I've been hearing a lot about people burning out their Athlon chips, frying the motherboard by something simple like plugging the fan in the wrong way, or the heatsink isn't 100% aligned correctly, and it's starting to scare me off a bit from building an AMD system, oh yea and I've never built a system before...I'm thinking it might be a little risky.

What can I do to avoid disasters with Athlon 1.4 chips? is there a good guide or check list to ensure i don't burn out anything? I am getting a Thermalright SK6, 4 Panaflo fans, and AS II thermal paste with an Athlon 1.4 processor...