Computer won't boot.

Right, it's my brother's notebook, an XP toting Alienware m5500i-r3 (also called the m5550 i understand?). Anywhome, he was complaining it was running real slow, so I took a look, and taskmanager said he was using 800MB of his page file, and made no reference to any physical memory, despite CPU-Z showing it was still there. The computer was taking in excess of 5 minutes just to open word, so i figured, "right, bad RAM" and went to replace it.

Now things went from bad to worse. I opened the computer and everything was dandy, but I have kinda shaky hands so I asked my pops to do the actual fiddly removing back panel screw driver work, and noticed only when putting the panel back on that he was using a magnetic screw driver. So I've reseated the RAM too at this point. Now when i turn the system on it powers up, beebs, powers down again maybe a second and a half later, and then repeats till i remove the battery and AC adaptor. Basically, any idea what's wrong? Could it be the CMOS battery? That's really just a stab in the dark... please help!

 

you could try taking it out for a few minutes if you don't want to risk damaging it anymore, there is a chance the new RAM is faulty, and the old RAM is fine, sounds like ur brother has lust loaded a load of spyware/programs on his laptop, causing it to be slow. i would have reinstalled windows.

 

Try this computer beep codes site and see if you can match the code, has got a cause and answer section to help you fix the problem.
You might want to get something like CCleaner if you don't have it, this could retrieve space on your Hard Drive speeding things up.

 

Thanks guys, saving my life. But yeah, I tried a clean Windows install, to no avail. Gonna take a look at those beep codes. Again, thanks.