I just finished my PC build but before I fire it up I just want to check.
Do I install Windows first or update the BIOS? MOTHERBOARD 
The manual is unclear on this.
Any help is much appreciated. 

Thanks,
Mike

SIGH!

Gotta love the forum software.  


Mike

Most MB manufacturer's advise that you do not update the BIOS unless you are having a problem or need a feature that is not supported by the factory installed BIOS. In part this is due to the potential to make your MB unbootable in the event of a BIOS corruption, although this is less of a problem with some of the newer MB's that have backup BIOS or fail safe BIOS utilities. Unless this is a MB that needs a BIOS update to support the OS or drivers hardware etc. you want to install, doing a BIOS update before or after BOS installation will not matter. It can be done later if you need to do it, or not at all if your system works well without it.

from the download page for your MB:
Warning: Because BIOS flashing is potentially risky, if you do not encounter problems using the current version of BIOS, it is recommended that you not flash the BIOS. To flash the BIOS, do it with caution. Inadequate BIOS flashing may result in system malfunction.
That is different from downloading and installing the latest drivers for your MB, which is much less risky and more likely to be of value. Installation routines for drivers run on an installed OS and hence is usually done after the installation of the OS, with the exception of drivers for a RAID array etc. that you plan to actually load the OS onto, in which case the drivers must be integrated into the Windows installation process (or there will be no place to put the OS), where it asks if you have any drivers to install. That latter is unusual.

Ahhh, ok so that's what they meant.
Thanks Slartabartfast.

Mike

Looks like a really nice build Mike.......has almost everything I want in my (soon to be built) DAW. I'm going with an AMD system.

Post back how this works out.... 

Well silly me, I forgot one little part........
A keyboard .
I've always had laptops so it just slipped my mind.
I ran to the store and bought one a few hours ago, installed Windows and looked through the BIOS to check that all was being seen and temps were fine.

So far all is well.
Tomorrow I finish installing drivers, software and such.

And man the SSD rocks. Damn near boots right to my login window.
With the replacing all fans with the silent fans and the PSU that only cools as needed this thing is as quiet if not quieter than my laptop. And that was with the side of the case off. I have a foam insulated case which should make this totally silent.  

Mike

  

While I agree that updating a BIOS is normally something you don't do unless you really have to,
I'd most definitely install the latest BIOS in a new build.

If something were to go wrong (unlikely) you would just prolong your building stage a bit,
you wouldn't have to reinstall a bunch of stuff or whatever.

I also took the leap to go to UEFI/EFI/GPT partions even though I don't need it right away. I'm sure I will eventually.

Use Intel RST drivers during your Windows install, not the generic Windows ones.

I've run into several install problems with UEFI, for that reason I have all my PC's using the "older" BIOS/MBR method.  I've got current Z77 motherboards (a gigabyte an ASUS and an ASRock) so its not a motherboard issue.  It didn't matter if it was an SSD or conventional SATA hard drive and I ran into the same problem on both Win 7 and Win 8.

I'm in the "if it ain't broke don't fix it" side for the BIOS.

I've always tried to avoid updating the bios on an existing build because it probably will cause re-activation necessary on plugins installed on the system since the computer id is likely to change with a bios update. It happened to me the one time I did it.

For the normal world MBR file structure is fine but I've been amazed at how much disk space using Sonar eats up.
A 1 TB drive looks small all of a sudden, it's crazy.

I figure drives bigger than 2 TB (which require GPT) will be common in the DAW world pretty soon.