Software Installation

First you need to choose your OS. If your building a gaming machine and want to play the latest PC games you'll need a Windows OS. If your not a big gamer then a Linux based OS could also be a great choice for you. You may also install both and dual boot into either Linux or Windows when you turn on your PC. If you choose to dual boot you'll want to install the Windows OS first, just be sure not to partition your whole hard drive for Windows. You'll need to leave a little room for Linux.

Before you begin make sure you have everything you need. If you have a 2nd computer in the house with internet access it can really come in handy if you need to download a driver or troubleshoot a problem. Often Windows won't ship with a driver for your network or wireless card so you'll need to download them before hand or you'll be working offline until you can get to a place with internet access. If you went with a RAID setup you may also need to have a driver disk ready or Windows may not see your drive.

Installation should be pretty straight forward for most modern OSs and usually can be done by putting the OS CD or DVD into the drive and booting it, then following the instructions.

After the OS installation is complete, get connected to the internet and download those OS updates. Every second connected to the internet without updates is a second your PC can be infected and your security and performance ruined. In fact downloading the major updates beforehand and installing them before you even connect to the internet is even better.

Now comes the often overlooked but most important part of a newly built PC. Install the latest drivers for everything. Never use the installation CD that came with your hardware. More than likely it's way outdated and will just lead to poor performance and system crashes. If you can't find drivers for some of your hardware you can always check Windows Update.

Several reboots later you should now have a stable and lighting fast machine ready for anything you can throw at it. If you'd like to risk a little more performance out of it you may want to check out my overclocking guide. Enjoy those games, brag to your friends and take pride in the PC you built yourself.