Hi. I think I might have some bad memory??? My Inspiron 8100 will not boot (after getting an "amount of system memory has changed"). I have tried reseating both DIMMs w/o any luck. I also tried using 1 DIMM in each slot.

 

My main question is this: If I remove both DIMM's, is it safe to try to boot the system? If so, will the BIOS show me anything or do I need some "good" memory installed for me to see anything?

 

The system has power - when attempting to start with one DIMM, the power light and hard drive light come on, the caps lock and scroll lock light flash but nothing else happens. With the other DIMM, the system starts to spin the DVD drive up**, but shuts down after about 5 seconds. If I remove the DVD, leaving onlt the floppy, the same type of thing occurs. If I hold the power button I get the same result.

 

Can a bad battery have anything to do with it? It still works but was only holding a charge for 20 minutes.

 

**I took the HDD out - don't want to screw that up

 

thanks for any help - and thank you to the many forum posters - good reading,

 

Mike