I have a Dell 1.3ghz Dimension that came with 2 64mb RDRam chips and two continuity boards. My loving and attentive son purchased a game that not only requires a different operating system (XP vs ME), but also needs 265mb of ram. Sooooooooo....long story short, $99 for XP and $150 for 2 128mb RDRam chips later, the machine won't boot.
I installed XP succesfully before putting the ram in. I unplugged the machine, wore my anti-static strap and put both new ram chips in. I had removed the old ram and continuity boards to bring with me to show the guys at comp-usa because I was paranoid of getting the wrong ram. When I put the new ram in, and the cont. boards back in, I turned on the box...and it wouldn't boot. I tried booting from the cd...nothing. No safe mode, no nothing. I took out the new ram and put the two old ones in and got the same thing...nothing. The fan still runs and I hear the hard drive spinning, but no boot.
Someone suggested I reset the cmos using the jumper, but I couldn't even find the jumper! I pulled the battery for a few minutes while the machine was unplugged, but when it was all back together again...same story.
My concern is that the new ram fried the motherboard. It says 800mhz on it. Is it possible that this is the wrong rdram for the machine? And if so...would this kill my box? Where do I go from here, and please tell me it won't cost me anything because my wife is already miserable at having dumped $250 so that he can play his $30 game that he bought without looking at the "System Requirements" notes.
I installed XP succesfully before putting the ram in. I unplugged the machine, wore my anti-static strap and put both new ram chips in. I had removed the old ram and continuity boards to bring with me to show the guys at comp-usa because I was paranoid of getting the wrong ram. When I put the new ram in, and the cont. boards back in, I turned on the box...and it wouldn't boot. I tried booting from the cd...nothing. No safe mode, no nothing. I took out the new ram and put the two old ones in and got the same thing...nothing. The fan still runs and I hear the hard drive spinning, but no boot.
Someone suggested I reset the cmos using the jumper, but I couldn't even find the jumper! I pulled the battery for a few minutes while the machine was unplugged, but when it was all back together again...same story.
My concern is that the new ram fried the motherboard. It says 800mhz on it. Is it possible that this is the wrong rdram for the machine? And if so...would this kill my box? Where do I go from here, and please tell me it won't cost me anything because my wife is already miserable at having dumped $250 so that he can play his $30 game that he bought without looking at the "System Requirements" notes.