[audioboy]

sounds like you got the evil tech, sorry about that.
head over to the system building forum, there is a sticky posted up top about building basics. there are also plenty of how-to's on the web, though I cant think of any atm.
at the top of the this forum (hardware) is a good troubleshooter as well. can make life much easier if you hit a snag.
try the case, by just holding the mobo in there, see if the screws line up, etc.

you will need to do a repair install of windows, so it can recognize all the new hardware its getting. if you have a way to back up any critical data, its a good idea to do it, just in case things go horribly wrong somehow. it should be no problem, but its one of those ounce of prevention things...

as for your psu (power supply), look at it and see if you can find any info on make and wattage, then post it up for us.

fear not, building isnt very hard, its just about being careful.

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Have you tried updating your motherboards Bios, Micro ATX motherboards are very small compared to your standard ATX board if it is a normal ATX case as you seem to have it will leave alot of space unused inside.

[warriorscot]

Have you tried updating your motherboards Bios, Micro ATX motherboards are very small compared to your standard ATX board if it is a normal ATX case as you seem to have it will leave alot of space unused inside.

[dogbiscuit]

Well it arrived today and I've fitted it. It's the exact same size and shape as my dead one. Here's the worrying bit though. My monitor won't switch on. It remains on stand-by when I turn the pc on. I'm fairly sure I have hooked everything up correctly. The pc itself seems to be powering up. The monitor works (I borrowed one off my neighbour and it does just the same thing).
This is what it was doing before I fitted the new mobo and I had a repair man tell me that it was the cpu that was gone. (the new mobo also has a new cpu).
So either, it wasn't the cpu/mobo that died and it was something else which is still causing the same problem or it's a new problem to do with the intallation of the new mobo. I think the latter sounds like too much of a coincidence though. It doesn't sound good though does it?
I would tell you the power supply but I have had to come out to the library to write this and forgot to bring the details with me.

[audioboy]

check out the pinned topic at the top of the hardware forum, troubleshooting new builds.
also, are you using the onboard video or a card? if a card, which one (the pci or the AGP you bought originally)?
I would try using the onboard just to get started, see if it will POST and let you into BIOS.
strip the system down to basics, mobo, ram, no hard drive or CD. just to see if you can get to post and bios, as outlined in the troubleshooter.

let us know how it goes.

[dogbiscuit]

OK I have stripped it, tried both graphics cards, checked memory, etc. I am devoid of ideas so I have had to take it to a repair man. I'll let you know how it gets on there.

[dogbiscuit]

Just thought you might like to know that I took my pc to a repair man who established that the new mobo I bought was dead on arrival. Ordered a new one (MSI KM4M-V and 3000 athlon cpu) and fitted it together myself! It's been running for a couple of weeks now.
I am having one problem but I'm not sure if it will be your cup of tea. I bought a new 80Gb hard drive and installed windows on it then fitted my old one as a slave. When I try to retrieve all my song files it doesn't work. I try pasting them onto the new drive but I get "Cannot copy (name of file), The drive cannot find the sector requested". This is worrying as these are song files that I have spent over a year recording. Have tried using '7tools partition imager' but can't figure out how it works.
Any idea whats going on?