1720 Won't power on after memory upgrade

So I bought myself a new 1720 after my almost 4 year old 9100 was stolen a few weeks ago. I got it today along with the Mushkin memory upgrade I ordered. I installed the first module in the back and then proceded to replace the one that you have to take the keyboard out to reach. I put it all back together and powered the system on and just got a black screen. I thought maybe I hadn't seeded one of them properly so I took it back apart and reseeded them, and now when I press the power button nothing happens at all... I then replaced the memory with the dell stuff and still get the same thing. Does anyone know what could cause this? Did I break something? Any help would be great. Thanks in advance.

 

Nothing happens? No lights, disk action, anything?

 

Nothing... I wasn't getting anything, however I seem to have figured out that my keyboard is touchy and if it's pushed in even just a tad too far it apparently doesn't register when the power button is pressed... so I have that issue resolved thankfully.

Now I'm still at the issue where when the mushkin memory is in I don't boot properly. The machine powers on, but it's just to a black screen and never goes any further. When I replace the dell memory I get a full boot and everything works great... do you think there might be an issue with the mushkin memory?

The mushkin memory is 2x2gb of PC2-5300, any ideas on why I wouldn't get a boot?

 

Can you run a diagnostics test?

-Turn on the computer. When the DELL™ logo appears, press <F12> immediately. If you wait too long and the Microsoft® Windows® logo appears, continue to wait until you see the Windows desktop. Then shut down your computer and try again.

-When the boot device list appears, highlight Diagnostics and press <Enter>.

The computer begins to run the Pre-boot System Assessment, a series of embedded diagnostics that perform initial testing on your system board, keyboard, hard drive, and display.

o During the assessment, answer any questions that appear.

o If a component failure is detected, the computer stops and beeps. To stop the assessment and reboot to the operating system, press <N>; to continue to the next test, press <Y>; to retest the component that failed, press <R>.

o If failures are detected during the Pre-boot System Assessment, write down the error code(s) and contact Dell before continuing on to the Dell Diagnostics.

o If you receive a message stating that no Diagnostics utility partition has been found, follow the instructions on the screen to run the Dell Diagnostics from your Drivers and Utilities CD.

If the Pre-boot System Assessment completes successfully, you receive the message Booting Dell Diagnostic Utility Partition. Press any key to continue.

-Press any key to start the Dell Diagnostics from the Diagnostics utility partition on your hard drive.

-After the Dell Diagnostics loads and the Main Menu screen appears, click the button for the option you want.

 

I don't get far enough to be able to. It's like the machine powers on, the lights on the right hand side light up, but I never see anything on the screen... it's just black. The hard drive spins up and everything, but it just doesn't go anywhere.

Thank you for responding so fast by the way. I appreciate the help.

 

Sounds like he broke something.

 

Not if the other RAM works....sounds like it must be the RAM.

\\edit

Not that I know a whole lot about it, but if I were in your position, I'd make sure I had the most recent BIOS revision from Dell. I have no idea if that would actually make a difference, but......and it's only 1mb to download, probably.

 

lol, it does.

Did you remove the keyboard cable during your upgrade? Did you have it plugged into the wall? Did you remove your battery? Did you ground yourself beforehand? Did you try putting the old memory back in?

 

Have you tried mixing the "dell" and mushkin memory sticks?

Also see if you can run memtest86+ on each Muskin ram seperately since, if it boots up just fine with the "dell" ram, its probably just bad sticks of ram.

Here is a guide on how it dl/use Memtest86+
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=142746

 

Awesome, thank you for all the responses.

Yes, I was grounded and had the battery pack and power removed from the laptop while I was working on it. I've replaced memory before but never had issues. I'm going to give mixing the memory a go and see what happens. I'll report back in a little bit.

Edit: Well, I just tried mixing them and it appears that one stick of memory must have a problem because when that one is in I don't get anything but the black screen and when the other one is in it boots normally. Thanks for the help guys, looks like I need to give mushkin a call and see if I can get a new one.

 

Great! Glad you figured it out.