HELP! New parts and trying to rebuild PC

[Acentric]

I need some help, well alot of help. 2 days ago i recieved my motherboard and power supply and a case i ordered. Its an Asus Motherboard P5GD1 and the power supply is Antec Smart power 2.0 500watts and a Cooler Master Cavalier case. A week before i ordered this i had ordered a XFX GeForce 7800 with 256 mb. I thought it would go into my HP pc. It had the PCI x16 Express Slot but there was a cable on the motherboard of that PC blocking its path so i wasnt able to place the very big video card. So i ordered the motherboard, the power supply, and the case. Not knowing anything about this my friend told me he knew some stuff about this. He got me the right equipment but now he didnt know how to install the cables. He installed all the drives, powresupply, harddrive, ram, video card, and the fan but after this we couldnt do anything else. He had to leave early so we couldnt figure anything else out. I tried to look over the manuel and try to find out what on gods green earth to do. I thought i had everything in right and pluged it in and tried to turn it on, but some blue light came on and then turned off and so did the whole system. Did i mess something up or what? and if i didnt id like some help connecting the cables correctly and all that. I am only 17 and this is the first time i have done anything with a pc. Also there are some other cards my HP Media Center Edition had id like to add to my new case with motherboard, i anyone can help me out and have AIM plz add XSnake7 and ill be on tomorrow 5:30pm Pacific. Any help will help me out. Thanks in advance to any help.

[Cricket]

What processor are you using?

Is the heatsink installed correctly?

And since it was originally a HP computer, what kind of CPU heatsink does it have? A Intel heatsink or something else?

:) Cricket

[jayb1234]

The motherboard manual should tell you what plugs in where. Compare it to the case manual to be sure they agree. if not it's not that hard to figure out, just post which connections you need help with. You could probably have just got a longer cable for whatever was interfering with installing the video card and saved a lot of time and money. You are also going to need a new operating system, since the HP load of MCE is only liscensed to the original machine and can't legally be used on another build.

[Acentric]

well, i got everything i need to make it work, just that i dont know how to hook it all up and i dont know what the names on the parts mean or what they are, mostly, but its Intel Pentium 4 Processor 520 with Hyper Threading Tech., also, id like to know if i didnt already mess up the motherboard itself. What happend was i connected everything by the way i thought was right. When i hooked it up and thought it was good to go i connected it and a blue light in the front of the case lite up for a second then the whole thing shutted down. Is there any way to find out if its ok and i didnt fry it?

[Stevevai9]

Did you read the manual that came with the motherboard?

[Acentric]

some of it but i dont understand it

[jayb1234]

Do you have a friend or relative who knows more about computers who would help you with the assembly. If not just study the manuals until you understand what they are saying.

[Cricket]

Here's a computer building tutorial (http://www.mechbgon.com/build/index.html)...take your computer apart and rebuild it according to this guide.

:) Cricket