Doesn't sound too bad. Certainly not the marathon I expected.

Thanks, I'll do that, knowing my luck my parts would probably all turn out to be incompatible. Cheers a lot.

I'm just going off of personal experience here. In my case I had my father to help me as he's done it before. Since then I've learned quite a bit and now know more about hardware than he does.

Keep in mind though that all of the talk so far has been about Hardware. Have you given any thought as to the software? Do you have an operating system (OS) that you can use for a new build?

One piece of advice, just be careful of static. You could buy a wrist band to keep you constantly grounded or remember make sure you touch something to ground yourself every now and again.

There are videos in the Community Tech thread about putting a computer together that are very helpful

I'd recommend you pop the hood on your machine and have a look inside, maybe take out the ram/unplug the hard drives etc. to get used to it. Really is alot easier than you'd expect. All the best!

Lol, sounds like my story back when I was 13!

No, and, sorry to sound like a degenerate neanderthal, but you'll need to explain that to me too!

If the CPU is the engine than the OS is the steering wheel, accelerator, and brakes. The CPU is what makes the computer work, but the OS is what allows you to actually use it.

If you want 4 or more gigs of RAM then you will need a 64 bit OS, which is able to actually utilize all of the RAM, unlike a 32 bit OS, which cannot. It is likely that you will need to buy a new OS for your new computer as you will not be able to use your old one. And they can be expensive, getting up into the triple digits even.

The one that you'll probably want is Windows 7 64 bit, which is the current newest OS, and the one that I can personally vouch for.

For example are you using windows? If so which version 32 or 64bit. If you are using 32 bit you will only be able to use 4GB of ram for example so it makes a difference

Edit:
I've been 'd

Cheers again for the info, and your patience with a noob such as myself.

Anything else I should know?

At the moment only this: In your shopping around for an OS you will probably see the term "OEM" thrown around, with said product being cheaper than an otherwise "OEM-less" product.

An explanation:

OEM Means Original Equipment Manufacturer. An OEM product is made for a company such as Dell to buy in bulk, then install on a computer that they then sell to the consumer. What this means for you is that, if you buy one, you will not be able to reuse it outside of the build that you install it on. It can only be activated on one computer, thus the price. This isn't really a bad thing though, not if you do not plan on getting a new computer for a good few years. If you plan on getting a good CPU and motherboard you shoudn't need to buy a new PC for at least 2 years, probably more.

Thanks, much appreciated, I doubt I'll make a regular thing of it, but I also doubt that I'll never do it again, so I'm going for OEM then I guess.
Sorry, I have to ask another question. I've just been doing a little homework on an OS and windows 7, for instance, seems to have a whole load of different variants, each with differing prices. What do I want to go for?

I'm guessing that you are referring to Ultimate, Professional, and Home Premium. I'd go with Home Premium as it's the one I have and I doubt that you'd ever need any of the features of Ultimate or Pro.

Again, thanks a bunch. I'm off now but if I have any further queries I'll be sure to ask.

if you do happen across the cash, this is a good UK site to look at for both components and prebuilt http://www.overclockers.co.uk

No problem. Feel free to ask about anything that you don't understand.