What to do once you finish building your pc

[Nicolas Bolinaga]

So once i finish building my pc and installing my OS, what should i do?
Should i install drivers? How?
Should i monitor my temperatures? How ?
Should i benchmark it?
Should i install Software? Which one?

Please tell what are the best options on what do to once i finish it. (Note: we are talking about a Gaming PC)

 

[USAFRet]

1. Drivers for your hardware
2. OS updates

 

[jazzy663]

Um... well really there's no particular order... it's up to you. But here's what I do.

Install drivers. Do this by going to your motherboard manufacturer's website. You will want LAN, chipset, SATA, ACHI/RAID drivers, etc.

Software is completely your preference. Usually I install useful utilities like 7-Zip, CPU-Z, and SpeedFan.

Benchmarking comes last if you choose to do it. Careful not to break your system. Some tests are pretty intense.
Use whatever you want, but I like Unigine Valley benchmark.

EDIT: Yes, and OS updates. Those are important too.

 

[Suztera]

Check if it POST and can go into the BIOS. If so, load optimised settings/defaults and exit the BIOS.

Install your OS.
Then your drivers. Your motherboard drivers can be obtained from the manufacturer support website. Just google the model name of your motherboard and look for driver support. You would need the chipset, audio and LAN drier, the rest is optional.

After that you can then update windows.
Get an antivirus and install Malwarebytes.

Then you can use MSI afterburner to monitor the GPU's temps and AIDA64 to monitor and stress test your pc.

Software is up to your choice. If you use Office, download that. If you use chrome use that or use firefox etc.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Here's what I do .....

1. Install drivers off the CD as these may contain licensed utilities software.

2. Run Windows update the 22 times it needs to finish (exaggerating but just a little)

3. Update BIOS. Check and see what drivers you installed in step 1 are outdated and update same.

4. Run memtest 86+ overnight.

5. Open HWiNFO and run RoG Real Bench Stress Test for 2 hours (min). Monitor temps, voltages.

6. Open HWiNFO and run Furmark Stress Test for 2 hours (min). Monitor temps, voltages.

7. Run for a week or so before jumping into overclocking

NOTE: If you are sure you don't have any special stuff like DVD player software, PC Utilities, you can skip step 1

Synthetics like P95, etc come up short with modern processors ... you can be P95, Intel XTU stable and then come crashing down in Real Bench which multitasks real applications on the CPU and stresses it in ways that synthetics don't.

HWiNFO makes just about every other monitoring utility irrelevant.

 

[USAFRet]

Also, go here for an easy one click install of a bunch of free/open source utilities:
https://ninite.com/

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Do they go into default locations ? Of can you tell it to do all D:\Vendor Name\Program Name

 

[jazzy663]

"Run Windows update the 22 times it needs to finish"

Hahahahaha, thank you for that good laugh.

 

[USAFRet]

Do they go into default locations ? Of can you tell it to do all D:\Vendor Name\Program Name

Default locations, but generally those are all very small applications. Not a significant space sucker.
I have all of my applications (incl MS Office 2013), as well as the Win 8.1 Pro, happily living on a 120GB SSD.

Games (55GB), music (30GB), video (couple of TB)...all live on other drives.

 

[Jordsk]

Just feed your pc with dollar bills...

1.Just get all your drivers and stuff sorted, download all the essential apps, ive heard ninite is good for that then just play games

2.Or just spend your days running benchmarks, i like unigine valley for my gpu, and then oc your components if you want to/can

3.HWmonitor is pretty good for an overview of your temps (free)

then enjoy =]

 

[JackNaylorPE]

"Run Windows update the 22 times it needs to finish"

Hahahahaha, thank you for that good laugh.

I know I have been in double digits more than a few times.