Homebuilt..

Ok I am getting that itch to put all these parts that continue to stare at me.. and now that the new PC Case has arrived I am anxious to put it all together.. catch is.. I dont have the video card yet prolly be here on Thursday or Friday.. so.. should I put everything together.. boot her up and load the OS and such without the Video card in yet? Or... Wait.. Or.. Boot with everything.. install the drivers for the card and just wait for it to come till going further beyond the basic drivers installation?

Stop teasing yourself. Get everything ready now. It's easier to make sure it's running before you can complete it.

personally, I'd put everything together but wait to load Windows until after the vid card.

I'm with Raze. Its fun to assemble, but your better off to wait on windows.

Bubbaspanky wrote:I'm with Raze. Its fun to assemble, but your better off to wait on windows.

Or just don't install the video drivers, and remove them in safe mode, shutdown and install the card. You could at least get your utilities and programs and tweaks installed, just have to look at a lowrez screen for a day or two.

I'd get everything ready and use another Nvidia card. Since the drivers are the same, it wouldn't make a difference.

Just build everything but the video card and slap it in when it comes. OR if you have time and another video card just put the OS in it now as well. It really is not a big deal to change video cards and drivers.
if your worried about it just leave it running with the normal generic VGA drivers. I personally would not worry about it. It is easy to remove old drivers from safe mode IF you feel you need to.

I have not had problems just upgrading cards even across brands. You could slap any brand card now and upgrade the new card and I would bet you would not have ANY problems!

Windows overwrites old driver when necessary and if some old drivers are just sitting on the HD, who cares?? It does not usually mess you up unless there is some type of glitch.

Build it. Put generic whatever brandcard in, keep in VGA mode. When the basics are done, GHOST an image of it BEFORE you add the new card. Just in case. This is the 1st layer Post OS image.

Add new video card when it comes. Have fun!! 😉

Once you get the new card installed and all your basic software, I would GHOST another image. This will be your 2nd layer image. Post OS+software new drivers.

Well I've put it all together and relized... wait.. this board has PCI-Express.. and I only have an AGP Video card in my old machine... so.. I'm screwed in waiting anyway.. but did assemble most of it last night.. and it is sweet... looks great lite up too.. very nice.. The Blue Orb heatsink does indeed hang over the first memory slot rendering it unuseable.. the second slot is kind of a tight fit as its snug against the heatsink not sure how much an issue this is.. but I could just put both sticks in the last 2 slots.. but I believe to make use of the dual channel memory you have to have one in the forward slot pair and one in the same slot for the rear slot pair..

My only issue right now is sorting out the wiring.. last night had everything plugged in to test.. everything turned on except for the front panel LED readout.. Fan controller worked and was an ice feature.. but today after organizing the wires all.. now everything works including the front LED but the Fan controller isnt working.. grr.. I'll postp ictures once I get this whole process done.. I am psyched for the LAN this weekend 😉

cool man. I'm jealous. Love assembling PCs and getting everything worked out, but rarely have the chance to change more than a component or two.

Enjoy.