Another thing you might want to do is bribe your buddy into helping you build the computer. You can always buy him a 6 pack of his favorite beer, or offer to take him out to lunch. I have a couple of friends I helped get started in building their own computers this way, and actually just got done helping one replace the motherboard in his wife's computer today. After I showed him how to do it, he was able to take the old motherboard and successfully install it in another case he had with a slower mobo and CPU in it.
I second what The_Dude has to say, most motherboards you buy new do not even have jumpers on them anymore, or the ones that are there you dont have to mess with unless you want to go crazy with the setting customization. The motherboard we installed today simply asked what clock speed the processor was running at when it booted the first time. After that, everything was up and running smoothly.
Hope this all helps, there's some good advice from everyone here
