Used Gaming PC

[RoryRB]

When i was looking to get my first pc a while ago and found alot of videos where they get an old dell ( like an optiplex 3020) from ebay, add 16gb ram, an ssd and a 750ti/1060 depending on how capable the rest of the system is. But my main question is that those videos are directed to first time pc builders on a budget right ??? So my question is how is an inexperienced person meant to be able to find the correct drivers for the pc, because i have been through about 20 videos doing the exact same thing and none of them show you how to do it !!!

 

Is it just me that notices this, even the big tech youtubers like bitwit who recently released his $285 console killer system that follows that exact same formula. Im not annoyed at them in any way and i actually think its a great way for someone to build a PC on a budget, its just that they never show any of the driver installation, like there just leaving the viewer to do all the dirty work, and when its a first time builder it can put them off building there own pc and resorting to getting a prebuilt. 

 

This is an example of the budget dells - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dell-Optiplex-3020-MT-Intel-i5-4590-3-30GHz-8GB-RAM-No-HDD/113761256676?hash=item1a7cb304e4:g:QWQAAOSwgaNc6V~N&frcectupt=true

[Slottr]

Windows will install most of the required drivers, and graphics drivers you can get straight from AMD or Nvidia's websites.

[RoryRB]

3 minutes ago, Slottr said:

Windows will install most of the required drivers, and graphics drivers you can get straight from AMD or Nvidia's websites.

I know that, but they don't explain that in the videos its just ''that's how to upgrade it now here's the benchmarks''.

[BleachedFur]

2 hours ago, Zvoid said:

none of them show you how to do it !!!

 

 

Step 1. Open device manager,

 

step 2. Find the device you need o install drivers for.

 

step 3. Right click and go to "properties".

 

step 4. Navigate to the "Details" tab.

Step 5. Change the drop down box to "Hardware ID"

Step 6. Right click the device ID on the top and copy it.

 

Step 7. Paste that into the search engine of your choice. The results may vary per device but I've had good luck with sites like driveridentifier.com. It requires an account but you can just log in with google.

 

Step 8. Download an install the driver.

 

Step 9. If step 7 and 8 don't work, go to the site of whoever makes your hardware and find the support page for it. Usually, a google search like "msi z97 gaming 5 drivers" google search does the trick. For example, searching Google for "msi z97 gaming 5 drivers" brings me straight to the MSI download page.
 

 

Edited May 25, 2019 by wkdpaul
cleanup

[Kisai]

6 hours ago, Slottr said:

Windows will install most of the required drivers, and graphics drivers you can get straight from AMD or Nvidia's websites.

This isn't really correct, Windows will only cover drivers for hardware that existed for years before that build of the operating system. It will only install WHQL certified drivers, which means the control panels are often missing, and any controls needed for special keyboards, buttons, or fan/light controls will be absent.

 

In a nutshell.

 

Assemble the PC in the barest "minimum to run" configuration. That means no network cards, extra hard drives, GPU's, and so forth. It should be just the CPU, RAM, and the iGPU (if no GPU) first, to make sure that the CPU and RAM have the right timing, the BIOS is set to UEFI, SATA control set to RAID (Intel boards) and that are all correctly matched. If the BIOS is not current, take this opportunity to update the BIOS to the most current version. (Most MB's today can do this automatically if it can get an IP address, otherwise it can be done with a fat32-formatted flash drive.) The latest BIOS should be retrieved from the manufacturer's website.

 

Disconnect the machine from the internet before installing the OS. Install drivers manually before allowing Windows to update. Install network drivers last before connecting to Windows Update.

 

Once you get one successful POST, Put in the the hard drive and the GPU that you intend to install the operating system with. This is where things get sticky. The OS will only ever install to the hard drive correctly, once. This is why it's important to pick the correct drive (eg a NVMe drive) to boot from and install the OS to. Then make sure that the "F6 drivers" for the hard drive controller configuration are installed, even if you believe Windows might operate without it, because once Windows is installed, you can't switch RAID to AHCI mode (RAID is the correct mode for ALL SSD's, even if no Optane device is installed), and you can't switch from UEFI to Legacy mode. The F6 driver will be obtainable from the Intel website, or some SSD's have their own driver.

 

As soon as the OS is installed, do not hit Windows Update until you have installed the "chipset" drivers. The reason for this is that some hardware will not be found without the chipset driver installed, and this is almost always USB drivers, cooling/throttling drivers, and other "doesn't seem important at the time" things, but installing the drivers in advance will ensure that other driver installations succeed.

 

Once you have installed the chipset driver, install the SATA/Rapid Storage Driver again, this time it should install any control panel facilities that will let you configure it/warn you of impending doom. This is different from the F6 driver. The F6 driver is needed since it will need it for the EFI rescue partition. If it doesn't have it, then the rescue partition usually will not see the rest of the drive and the system will not be recoverable if it fails.

 

You should then install the GPU driver(s), this includes the iGPU even if you're not using it. If you fail to install the iGPU drivers, the iGPU may prevent the CPU from using the sleep states. The GPU drivers should be the DCH drivers (Intel is only shipping DCH drivers for Windows 10 now.)

 

Next, install the sound chip drivers. Windows will usually install a "basic" driver that it can fall back to, but this basic driver doesn't enable the automatic headphone switching, or the control panel for other features. That said, some motherboards sound chips are worse than others, and the "HD Audio" header to the front of the chassis may generate far more noise than simply plugging analog headphones into the back of the system. In this case, you may be better off using USB headphones, or using the audio from the monitor and plugging analog headphones into the monitor, thus not using the motherboard's audio. If your sound card is an add-in card, you will need to get the drivers directly from the manufacturer, otherwise motherboard-provided chips should use the driver from the motherboard manufacturer.

 

Next should be "correct" network drivers, for the wired ethernet, and WiFi. For desktop systems, most have the Intel parts, but some have broadcom. You should get the drivers from the motherboard manufacture's website unless it's an add-in card.

 

Once you've done the chipset, SATA/RAID, GPU, Audio, Network. Everything else depends on what other things are in the system, and the driver versions start to matter more. For example a HDMI capture card may only work with a specific version of a driver that has to be obtained from a different manufacturer (because it's just a re-labeled, but otherwise identical card.) Bluetooth is usually OK to use the Windows driver, but you may want to use the correct driver if it's part of the WiFi chipset, otherwise it may not support "airplane" mode and such.

 

Once you think you've installed all the drivers you're aware of. Plug in the machine to the internet and run Windows Update. 

 

If you installed all the correct drivers, Windows Update should not try to replace any. If you missed something, Windows may, or may not find it. Let it do two cycles of Windows Update, and then go to the device manager and look for any ? or X's.

 

You do not need to find drivers for the monitor if it connects via DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI, or VGA. You may need to if it connects via USB-C, as the default function of USB-C is "Displayport" or "PD" depending what's plugged into the other end.

 

Now, all that said, can you just plug in the ethernet cable and have the UEFI firmware install the OS? Yeah... kinda.

 

For name-brand PC's like Dell, and Apple, this is actually the way you're supposed to reinstall the OS, and the drivers specifically tailored to your machine will be installed. For all other non-OEM systems, this feature usually doesn't even exist. (in fact Dell's version seems to be a 11th hour addition to BIOS updates from the last three months, and didn't exist last year except on XPS laptops.) If this is an option, this is probably the correct course of action so you get the correct version of everything, at least initially.

 

For non-OEM systems, usually gamer systems have a lot of after-thought tweaking (eg disabling nagle, which is only possible on certain network card configurations and certain cable/dsl/fiber last miles.) So there is a lot of bad advice out there that makes assumptions about how you play the game, and they usually come at a performance cost somewhere else. Tweaks for MMO games tend to cripple the maximum throughput of the network connection, thus making streaming at high bit rates difficult, and vice versa (tweaks to increase download/upload speeds, or streaming quality, cripple game latency.)

 

 

While I normally don't advocate for automatic update tools, they are here for completeness:

Intel https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/intel-driver-support-assistant.html

This tool will install INF(chipset), iGPU, Network, and Bluetooth drivers if your system has them. It will NOT install iGPU drivers for laptops or for OEM name-brands.

 

AMD does not have such a utility but their drivers are at https://www.amd.com/en/support

nVidia drivers are at https://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

 

Creative Labs still makes hardware, though usually what is shipped with motherboards is a software implementation.

https://support.creative.com/welcome.aspx

 

Realtek chips, usually there are far newer drivers on Realtek's own site than the motherboard or OEM, but use with caution, as sometimes (eg realtek network chips) drivers will break OEM name-brands versions, and there will be no gain from their use.

Realtek downloads: https://www.realtek.com/en/downloads

 

Asmedia chips are usually found on USB controllers and docking stations. There is no way to download the drivers directly from ASMedia, please download the drivers from the OEM or Motherboard manufacturer.

 

Broadcom chips are usually network or modems, and usually found more often in servers and laptops https://www.broadcom.com/support/download-search

 

 

[LogicalDrm]

Or if you don't want to read wall of text above.

 

Reason why drivers aren't specified in videos is that they have long been provided on CDs. Currently all build guides say you go to manufacturers website and download latest. This applies to all components and peripherals (CPU, RAM and drives excluded as chipset driver for mobo handles all of those). Latest driver would be the one with biggest version number or newest release date. And all installers are all inclusive. So no need for patching in order.