Building Comp Questions- Pls help =)

Hiya-
I'm finally building my frist computer =) I've ordered the majority of my parts, and I'm wondering if I can get a bit of advice.

First off, I'm a bit clueless on power sources(supply?) I have a 5 fan, Lian Li case, an AMD XP 2000+, GeForce 4 Ti 4200, Nforce board, Coolermaster heatsink fan, Plexor CDRW, Toshiba DVD, 256 or 512 ddr, A: drive, and a Western Digital 40 gb HD. - What Power Source should I get? ATX, but 350? 450? 600~? I'm clueless =)

Also I've seen all the plastic plugs comin outta my fans and other stuff- can they plug into any holes from the powersource? Or do specifics go in specific slots? Does the motherboard take the long one?

I'm a bit shaky on installing the Fan on the CPU. When adding the thermal paste, and fan... where do I place the thermal diode? TOUCHING the cpu? between the fan and chip/shim? What order does it go, chip, paste, shim, diode, fan? =) pls help =)

Now when I get it all set up, and start it up, will it just go into Dos? Then I can just install Windows XP from accessing my cdrom through Dos? Or do I have to do some stuff in bios (eek!)

I can't thank you enough for any help you can give me... my apologies if I should have posted in a different forum =) Thanks again!!! =)

The biggest white plug goes from the MB to the PS. If a fan has a tiny black connector it goes to the MB. If the fan has a medium sized white connector that looks like the ones on you HD and cd then they get daisey chained between your PS and hds and cds.

Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire.

First off, a 300 watt supply will be enough for all of that. Anyone who tells you to spend more on a 450 watt supply is messed up. If you can find a 350 watt supply for just a little more, and may add some more drives and whatnot, then go for that, but 300 will suffice. Make sure it's a quality 300 watt supply though, and not some generic brand.

The plugs are all one-way plugs. If it fits, it's right. If it doesn't, it's wrong. Pretty simple.

Setup is very simple. Once you have everything in, turn on the power, and put in the XP cd. Your computer SHOULD automatically boot from the cd, and then it's just "next, yes, next, i agree, next, next... done"

If it doesn't detect the cd (no reason why it wouldn't), just restart the computer and hit delete when the POST screen comes up. Find the menu where it lists what the boot order is, and then make sure that cdrom is somewhere in that list.

If my baby don't love me, I know, I know, her sister will.

Does the fan have the little 3 pin connector or the large 4 pin connector like your hard drive?

If it's the large 4 pin, then daisychaining is like so: The plug from the fan has an input on one side, and an output on the other. Just plug the supply into the fan on one side of the plug, and then out to the hard drive on the next one.

It doesn't really matter though, so long as you have enough plugs for everything, and everything gets power.

If my baby don't love me, I know, I know, her sister will.