Help seating ram in my laptop

[petey3]

I own a Dell inspiron 5100 which is currently giving me fits. If I thoroughly clean the slot and RAM I can get it to boot up once. If I power off when I power it on again it will not boot up and the caps lock led will flash 10 times and then power off. My question is this. Does anyone know a way to make the ram seat better? Is there a proven way to clean the slot for the ram? I was using alcohol and a cotton swab. Any help in this matter would be appreciated

Petey

 

[N3051M]

if the laptop works without the ram it could be incompatible/faulty ram...... try with another one.

 

[petey3]

It actually works with the RAM ONly I have to clean and reseat it to do this

Petey

 

[Nodsu]

Are you sure it is cleaning the RAM that makes it boot? And not the procedure of disconnecting the battery or letting the machine cool down or suchlike?

 

[petey3]

It has to be because I have tried everything else

 

[N3051M]

it is quite strange that you have to clean the slot every time you want to boot.. i mean, unless you have realy, realy dodgy connectors that gets oxidesed etc then they shouldn't have any dirt on them at all.

have you tried just doing how you normaly do to clean it, but dont clean the ram/slot this time, just wait a minute and put it back in? Nodsu maybe right, it could be just part of your process of cleaning that you unwittingly reset something.?

 

[petey3]

I figured it out. Just had to exert a little (tiny amount) of pressure on the chips. Works like a champ now. Thanks for the help