What are the steps immediately after you build a PC?

JohnJSal

JohnJSal

Active Member
Once all the pieces are together, what do you generally do next? Do you turn it on with an OS boot disc in the optical drive, or is there something you're supposed to do first to test it?

I'm just wondering how exactly you bridge the gap between pressing the Power button and using Windows. That's the part that I haven't read much about, since most books and articles focus on the actual physical process of building.

Thanks.
 
yep thats it :) plug it in into the wall, turn it on, itll boot up (assumin u put everything together right) then u pop in ur OS disc and restart it :) then follow the directions. pretty easy really
 
all_out_06 said:
yep thats it :) plug it in into the wall, turn it on, itll boot up (assumin u put everything together right) then u pop in ur OS disc and restart it :) then follow the directions. pretty easy really
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Ok, so if you turn it on first without the disc, what will happen? What will you see? Does anything show up on the screen?
 
It'll load the bios, then maybe give you an error that theres nothing to load...probably depens on your mother board.
 
JohnJSal said:
Once all the pieces are together, what do you generally do next? Do you turn it on with an OS boot disc in the optical drive, or is there something you're supposed to do first to test it?

I'm just wondering how exactly you bridge the gap between pressing the Power button and using Windows. That's the part that I haven't read much about, since most books and articles focus on the actual physical process of building.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Waiting for it to crash in a game... If not, you're good.

Memtest86
ORTHOS/Prime95
 
I usually go into the bios, set all the boot devices, disable the floppy disk drive, set the temperature alarm and shutdown temperature and check the voltages. Then I reboot and install the OS.
 
JohnJSal said:
Ok, so if you turn it on first without the disc, what will happen? What will you see? Does anything show up on the screen?
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^ What epidemik said :)
Also, you can enter BIOS and set it up to your liking (Fan Controls, CPU shutdown temp, etc.). I also like to go to the Hardware Monitor screen which shows CPU and System Temp and watch it idle for a few minutes just to make sure voltages and temps are correct.

And how do you safely turn it off after this? Just press the power button again?
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If you play with BIOS, then save the settings. After that, yep, just press the Power button again :)

Waiting for it to crash in a game... If not, you're good.
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Heh.
 
You should be able to just install the OS right after booting it up for the first time.

I personally go into the BIOS and make some tweaks, then load the OS.
 
[-0MEGA-];838180 said:
You should be able to just install the OS right after booting it up for the first time.

I personally go into the BIOS and make some tweaks, then load the OS.
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Hmmm, I'm not familiar at all with what I'll be seeing when I start up a computer without an OS on it. How do I go into the BIOS? Will there be a small window of opportunity to get into like when Windows boots, or does it just wait for me to go into it?

And how in the world will I know how to set and disable all those types of things? :confused:
 
As soon as you hit the power button, start hitting the Delete button. That will get you into your BIOS. Your motherboard manual should tell what each setting is. Follow that and you will be fine.

Set your boot order settings as CD, Harddrive, floppy. Once you do that, shut down and put your OS cd in and follow the directions. At the beginning it will load some drivers and if you are using a SATA drive and XP you will have to load some drivers for SATA. Once you get past that it will ask you if you want to format a partition, say yes and it will format your harddrive.

Once the format is done it will ask you if you want to install windows on that partition, say yes, then sit back and watch windows load and fill in the information it asks for. Then your set!
 
paratwa said:
As soon as you hit the power button, start hitting the Delete button. That will get you into your BIOS. Your motherboard manual should tell what each setting is. Follow that and you will be fine.

Set your boot order settings as CD, Harddrive, floppy. Once you do that, shut down and put your OS cd in and follow the directions. At the beginning it will load some drivers and if you are using a SATA drive and XP you will have to load some drivers for SATA. Once you get past that it will ask you if you want to format a partition, say yes and it will format your harddrive.

Once the format is done it will ask you if you want to install windows on that partition, say yes, then sit back and watch windows load and fill in the information it asks for. Then your set!
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Thanks! I'll be comfortable when I get to the formatting/Windows installation step, but working with just a BIOS screen seems a little intimidating, even though I've done it before (but within the safe confines of having Windows as my OS :)

But it shouldn't be too hard to set the drive order. I'll be sure to check the mobo manual too.
 
I always do a check of cabling, then I check 1 final time. Once its on, I install the operating system, all the drivers, then my games and have a blast!
 
Ok, here's an example of something I would never have known to do. I read this in my book. It says first you start up the system to see if it boots at all, then turn it off. Then it says to set the jumper on the mobo to Configure mode, restart the computer, go into the BIOS and do things, then turn it off again. Put the jumper back to Normal mode, then restart and install the OS.

So....I'm sort of worried. I'd like to know if these steps are necessary, or if things will just work normally as they are without any BIOS tweaking, etc. Or is there some website that goes into this step of the process?

Right now I feel like I can build the thing, but then be stranded not knowing what to do next.
 
No, I don't think those steps will be needed :) The origional CMOS configuration doesn't need to be changed except boot order.
 
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