I have an Inspiron 1545 running Windows 7(64-bit) with 3 GB of RAM(2 + 1). Around a month back I started getting notifications that I need to replace the battery and I thought of getting it replaced this month.

Yesterday when I was using the laptop, I got this notification which said that no battery was detected although the battery was where it was supposed to be(I checked to endure that it was not loose). I did not pay much attention to this and shutdown the laptop after my work was done.

Later when I tried to turn on the laptop, it refused to startup. The power light in the front was glowing but apart from that there was no activity of any kind. After trying a few times I gave up and took it today to the Dell Service Centre.

The technician checked and told me that one of the RAM slots were not working hence the laptop was not booting. I asked him to replace it but he said that RAM slots cannot be replaced, I need to replace the entire mother board. My first question is whether this is really true? Are there no replacements for the RAM slot?

Since I was not carrying the money, I asked him whether inserting the 2GB RAM stick on the working slot(and removing the RAM stick from the faulty slot) would allow me to work on the laptop. Since he confirmed that I could, so I asked him to do that.

After I reached home and tried starting the laptop, I was faced with the 'Startup(Normal) or Startup(Repair)' screen. Starting up normally either led to a black screen without any activity or a screen which was highly pixelleted with horizontal lines running across it. When I chose Startup Repair, the system asked me whether I wanted to restore to a Sytem restore point.  I chose 'Yes' and after shutting down the laptop finally started up normally and I was able to work after which I shutdown the laptop.

Now when I tried to startup the laptop, I am facing the same  'Startup(Normal) or Startup(Repair)' screen as before. But this time I cannot get the laptop to start with any of the options. Either the pixelleted, horizontal lines screen appears and I cannot do anything or the screen goes blank. During one of the attempts this long message appeared which said that I need to check for any recent hardware/software changes, startup in safe mode etc.

Is all of these happening because of the single 2GB RAM? But in this case how did it run earlier. Or is it because the RAM is not properly inserted in the slot. Or should I use the recovery disk to try and repair Windows 7.

Point to be noted is that all throughout, I am able to access the BIOS setup screen without any problems at all. No pixellation or horizontal lines.