After building first PC... next step?

[Guest]

I just built my first PC and I was wondering what's the next step after you have all software and drivers installed. Everything went smoothly during the build process. I've played a few games and everything seems to be okay, but is there tests that I need to perform to be certain? Things I should look at and what not? I'm just really inexperienced to the whole computer world and building it alone was a big step for me

Thanks in advance

 

[tortnotes]

Congrats on your first build

If everything seems to be running OK then that's a good sign, but there are a few things you could do... Make sure the OS sees all of your RAM, and run a test like 3DMark to see if everything is working to the level it should. (look for similar systems to compare to.)
If you've done any overclocking, it's a good idea to run Prime95, a CPU torture test, to make sure it's stable and won't overheat. If you don't want to do that, at least check that the temps are in the normal range for your cooling solution, to rule out bad thermal paste application etc.

I'm sure there's more you could do as that's just off the top of my head, but if everything is working right and you're happy with the performance, you should be good to go.

 

[False_Dmitry_II]

It's always nice when you put things together and it just works. It does that for me most of the time.

 

[Guest]

Thank you

I'll check out those programs you listed. Appreciate it.

Yeah, haha. I was really nervous about building it because I thought a problem would occur and I'd have no clue how to go about fixing it. Thankfully everything worked on the first try for me

Are problems very common or something? Seems like there's tons of them around. Or is it that people just don't post about their build going well, lol.

 

[jsc]

There's a lot of people who post with new build problems - enough that we got tired of saying the same thing over and over - so we built a sticky (a post that's permanently at the top of the forum topic containing checklists and troubleshooting suggestions.

If you had had problems, here is what the reply would look like:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/261145-31-read-posting-boot-problems