There are a lot of web sites that walk you through putting together a computer once you have all the parts. Can anyone recommend a good one that they have used?
Thanks!!! 
The main things you need are the manuals that come with the components especially the motherboard and CPU if that is separate. I have built my own computers and I never really needed much more than that. Building a computer is just a long series of upgrade type tasks so, if you have done those before, you should be in good shape. Go slowly and read the manual carefully. It sucks to have a fully built computer when you realize that one thing isn’t working like a reset switch or something.
There are two areas where you can go really wrong. Don’t forget the brass risers that you are supposed to use to separate the motherboard and the case. I didn’t realize that one my first one and it caused all kinds of hell. The other one is make sure you use the thermal paste that comes with your CPU correctly. There isn’t much hard about it but it is critical to apply it correctly. Other than that, you can easily fix must other stuff if you get it wrong the first time.
Have fun.
Thanks for the quick reply I barely had time to put on my static wrist band!
One more, I have a 500w power supply. What components contribute to power usage and how do i quantify it to see if 500w is enough?
All of them basically but 500W should be enough to power any normal system as long as the power supply is semi-reputable and rated it correctly. The main time I have heard builders needing more than that recently is when they put in two big honking video cards in the computer with everything else.
The big things that draw power are:
- The motherboard and CPU
- A video card if it is separate
- I have never heard of regular drives taxing a power supply all that much but I suppose it could happen if every bay was filled.
You are probably Ok unless this thing you are building has lots of big power components. I have a 500W with two hard drives, a DVD drive, a big video card, and a sound card and it has always done just fine.
As long as that 500 Watt PS is of good quality (Antec, Sparkle, Thermaltake, and PC Power & Cooling are a couple brands I trust) you should have any problems, even with very high end machine - The Tech Report benches show that a system with a pair of 8800GTX in SLI + Core 2 Extreme x6800 will draw less than 400 watts at full load.
The power supply name is not listed ( it comes with case ) and on newegg a few people reported that they had problems. Is there a danger that it can damage my components?
The thermal paste is with my cpu? I can’t find it! 
What does it look like? ( Intel E6600 )
It’s grey and goopy, and if it’s in a syringe it probably has the word ‘silver’ in it.
If you bought a bundled cpu/etc., then there’s probably already a little square of it smeared on the heatsink. If you bought it separately, there’s a chance you need to buy some yourself.
I bought the cpu all by itself, I dont see in the Intel cpu instructions to put it on ( but I totally might be overlooking it ) and I dont see a little syringe - I guess I might have to buy some then.
If the processor came with a fan+heatsink, look on the underside. There’s probably some tape that you need to remove to reveal the thermal paste.
That is possible, i haven’t opened the heatsink/fan yet, thanks!
More likely, you will find a plastic cover on the bottom of the heatsink/fan combo. When you remove the plastic cover, you will see a square of thermal material.
If you got your heatsink separately from the processor, it probably doesn’t have any thermal paste on it. In which case, you’ll have to get the little syringe or tube already mentioned.
I’ve built my own PC’s (three of them) and forgot to do this once. My first case I reused and it had a built-in riser system (i.e., no need to screw in risers). So with my new case I forgot that you need to make sure the motherboard isn’t screwed directly onto the metal case. That will fry your mobo. A few areas on the motherboard partially melted and there was discoloration.
This site here does a pretty good job on PSU estimations. Like others have said, the CPU and video card are usually the two biggest factors. The CPU will take up around 100-200 watts itself. For myself, I have an AMD Opteron 148 (2900 mhz) and 7800GT graphics card that consume 230 watts alone. Adding the following items will take up another 96 watts: 2 7200 sata drives, 1 dvd-rom, 1 dvd-writer, 2 sticks DDR SDRAM, 3 80mm fans, 1 120mm fan, and 1 floppy drive.
Here is a good link about building your own pc.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/static/html/pcbuildingtips.html
thanks so much for your help everyone!
What does 4-4-4-12 and variations on that translate to? And do you really have to “set” voltage to memory bars?
Sounds like memory timings. You shouldn’t really fiddle with that or the voltage if you don’t know what you’re doing.
Right right - If you look at the comments in the reviews section here though it sounds like I have to set them and I have no idea what, why, or how to do that!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820220144
The Core 2 motherboards seem to be pretty picky about memory. That said, I would try booting and loading the OS with whatever the motherboard detects to start. If you can’t get the OS loaded, then the memory is one place to look.
After the OS is loaded, you can also use the memory timings to try to get a little more speed out of your system. You would need to do benchmarking to detect the changes though. Generally speaking, try to decrease the timings. If/when you start having random crashes (or boot failure), try bumping up the memory voltage a little (if your MB allows it) or back the timings off to where the system was stable. Keep one other thing in mind though. Computer components seem to last longer at lower voltages. Those little bumps in speed decrease the life of your components.
I got a Evga 680i board - hopefully it will just detect the memory automatically, I don’t really want to tweak it now, I just want it to work without damaging parts! If it doesn’t detect, what is the next step?