first time building a system and I need help

[Aubie]

Here is what I've got:
MSI K7T Pro2-A
Duron 700
256MB Kingston Value RAM
30GB Quantum HD
GeForce2 MX
Sound Blaster Live!Value
Toshiba 48x CD-ROM
Antec SX830
Win2000

I'm pretty sure I know how to hook everything up and I know to start with just the essentials. My problem is what do I do when I flip the switch. I downloaded the K7T Pro2-A BIOS 1.8 and the VIA 4 in 1 drivers.

 

[networkman]

Speaking from experience, I would advise you to start with the motherboard, cpu&fan, ram, case, floppy and video. If you assemble all of that and the system seems to boot up properly, then continue on with the harddrive and cdrom, test once more, and continue from there.

The reason for doing it this way is that if you build everything at once and the system doesn't start up, you're gonna need to start un-hooking things anyway to figure out where the problem is.. of course you could get lucky and everything will work anyway, but this method will save you some sanity if it doesn't.

By starting with the components up thru video, that'll be half of the battle right there. Most mistakes at the point of the hard drive and CDrom are simple jumper/cabling issues(ie. master/slave stuff). Once you know the system is working at that point, you can install the OS and add additional components.

Just my two cents.

 

[paulip88]

I would install all the VIA drivers first. I would then install the video drivers, and then the sound drivers. Make sure you have the latest versions, since a lot of the early drivers are flaky.

 

[timco]

I'd echo Networkman's advice about building it up gradually - just to be on the safe side and to aid you in identifying what's going wrong (if you get any "issues&quot even though I did precisely the opposite ;-).

I started off with the VIA drivers, then the video card, then the sound card and the modem. I also have a PCI ATA100 card which went in after that. Once you've got it all up and running, you can start putting your apps on.