Help Setting up Bios and Drivers

[Trill Young]

Hello,
I am going for the most efficient performance i can get from my desktop. I am about to re-install Windows 7 x64 Ultimate edition under my new Sandisk Exteme Pro SSD and would like to know how to best setup Bios and other settings properly Pre-install and Post. I want my SSD running windows and my 1.5TB HD to be my secondary drive. There are also several drivers that i have no idea what they do or what order to install them.. Sata Raid driver, Marvell Sata 3 driver, Marvell SATA3 Floppy Image, Sata Raid Utility. These are the components below

ASRock 990FX Extreme4 AM3+ AMD 990FX SB950 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

AMD FX-8150 Zambezi 8-Core 3.6GHz (3.9GHz/4.2GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 125W Desktop Processor with Liquid Cooling Kit

XFX Double D FX-785A-CDFC Radeon HD 7850 2GB 256-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16
Sandisk extreme pro SSD 240gb

Western Digital 1.5 TB Caviar Green SATA Intellipower 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Desktop Hard Drive WD15EARS

OCZ Intel Core i7 Tri Channel 6GB PC10666 DDR3 Memory - 1333MHz, 6144MB (3 x 2048MB)

Creative Labs SB0460 Sound BLASTER X Fi ExtremeMUSIC 7.1 PCI Sound Card

Asrock offers a couple of utility programs as well which im not to crazy about such as XFast Lan, XFast Ram, XFast Usb. Either i dont know how to set up XFast Lan & XFast Ram or it just seems that it slows my internet speed down, tell me what you think about them and if theres certain setting to make them run smoother. Instant boot is another Asrock program i couldnt get to boot properly on Fast mode.

I appreciate you taking the time to read this and/or respond.

 

[photonboy]

First of all, take the time to read your motherboard manual.

In general:

1. Update the motherboard BIOS to newest
2. run MEMTEST to ensure DDR3 memory is working properly www.memtest.org

3. Install SSD but leave HDD unhooked
4. Install Windows

5. Install MAIN CHIPSET drivers (motherboard support site), sound card driver, video card driver (AMD), mouse driver etc.
6. Other drivers or software for motherboard? (I'll post this then look at the motherboard site and get back to you).

7. Setup FAN CONTROL software (motherboard program)
8. CPU overclocking:
*Tutorials available. Wait a few days after installing Windows though to ensure things work fine.

9. Finish Microsoft Updates (should be set to auto but can hurry it along)
10. Other programs, Steam etc.
*Put STEAM on the hard drive. If you already have a STEAM folder you can keep that without redownloading all the games. Roughly like THIS:
a) Install Steam to new Windows but choose the hard drive location (i.e. "E:\Steam").
b) register your account, then reboot
c) MOVE your Steamapps folder to the new location (cut/paste).
d) restart/reboot if needed
e) VERIFY each game before starting
f) SAVE GAMES would be in your old "Documents" folder somewhere so you'd need to move those to the new Documents folder exactly where they were before.

11. Hookup the HDD again:
a) May need to correct BIOS boot order if it boots to the hard drive.
b) COPY any files needed back to C-drive or elsewhere
c) DELETE folders or FORMAT as applicable

12. Create BACKUP IMAGE of the SSD to the HDD. For WD or Seagate can use Acronis True Image (Seagate calls it DiscWizard) to make a compressed backup of your C-drive.

*Keep this backup image, then create a 2nd one later and occasionally replace that one but keep the original one made after all your drivers etc were installed and your system runs great.

Summary:
I'll look at the motherboard site now, but the above should give you most of what you need in the correct order. May want to PRINT it out.

 

[photonboy]

Update:

1) For motherboard DRIVERS, I would install all of them except the RAID and Audio (don't need floppy image either):
http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/990FX%20Extreme4/?cat=Download&os=Win764

2) Get the AUDIO drivers from Realtek. Follow the "HD Audio" path and make sure you get the correct set:
http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/

Should be R.275 version for the 64-bit Windows and the file size currently is 122738k. So just download and install that instead of the older version the motherboard site has as it's three years old.

3) Software:
I don't think I'd use any of the XFast software. You can investigate further though. I've heard of issues with the LAN not working properly. You don't need a RAM drive, and I doubt you care about the USB boost which only benefits really fast USB thumb drives.

*At the very least, try any of these AFTER you've made a backup Image just in case it screws something up such as your network.

AXTU - Yes, install this. It has the fan control software and overclock profiles..

UCC - NO. You don't have a CPU that supports this.

 

[boosted1g]

For the SSD drive you will need to use AHCI mode for the hard drive.

First off before installing windows you need to go into the bios into your sata options and change it to AHCI mode.

From a different computer you will need to download the sata/ahci/riad driver for your board, extract it, and save the files to a usb flash drive. After you hit install on windows, select custom, and then in the options bellow where it shows your hard drive partitions there will be a link that says "Load Driver" click on that and browse to your flash drive. Then you can select the proper partition and install windows.

 

[boosted1g]

On a side note, why are using tri-channel memory on a dual channel board?

Also, as far as the xfast utilities I would just ignore them and not install them.

 

[Trill Young]

Thank you for your quick reply's as soon as i start the process i will keep you updated.

 

[Trill Young]

I'm finally starting to this process but im kind of confused in which SATA ports i need to plug in my hard drives for AHCI mode and i also have 2 cd/dvd roms. When i click "load drivers" in the windows pre-installation it doesn't find any of drivers, could you tell me which driver i will need in order to do this?

 

[Trill Young]

On a side note, why are using tri-channel memory on a dual channel board?

Also, as far as the xfast utilities I would just ignore them and not install them.

The tri channel memory was from my old build, i could afford different mem so i figured this will work. I wonder if i should just use to in order to activate the dual memory or just have 6gbs and do without the dual mem feature

 

[boosted1g]

Most motherboards have one sata controller on ports 1-4 (or could be labled 0-3) and a diffeent one for ports 5-6 (or labeld 4-5). For the sake of maximum capatibility plug hard drives into any of the first 4 ports, and your cd drives in the last 2.

You have to set that sata controller up as AHCI mode because that is not the default. consult your mobo manual on how to do that as every board has different menus and can call the menu something different.

As far as drivers you get that from your motherboard drivers cd. You will tell windows to search for drivers, then put in the Mobo CD, then broswe to where the chipset driver is on the disk. Then it should find it and you can install the ahci driver.

 

[Trill Young]

Works like a charm thanks for the help. Cant believe how fast this SSD works!!