Ready for first build, here we go.

Jason Mullin · Sep 30, 2019

This Friday I’m building the first PC I ever have, very excited and slightly nervous.
After endless hours of research all components are finally here.
Gigabyte B360m
i5-8400
EVGA 2060 super
EVGA 650watt power supply
Corsair 16gb ram
Samsung 250gb SSD
WD blue 1TB hard drive
CUK micro ATX case

I have a decent idea of what I’m doing and will build slowly but reach out to you guys for any tips.
Specifically with what happens (assuming everything is put together properly) the first time I power it up.
Does it boot directly into bios? What should or shouldn’t I adjust in bios?
I have an electronic windows key, will it prompt me to enter it?

Thanks for any help you care to extend.

RCHeliguy · Sep 30, 2019

Good times!

On boot up you will get a Bios flash screen for your motherboard. You will have a few seconds to hit a key to bring up the MB configuration screen or it will try to boot up an OS. Usually you press delete or F10 or something. It will tell you on the screen. Then you can set the drive that you want as your primary boot drive. There will be other configuration settings, some may have to do with overclocking etc..

I assume you mean that you have a USB Fob with a Windows 10 bootstrap on it. If not you will need one, unless you have a DVD player and Windows 10 DVD.

Jason Mullin · Sep 30, 2019

Sorry, yes win10 on usb.
C: is my SSD where I plan to install windows, so I should select C: for boot drive as well?

RCHeliguy · Sep 30, 2019

Jason Mullin said:
Sorry, yes win10 on usb.
C: is my SSD where I plan to install windows, so I should select C: for boot drive as well?

Yes, your boot drive will be the Windows 10 drive.

You may need a motherboard bios setting to specify to boot off a USB device as well, or it may do that automatically.

And if things don't come up properly most mother boards have a two digit LED to tell you an error code listed in the manual that came with it. Hopefully it won't come to that.

GEO147 · Sep 30, 2019

Look up a guy called Carey Holzman on YouTube. He has gone through many builds and will show all you need to know from start to finish including BIOS and then windows install and optimisation.

Jason Mullin · Sep 30, 2019

GEO147 said:
Look up a guy called Carey Holzman on YouTube. He has gone through many builds and will show all you need to know from start to finish including BIOS and then windows install and optimisation.

Thanks this is what I need. Most videos or reading walks you through the build process but no one goes into what to do when you turn the thing on. I will look into his channel.
I’m also using the windows download tool onto usb to start, I read anyone can use Win 10 for free then activate it later. I don’t mind the watermark or not having access to certain settings right away.

GEO147 · Sep 30, 2019

Yeah that's the easy bit I wouldn't worry about that and he will show that too. Search his channel and see if you can find a build he did with your motherboard which is very likely.

RasmusP · Sep 30, 2019

Just to drop a quick info:
In the BIOS you don't see "C:/" for the drives. You see stuff like "USB UEFI SanDisk 73608" or "SATA 3: Samsung 850 256"

Or in other words: you mostly see the connection the drive uses. USB, sata, IDE etc and the name of the drive/brand.
If you have only one ssd it's easy to see. If you have 6 drives like me (4 ssd and 2 hdd with win 10 on a different ssd than my win 7) you have to make sure that you know what's what hehe.

For USB: you have a modern pc so if you can select between USB UEFI or just USB:
Pick the entry with UEFI in it!

Jason Mullin · Sep 30, 2019

Good information thank you!

RasmusP · Sep 30, 2019

Oh, another little hint:
You normally have 2 buttons. One for bios (F2, F10 or delete mostly) and one for "boot override" (F6, F8, F11 or F12).
You set the bios to boot from your ssd drive and then use the boot override button to select the USB uefi thing to boot from that ONCE!
Then you follow the installation process and when the windows installation process wants to restart, you let it do that.
From that point on your ssd drive will have enough data on it to boot and continue the installation without the USB stick being needed anymore

If you select the USB drive in the bios to boot from, you'll restart the windows installation every time and it will never get done.

Note: if you happen to boot from the USB stick at any time, don't worry. If you simply hit quit or abort or whatever once it booted from the USB stick, no harm will be done! Only if you continue to select your ssd drive to install windows on again and then hit "next", things will get overwritten

Jason Mullin · Oct 4, 2019

Build complete up and running smooth after 2 hours of pulling out all my hair as my hard drive would not recognize.
In and out of bios, re read the entire gigabyte manual, endless online searches.
After 2 HOURS I realized I hadn’t plugged the power pin into the hard drive, only the SATA cable. Jesus Christ.

Oh well friends, my first build is behind me and it feels awesome. Thanks again guys for the help.

GEO147 · Oct 4, 2019

Jason Mullin said:
Build complete up and running smooth after 2 hours of pulling out all my hair as my hard drive would not recognize.
In and out of bios, re read the entire gigabyte manual, endless online searches.
After 2 HOURS I realized I hadn’t plugged the power pin into the hard drive, only the SATA cable. Jesus Christ.

Oh well friends, my first build is behind me and it feels awesome. Thanks again guys for the help.

Well done it's a great feeling. Enjoy. I had an hour of a nightmare not being able to get into bios tthen realised I needed to hold the fn key to get f8 or something stupid like that .