laptop dies after adding a stick of ram

hi, I own a compaq presario 2100 celeron.
The laptop came with 256 ram, I recently got another 256 ram stick and decided to add it to the second slot.

I inserted the second ram stick into the bottom second ram slot in the back of the laptop (making sure the power cable was not plugged), after closing the back lid I plugged my laptop and I noticed it was not showing any sign of life. My first reaction was maybe I caused a short circuit on the ram slot PCB.
Today I went to an independant computer shop and they told me it was the mobo that gave up. He charged £200 for the repair so I said no way, I would probably prefer to do some research on my own before handing £200 like that. Unfortunately I have absolutely no clue what caused this and what is the actual problem with my laptop.


The power cable is working fine.

If anyone could give me some tips on how I could locate the problem or revive my laptop, that would be really appreciated.

Thanks.

 

It's possible that you short-circuited your motherboard when you installed the new ram, were you grounded when you put in the chip?

Also, have you tried removing the ram, seeing as the problem appeared after installing the new ram?

 

This isn't one of the better laptops Compaq has made, I've seen lots of them go kaput pretty easy, sorry.

First thing that comes to mind is you probably left the battery in the laptop when you installed the memory. If you didn't leave the battery in then I would insure you bought memory known to work with your system.

I would remove the battery, make sure it's not plugged in and remove the memory and then reinstall it. Power the system off of the power brick and see if it comes up, if so great, let the BIOS see it save the change in the BIOS and shut it down, install the battery and power up again, if it works great, if not, unplug, remove battery and unplug the power brick.

Removing the CMOS battery and letting it sit a bit is a good way to reset the system, unfortunately on this system you need to take it apart if memory serves which is a chore at best.

Good luck.

 

I would still go with static shock if there were absolutely no symptoms of your computer dieing. Also, did you make sure the laptop battery was out and your laptop was fully discharged (after removing the battery you're supposed to hold the power button for 30 sec to fully discharge)? If you strongly believe it was not static shock, then you should find out why it died. A good repairman won't just tell you your laptop died, they'd also inform you about why it died. They can't answer that, then go to another place.

 

Did you take out the new RAM and see if it still worked? Make sure the new RAM has the same specs as the other one.

Take out the battery, disconnect the power cord and hold down the on/off switch for at least 30-40 secs. Replace the battery, connect the power cord and re-start. HP told me that this will re-set the laptop. If it's still doesn't boot then the laptop is fried. Could be static or RAM incompatibility that caused this.

 

I agree with kanehi and jin07. First take out the battery and hold the power button. Then try and reboot the laptop. If that doesn't work, take the battery out, uninstall the new RAM you put in your laptop, put the battery back in, and then try and restart. If you still don't have any success I would say it is a hardware problem most likely that was possibly caused by static electricity when you installed your RAM.

 

Also, make sure the ram is seated nice and tight. I made this mistake once and the laptop would not even post....the fan ran quick and that was it.

Make sure it's pushed in nice and tight with battery reved ,grounded and no power.

 

I forgot to put down that you should also verify that the RAM is compatible with your laptop.

 

Going along with what jin07 said, what kind of RAM is it gerardmanvuca?

 

YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

after reading all the posts, I took the battery out, unplugged the computer, held the power button for approx 50 sec, and inserted the initial ram stick it's slot, plugged the laptop back in without the battery and shabang, the light came on. turned everything off and inserted the battery, and it's still works.

I can't believe that I could have lost £200 for something that simple, but I would never have been able to do this without you all.

so I would like to thank you all very very very much for helping me wake up my dead laptop.

 

Glad we could save someone else some money here!

 

That's good to hear.

 

Glad we could help and save you that money!

We do take donations as well if you still want to spend that money, lol just kidding

 

Good to hear that your problem got solved. Just wanted to know is your new RAM working? It seems you forgot or completely missed it in your post!

 

I would be going back to that repair shop and knocking someone's lights out...

 

Well they were either trying to take advantage of him, or they are just incompetent. Either way they shouldn't be working at a computer repair shop. They are probably just too lazy to do all the testing and figure they will just take the easy route and make more money.

 

I thought I mentioned holding the power button, yet more proof I'm getting old...