Good afternoon..

I'm building a HTPC. I've never built a PC from scratch before (just changed drives around and stuff) and I am a little nervous about the first time I put the juice to it - don't want to fry anything. Accordingly, I have a couple of basic questions.

1. Sata Hard drive - are both those slots in the back power connectors (normal power connector and sata? power connector - MB came with adapter)? Does it matterr which one I use? (Bought the HD OEM - no instructions)

2. I got an AMD Athlon 64 3000+ retail processor. There are two tiny flecks (grain of sand sized) of the styrofoam packing material on the thermal paste. The instructions said not to touch the paste so I left them on. Is that going to cause a problem?

3. The cable bundles - I need to keep them clear of the fans for airflow, correct?

4. How do I monitor processor temperature? (I am most likely going to put mythTV on this thing)

5. Any other bits of advice for a first time builder - stuff that inexperience could easily miss?

Any and all advice is greatly appreciated - don't want to blow up my Xmas present.

2. yes
3. yes
4. lm_sensors

-Joey

Regarding removal of the packaging flecks, what would be the best thing to do?

Tweezer them off and simply replace?
Tweezer them off and add a little extra paste?
Wipe the paste off and start again?

Is there a quality difference in the pastes? I have a tube of radio shack brand stuff that worked well for my old 450 Mhz AMD K2, but is there a reason to buy fancier stuff?

wipe the paste of and start again I use the coolmaster stuff, as it is more themaly conductive

-Joey