How do I set up BIOS and drivers first time?

Sep 17, 2015
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Almost finished connecting everything in the case for my first PC, except the graphics card which I was told not to put in yet. Was told to use the built in video stuff to download drivers or whatever, then shut down computer, then put the graphics card in.

Otherwise, I have no idea how to do bios, how to install windows (I have an SSD for windows and HDD for more space), how to do drivers, how to get it all working...

My build is:

Intel 4790k CPU
Nvidia Geforce 970 GPU
AsRock z97 Fatal1ty Professional motherboard
Samsung SSD
WD Black HDD
EVGA PSU
Corsair C70 case
Evo fan
Gskill ram

Really appreciate the help.
 
Feb 4, 2009
34,506
15,737
136
The bios kind of auto sets up. Generally you don't have to do stuff in there unless you want to nerd out on ram timing and such.
You may have to select your boot drive.
 

VirtualLarry

No Lifer
Aug 25, 2001
56,229
9,990
126
Generally, when setting up a board for the first time:

1) Enter BIOS
2) Select "Load optimized defaults".
3) Set up Date and Time.
4) Set up IDE or AHCI for the primary chipset SATA controller.
5) Select Boot Device order. Generally, you want to put the optical before the HDD.
6) Save and Exit.

That's mostly all you should have to do. Everything else is mostly automatic.

There are a few other issues - if you are attempting to install Win7, you may have to enable CSM boot mode, and if you are doing so on a Skylake platform, you need to enable PS/2 Port 60/64 emulation for the USB controller.

Then you put your OS install disc (not the driver disc that came with the mobo) in, and boot your system again. It should boot off the disc, and then follow the setup instructions. With a Windows OS, I always select "Custom", and manually create the partitions for the OS. It's easy though.

Then the OS setup routine will start, and then it will reboot. When it reboots, remove the DVD or USB stick, and let it boot off of the HDD to finish up with Setup.

Once in the OS, and it has finished installing, then you need to install the Drivers.

To do that, you need to either download them, ahead of time, or with another PC, onto a USB stick, from the motherboard and video card / sound card mfg's web site.

Or you can pop in the CD/DVD that came with the motherboard, that should have drivers.

Be careful, though. If you select auto-install (or just let the mobo driver disc AutoRun), then you may end up with a bunch of useless mobo utilities and also some crapware, besides just the drivers. It's always much safer, and more up-to-date, to get them from a mobo mfg's web site.

PS. Some mobo's, like my ASRock AM1 ITX board, have internet support in their UEFI (BIOS), and can update the mobo's BIOS code, only with just an ethernet connection. This is a handy feature.

PPS. With Windows 7 (and newer Windows OSes???), you should only have the OS disk installed and connected. Leave your data disk(s) disconnected, at least their data cables. This prevents the Win7 installer from putting the bootloader info on the wrong drive, which it is prone to do.
 
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Sep 17, 2015
33
1
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Okay, all the time set up and all that stuff, is that done on the mobo itself through the LED lights, or do you see that stuff on the monitor?

And yeah sorry I forgot to say, I need to install windows 7 for the first time. Everything for the first time. Haven't used a PC once in the last decade, never owned one. I didn't understand a few steps you mentioned. IDE and AHCI? I don't know what that is. Boot device order... so I put the SSD first, and then the HDD? I want windows 7 on the SSD of course.

Oh, and I don't know how to do the CSM boot either. And i forget whether 4790k is skylake? It's 4790k with a z97 mobo.

PS. My monitor, Acer xb270hb, came in a box with one plastic seal over the center of the top of the box, otherwise no plastic seals. Then the monitor itself had a plastic sticky thing around the edge, and looks very clean/new, but when I plugged it in, it turned on automatically. The power switch was already turned on. I never hit it. I had to flip the switch back off to turn it off.

Is this normal? Do you think I got one of the ones someone sent back? All I've seen of it when it was on was blue no signal screen, but every pixel appears to be working from what my untrained eyes could see, so unless it has really bad light bleeding or I'm missing dead pixels, I'm not sure why this one would have gotten sent back. But it concerns me the switch was turned to on when I received it. Never had that happen before.
 
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Sabrewings

Golden Member
Jun 27, 2015
1,942
35
51
Not installing the video card until the end is weird to me. Of all the PCs I've built, I've never done that and had no problem. Heck, until the more recent CPUs with IGPs, the system I built had no integrated method for video.
 

Seba

Golden Member
Sep 17, 2000
1,480
134
106
Generally, when setting up a board for the first time:

1) Enter BIOS
2) Select "Load optimized defaults".
3) Set up Date and Time.
4) Set up IDE or AHCI for the primary chipset SATA controller.
5) Select Boot Device order. Generally, you want to put the optical before the HDD.
6) Save and Exit.
At point 5), I would change it to the "Set SATA to AHCI mode" (that should also be the default setting on recent motherboards). Unless installing Windows XP or something like that, I see no reason to use IDE mode (and even with Windows XP you can use AHCI mode).

Also, depending on the memory (RAM) used, you could set/choose the XMP Profile for the memory.
 

Aikouka

Lifer
Nov 27, 2001
30,383
912
126
Not installing the video card until the end is weird to me. Of all the PCs I've built, I've never done that and had no problem. Heck, until the more recent CPUs with IGPs, the system I built had no integrated method for video.

Yeah, I wouldn't wait to install the video card. There's really just no reason to do so. To Windows's WDDM, the integrated GPU is no different than the dedicated GPU. When you first load Windows, neither of them will have a proper driver, so they'll just be generic devices. Once you install the graphics driver, it'll detect it and provide all resolution options that your monitor is capable of.