, as toms are brilliant for giving lots of background info and useful stats.

google is your friend

oh, and definitely anandtech.

This may sound silly, but have you considered purchasing a textbook? I don't know what country you are from, but I am currently studying A Level Computing in the UK and have an AS Computing book which to be honest is a very good starting point at learning how things work. It does not go perhaps as fully into depth as you may want, I don't know, but sufficiently enough to get a good understanding of how different components and hardware devices work. And of course, if you want to further your learning after that you can go on to find other sources.
Just an idea, because I have found sometimes that sites such as Wikipedia do sometimes go to a technical level beyond what I understand, which then can make it more difficult to comprehend the lower level stuff.
Hope that may be of some use to you.

The best site is this:

WWW.GOOGLE.COM

wikipedia has many shortcomings but the general computer articles are pretty good.

Google is very good at looking up specific things - as long as you can formulate a good search phrase.

The problem with books is that after the basics, they become obsolete pretty quickly.

And last, you can learn a lot from building your own computer, particularly if something goes wrong. 

youtube also aint too bad

Well to learn a lot of computer hardware you can
-Read all the stickes on tomshardware for the hardware forums.
-Ask questions on the forums.
-Search for already asked questions in the search for info.
-I find the best way to learn about hardware is going to its manufacturers website like Intel, AMD, Nvidia, ATI,Corsair...etc..for how hardware works, almost always the website has a guide for you.
-Go to Google and type in How (Part) works.
-There are plenty other guides out there that will teach you the major things of components.