When the new rig arrives...

[Keean]

what are the first steps I should take in ensuring everything is working well? I know I should open the case and make sure everything is seated well along with all the connections being well, connected. I have a feeling that there will be bloatware on it since I ordered from Cyberpower because I didn't have enough time to actually spend building my computer this time around; so I'll probably have to reformat.

My questions are:
If/when I reformat, will I have to do anything special to set my two 500GB HD's in Raid 0 and my single 1TB HDD all by it's lonesome?

I have no experience with messing with Bios, are there going to be any changes I need to make in it for everything to run smoothly?

What downloads will I need to make to get everything up to date? I'll be running Windows 7 and the rig in my signature.

That's all I can think of right now. There's nothing I can obviously do right now seeing as how I don't have the computer, just trying to get a head-start on expanding my knowledge

[vbironchef]

You could install decrapper to get rid of any bloatware. I would not mess with the bios unless you really need to since it is a new rig. If you have windows 7 installed then windows can check your rig out. CC cleaner is something I use all the time and it's free. I say take it out for a stress test and burn a couple of discs to see how she handles. To bad you bought your rig instead of building it yourself, because your missing out on a lot of fun overclocking.

[Keean]

I'll still end up OCing it, but I won't have the time to spend doing that for atleast 5-6months possibly upwards of a year after I actually have it. Stupid scheduling and all with work keeps me crazy busy. Not to mention that before I start OCing I'll have to learn more about it as well. Don't want to fry anything right off the bat you know, hehehe.

I'm still trying to increase my knowledge base on everything I need to know about computers more before I really start messing around with all my settings. I'd say I'm not much more than an intermediate user. Most of my computing backround came from gaming. Just recently really started getting in to the hardware/software side of things

[vbironchef]

what company made your rig? Some companys do not allow overclocking. The motherboard I just bought has a overclocking tool so it does it with a press of a button. I just sit back and watch it work.

[smack323]

I ordered from Cyberpower

[Keean]

I ordered from Cyberpower

That ^, and I decided not to get the OCing tool to go along with it because of AMD's Overdrive Utility. Realizing obviously that they limit how much I can do with that program, I'd have to learn more about bios to do it manually. I'm not too savy on any of those settings right now because I don't know what I'm doing there, plain and simple. As I stated before though, I won't be doing any OCing until much later due to those facts and some things that my work has me scheduled for. Also, I mainly play MMO's and some FPS's (BF2, and soon to be Bad Company 2) along with some RTS's and the such. I just want to make sure that my system will be running smoothly, without any unnessecary programs and BS running in the background that I can take care of if I just knew how

That's the main reason for this post, which is why I asked the questions I asked in the OP. I do appreciate any help that can be offered though!!

~Jon