Final build info. Would appreciate some feedback :)

Hal Emmerich

First thing to do with new build?

Install windows, update windows then what?

Where do I go to update BIOS and drivers?

Do I need to do things in a particular order?

Monotype

I'd reset CMOS settings first, then just tweak them around to see that everything is right. Main thing to look out for is that your hard drives are sorted - set to AHCI for the HDD/SSD you plan to install to. Just make sure that everything is there as well.
RAM is usually set to auto which is ok, so you can sort this and other bits out later.

Next install windows. With Windows 7 this is very straightforward. In the install, you can select custom settings to partition hard drives. Just set the partition size that you plan to install to and you can set up the blank spaces as you please in Windows later. If you are installing to SSD, you'll probably want to use all the space.

Inside windows, get yourself your basic drivers - chipset from motherboard website and graphics from AMD/nVidia. You'll have a disc with these on them but they're usually a bit out of date. Windows 7 is very good at finding drivers, but they won't have everything, so see if there's anything that's not working right and check your motherboard disc/website.
Install directX as well.
Then it's pretty much your programs, including virus scanners. ninite.com will help you with a few if you don't mind default folders.

BIOS update utilities vary between manufacturers. Often there's a flashing program within windows. Recently I've seen update utilities available when you boot up/in the CMOS menu. You put in a USB key with the BIOS version you want and you can save the one you have and update to a new one.
You have to assess if you really need to update the BIOS. It's a lot less risky than before, but I wouldn't be in a hurry to update unless something isn't working right or there's a big benefit. Always do a quick check that the one you have or are updating to doesn't break anything!

Hal Emmerich

Monotype wrote: »

I'd reset (1)CMOS settings first, then just tweak them around to see that everything is right. Main thing to look out for is that your hard drives are sorted - set to (2)AHCI for the HDD/SSD you plan to install to. Just make sure that everything is there as well.
RAM is usually set to auto which is ok, so you can sort this and other bits out later.

Next (3)install windows. With Windows 7 this is very straightforward. In the install, you can select custom settings to partition hard drives. Just set the partition size that you plan to install to and you can set up the blank spaces as you please in Windows later. If you are installing to SSD, you'll probably want to use all the space.

Inside windows, get yourself your (4)basic drivers - chipset from motherboard website and graphics from AMD/nVidia. You'll have a disc with these on them but they're usually a bit out of date. Windows 7 is very good at finding drivers, but they won't have everything, so see if there's anything that's not working right and check your motherboard disc/website.
(5)Install directX as well.
Then it's pretty much your programs, including virus scanners. ninite.com will help you with a few if you don't mind default folders.

(6)BIOS update utilities vary between manufacturers. Often there's a flashing program within windows. Recently I've seen update utilities available when you boot up/in the CMOS menu. You put in a USB key with the BIOS version you want and you can save the one you have and update to a new one.
You have to assess if you really need to update the BIOS. It's a lot less risky than before, but I wouldn't be in a hurry to update unless something isn't working right or there's a big benefit. Always do a quick check that the one you have or are updating to doesn't break anything!

Just getting back to this since my machine will be delivered this week.

(1)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pdp_L5IxaNI

(2)No real decent site to look at for this but I just enter the Bios (Press F2 on Start-up) and have a look round untill I find it or this Vid if anyone forgot before installing windows

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRlpE9Ar3v8

(3)Will it set-up the recovery partition itself? If someone wanted to install Linux aswell as Windows how much space would you leave for it? Or Can you just set that when you are actually installing Linux? Any other reason to set a partition?

(4)Do driver updates need to be done in a certain order? I installed all the drivers on a new computer years ago and it had to done in a strict order or does Windows 7 do away with all that?

(5)DirectX

(6)Can this be done anytime?

Any other tips?

Fluffy88

I'll cover 3) and 6)

For installing Linux, I would leave it until after you have installed Windows and have everything working correctly. Main reason is the bootloader. If you install Linux then Windows, Windows will overwrite the Linux bootloader with it's own(which is actually fine) but the problem is, when you boot up, the windows bootloader ignores Linux and just goes straight into Windows.
You can create the Linux partition when you are going to start installing it, you don't have to do it at the same time as your setting up Windows, but it might be just a good idea to put aside a few gigs for it while your at it.
As for how big you need it, well Linux can run on a potato so it really depends on what distro your going to be using. On the website for the distro it should give recommendations. I have Ubuntu 11.04 on a 12GB partition and not even had to consider if I was running out of space yet. Still I only have 4GB free, but when your not installing games and the like 4GB is lot's of space

6) you can do it when ever you like.
Like Mono said, don't do it unless you have a good reason too. Usually it won't make any difference, to you. So unless it's an update to be able to use Ivybridge, or to get rid of some bug your probably better off not bothering.

Monotype

For resetting the CMOS, just press the Delete/F-key when booting to enter the setup menu and there will be reset settings option somewhere, but the jumpers method will do fine too (mainly when you've used bad settings and can't boot at all).
Check that your time is set correctly too before you install windows.

When you're installing Windows, set the size that you want for your windows partition. Leave the rest unpartitioned and you can sort it out later as Fluffy says.
If you had it all on the one HDD, you might have something like...
e.g., 1TB HDD.
[ 100GB Windows partion ||| 100GB Linux ||| 10GB swap partition ||| 790GB storage ]
If it was SSD + HDD, you might throw windows and linux onto the SSD (maybe just windows if it's a 64GB SSD).


That's just an example - If you're the type of person that keeps a clean C-Drive, 50GB would be fine but you if you have a lot of programs, 100GB would do. You might need more if you have huge programs.
Most linux distributions don't need a lot. I usually give it about 40GB.
Swap - linux needs a partition (a lot of distributions support swap files but AFAIK, swap partition is still preferred). You set this up when you are installing. I think the recommended is about 1 or 1.5 times RAM size. 8GB of RAM probably a lot more than you'll need so swap may not be used much but files are stored on the swap if you hibernate so 10GB wouldn't go amiss if it's a large hard drive.

The storage place would be games, music videos and whatever takes up the largest space.

(4) Drivers in order - I don't think there's anything to worry about there.


Edit:

Hal Emmerich wrote: »

(3)Will it set-up the recovery partition itself?

No, recovery partitions are things that PC manufacturers/distributors put in themselves. Windows has a backup utility for making an image of the system and you can burn it to DVDs too which you could boot from if your windows install became corrupted.
I haven't used it much as it's dreadful. The system imaging part is probably okay, but the part which backs up the rest of your files is severely underpowered and flawed. Clonezilla is open source bootable software which you can used to clone any hard drive. Very powerful and good for complete images but not tremendously user friendly.
I've be using EaseUS recently which is free backup and imaging software with lots of delicious options... it seems good so far.
Acronis is a paid for software. It used to be one of the best but I've been hearing bad things in recent times.

I recommend that you install windows without a key - this will give you a 30 day trial (which can be extended to 120 days). If you have any problems, you can reinstall. If everything is going smoothly, activate using your key.

Hal Emmerich

Me again:o More questions!:D

Intel Core i5 2500K
Cooler Master Hyper TX 3
ASRock Z68 Pro3

It all came built, even the Cooler was installed.:)

1) Fans! In the Bios they were at full blast, I switched to Automatic and turned them down to level 5, should I/Can I go lower with them?

CPU target temp is set at 50C , I can lower it to 45C, is that not abit high still? (It runs idle at 55C when I'm looking at the reading in the Bios)

What's a good program for keeping an eye on Temps when the computer is on?

2)Drivers for the Z68, this is them on the website? Do I need to install them all? How can I check and see if the ones installed already are the same as the ones on the site? The ASRock MAGIX Multimedia Suite at the bottom, is that them all in one?

The graphics card driver was easy, it scanned the machine and found updates itself and I could see it was newer as it was a different date than the one in device manager.

Edit: Is it ok to update drivers from within device manager, there's an SM Bus Controller and a few other things with yellow exclamation marks beside them?

Thanks for all the help lads.:)

Monotype

Is this the case fans? Experiment around and see what goes best. Have a look at what your temperatures are after heavy duty work and lower/higher bit by bit.
50C isn't too high for the CPU. The fan will be noisy the whole time if you set the target temperature too low, but you can see how 45C goes.

You should get a few of them. You probably don't need the audio, RAID or LAN drivers. Windows does a good job of substituting for these but certainly get them if you run into problems. I normally wouldn't bother with the VGA driver if I wasn't using onboard but Z68 changes things around as you can swap between GPUs so I'm not sure about that. Windows 7 does such a good job with drivers that you could possibly get away without installing them. I haven't used a Z68 board so I wouldn't be sure how stable it would be but other systems have needed minimal work.

You could have a look in device manager to see if there's anything not working correctly.
(Windows button + Pause/Break, click on device manager on the left hand side) Watch out for yellow triangles.