Shax said:
Sorry to pester you again, but I think I'm ready to finalize my PC build. You've been very helpful, and seem to be knowledgeable, so I was wondering if you could give it one last look:
CPU: Intel Core i5-3570 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme 4
Memory: Corsair 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Storage: Corsair Force 40GB 2.5" Solid State Disk
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 660 2GB Video Card
Wired Network Adapter: Belkin F5D5000 10/100 Mbps PCI Network Adapter
Case : Antec Eleven Hundred ATX Full Tower Case
Power Supply: Corsair CX 500W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V Power Supply
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit)
Going to quote Tom Waits' hat for two replies in 1 =D
Tom Waits said:
You still need to buy another hard drive. 40GB SSD is not going to be enough. You will be living on the edge with only 40GB hard drive space. PC Games these days are between 7-20GB.
He's said in a previous post he's got a 1Tb he can use, he's using the 40Gb SSD for Windows.
I don't think you need a Network Adapter? I'm pretty sure your motherboard comes with one. (Somebody need to confirm this)
Yeah, was questioning that early, ran a check and the Motherboard comes with the network adapter built in, as pretty much all these days do. Only $8 to get the adapter as well, but you shouldn't need it.
EVGA GPU, they tend to come with those standard boxy looking cooler. It's not the end of the world, but if you have time, you can try look for a card without the generic stock cooler. Go for those card that have the aftermarket cooler. As they tend to run a lot cooler than the stock cooling.
And this. You won't need aftermarket cooling - The 660 runs about 2' cooler than the 560Ti, at around 58' or so according to Tom's hardware, and that's the sort of thing my old PC handled with just one fan at the front [Additionally 97' is the cutoff point for safe GPU temperatures from memory, so its well under that] - so if its much more expensive then don't bother, but they're good to have if you run into overheating problems [Why it also pays to live in the colder parts of the world from time to time =P]
Additionally I'll also give some advice for probably the hardest part of building your own computer [Beyond ensuring you're grounded to the case at all times and don't zap any of your components/touch them too much on their faces {Hold the thin sides}]; installing everything once the OS is loaded.
Now, installing the OS should be simple enough. Turn on your PC, put the CD in the CD drive, maybe restart your PC if its moved past the BIOS prompt, if it hasn't then press the designated button to open BIOS [Generally Delete or F1 or something]. Go to the boot from section [Seeing as the board you've bought has a UEFI BIOS this should be easy to find in the simplified BIOS, located down the bottom with images of Hard Drives and CD drives], and select to boot off the CD drive. From there its a pretty simple installation to just follow the instructions; just make sure you select your SSD to install Windows to.
Once Windows has finished installing, which could take a while, you'll be prompted to make yourself an account to log in with. Do so, and it'll load up your Desktop, which will be all but empty at this point.
Please not that at this point you will not have Internet connection regardless of whether you are plugged in, many of your motherboard's functions won't work, your graphics will be stuck in a basic mode and pretty much everything will be running on defaults.
First things first you'll want to find any CDs that came with your parts. Put the one that came with your motherboard in, and load it up.
FROM THIS POINT ON RESTART AFTER EVERY SINGLE THING YOU INSTALL. ITS A PAIN, BUT IT WILL SAVE YOU A LOT OF POTENTIAL TROUBLE. I learned that the hard way one time. Sometimes installing drivers and several other things in quick succession will leave your PC unstable, which leads to a lot of crashes for no reason, so restart your PC after every driver install. Programs are fine, unless they tell you to restart your system, but everything we install from now till the end of my post you will restart after installing.
Now, when the CD loads and launches the setup program, you'll want to look for anything that looks like it has to do with network or Internet. LAN is generally a label that is given to this driver though not always. Worst case use your phone's Internet or another PC to google the relevant driver on the disk if you can't find it. Install this and only this, then restart.
Once your PC has restarted, ensure you are connected to the Internet. The driver should be installed, so if you're not try troubleshooting with online instructions and making sure your network recognises your PC, but if you are connected then proceed to Google the names of every driver on all of the disks that came with your PC parts [Don't include the version number, just the name], excluding graphics drivers for now, and download them. This ensures that you have the most up to date version of that driver, whereas the versions on the CDs you are given are likely a couple of years old by that point.
Install all the drivers you have downloaded one by one, restarting the PC after every installation.
If your PC is still stable and not crashing at this point, good job, you've done things correctly so far. Go to http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us and fill in the info. For your card it will be GeForce Product Type, GeForce 600 Series Product Series, GeForce GTX 660 for Product, and language and operating system should automatically select themselves, though you should know them if they don't. Hit search. Download and install the graphics driver you are pointed to, then restart. Now, you won't have to fill in this form every time you want to update your graphics drivers, there is an automated process on the first page that will search for and find your GPU and point you to the right driver automatically. From memory this requires Java though, which you won't yet have installed.
Now go to www.Ninite.com. Select the programs you believe you will use, then click "Get installer". Run the installer when it is downloaded and it will automatically install each of those programs for you.
After this your PC should be fine. No need to restart from now, and anything else you end up needing for some sites to run things will show up with a popup at the top of your Internet browser asking you to install it. You should be free to basically do what you feel like from now. I would recommend installing a free Antivirus, leaving it de-activated, then activating it and scanning your PC once a month though. Leaving it running all the time is a pain and a system hog, but its a good thing to have to make sure your system is clean. 90% of the time your Antivirus will pick up a few things. Most of them are unimportant and not too dangerous, so no need to freak out when it does, but its still good to be rid of them.
And if I've forgotten anything hopefully someone will correct me so... Hope that helped.
