ASUS Z87-Plus (OS Install Guide)

Went through another Windows 7 install (gave up on Windows 8.1 .. again) and documented my steps fairly precisely, utilizing/refining on the steps outlined in this [H]ardforum post.

(Work occurred on 7/23/2014)

=--Windows 7 rebuild--=

Asus Z87-Plus motherboard
Creative SBZ audio card
EVGA GTX 760 video
Plextor SSD
Standard HDD (nothing special, just a laptop footprint SATA drive)
 

1.    Windows 7 x64 and reboot

2.    Windows 7 SP1 and reboot

3.    Windows 7 post-SP1 rollup (KB2775511) and reboot

4.    Turn off UAC and reboot

5.    USB3 drivers and reboot

6.    MEI drivers and reboot

7.    Manual* chipset install, to recognize the SMBus controller in device manager.  Reboot

8.    NIC drivers and reboot (you will be asked to set network location first)

9.    Manual* install of IRST drivers, extracted and used against Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA Controller.  Reboot x2 (I had no control over the 2nd reboot, it happened after login following the 1st reboot)

10.  Creative SBZ drivers and reboot

11.  NVidia video drivers and reboot (this will include a .NET 4 install)

12.  Windows updates (118 important updates, 51 optional).  Patching for hours.

13.  Installed SSD specific utility.  In my case, a Plextor drive this time. 

14.  Moved pagefile to non-SSD hard drive, as is routine and recommended. 

15.  Set Windows power plan to High performance.  Set NVidia 3D settings to single display performance mode and prefer maximum performance, which is in line with my configuration.

16.  Followed this guide for tweaking the OS to make it SSD friendly:
http://night-ray.blogspot.com/2012/11/ssd-and-windows-7.html 

17.  Relocated my temp folders to the non-SSD hard drive.

* Manual install meaning I extracted the files from the install packages and manually pointed the unknown devices in Device Manager to these files.  This method avoids unnecessary bloated software that accompanies these packages.

Error logs have been very clean for several days.  Very pleased with this outcome.  Hopefully I realize some level of contentment with my system now. 

The entire hardware build, as shown on a NewEgg wishlist:
http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=25353665