purchased a barebones system and some parts..need some advice

[raystorm]

Hello

I have just purchased a barebones system, which is an InWin S500 case, 1.4 ghz AMD Athlon T-Bird, 256 mb PC2100 DDR ram and an EPOX 8K7A motherboard. I have also purchased seperately a Geforce 2pro 32mb, a Hercules Game Theater XP, and will buy a new hard drive tomorrow (probably a Maxtor 40 gig 7800 drive). I plan on using the same modem, mouse, keyboard, DVD-rom, and monitor as my old pc since they are still perfectly fine.

I was just wondering any of you can give me some advice on how I should setup my new system (This is the first time I'm putting together a system like this). What I mean is that what devices should be in the case when I first turn on the machine? I read that its best to turn it on without a soundcard and other extra stuff.. basically minimal stuff. Is that necessary?

Also, do I have to install those VIA 4 in 1 drivers that I constantly read about? (I currently have an intel bx board so I never had to deal with any VIA stuff). Anything I should turn on in the bios before installing anything as well?

Sorry if I sound like such a newbie (i am...sorta), but I want to put this system together with as few problems as possible.

Thank you to anyone that helps out.

 

[Jiggz]

After installing the mobo on the case do the following:
1. Connect the Power Connector and plugged in to the wall outlet. DO NOT POWER UP YET.
2. Install the CPU & HSF (connect fan power to mobo header)
3. Install the RAMs, one stick will suffice for now.
4. Install the Video card
5. Connect the HDD and CD-Rom
6. Connect the mouse
7. Connect the Keyboard
8. Connect the monitor to the Video card
9. Connect all case connectors, Power On wire, HDD Led, Spkr, etc. . .also the case fans if any
10. Turn on the PSU switch on the back and also the monitor
11. Press the Power On button on the front

You should see the CPU fan and case fans spin. You should at least hear some whinning from the HDD. If everything is working fine you should see the POST on the monitor. Hit the Del. button to access the BIOS. In the BIOS select Default settings for now. Insert a boot disk in the floppy drive and then Reboot. Install the OS, i.e. Win9X/ME/2K. After OS install 4-1 drivers & video cards. After this, turn off system and then install sound cards and modems/nic.