Helping a friend build a PC

If you've replaced those parts, building a pc is not much different. That PSU is just fine for the components that he's getting. He can't upgrade to DDR3, he'd have to get a different motherboard for that.

Thorsen said:

AMD Vision Barebone Kit - Asus M4A785-M Mobo, AMD Athlon II X2 240 Dual Core CPU, Kingston 2GB DDR2 RAM, XFX Radeon HD 4350 Video Card, Western Digital HD, PowerUp ATX Black Case with 450W PSU at TigerDirect.com

A friend of mine just purchased this Barebones Kit from TigerDirect.

He also purchased the extra 2G of RAM and Win7 Home

First off, I know that the Ram is DDR2, and the PSU is underpowered. He is going to upgrade these later down the road (I advised to get the DDR3, but he has a low-budget and will have money down the line for upgrades.)

I have not built a PC so some of this is new to me. As for previous experience, I have repaired some things replaced HDD's, and cpu's gpu's etc.

Can people here give me some guidance on tips and tricks for new installs. When I do the install I would like to refer to this thread and this forum for my info.

Hi and Welcome
The only advise I can give you is that you checkout all the hardware to see if it is Win7 Compatible. You can do this by getting all the manufacturers names and model numbers.
Motherboard
Video Card
CD/DVD drive
HD
Then go to Microsoft and check to see what they say for a 32bit system.
LINK to MS Page


After you verify all the hardware you can also check software if he /she plans to add after the install.

After that is done I would go and find the latest drivers for the Hardware and copy to a CD and keep on hand if you need them.
If the Motherboard has Vista drivers on its CD that comes with the motherboard most probably that will get you going until you decide later to update to newer drivers. I would just try and get the system stable with no problems before adding anything more.

After the basic install of Win7 hopefully you have a high speed connection to the internet.

You need to add a virus/malware protection.
I suggest getting Microsoft Security Essentials because it is quick to install and Free and if you want to add something different later it is easy to uninstall.
Link to Download

You need to register Win7 online.

You will need to get a few updates from MS.

This is the basics I would use.
Hope this helps and please stop back if you have any other questions.

While its not a PC Power & Cooling PSU by any means, its just fine for a budget build. The OP did say they planned on upgrading the PSU down the road. That one will last just fine for two years or so.

Go with win7 x64, not 32bit. All parts will work fine in win7 and you will need it with the 4gb of ram.

Darn, it's just an inexpensive budget box. No sense in attacking the hardware, or going to MS trying to verify that "Yamaguchi" is on their compatibility list. Just through the box together, it'll be fine and if not he can work through it with TigerDirect.