My computer will not power up...

ta2ddaddy

New Member
We purchased a 1GB ram upgrade for our Gateway E4100. Fallowed all the directions and now we have no picture. The system appears to "power" up, in the sense that the light comes on, the fan spins, but there is no picture. Is it possible we messed something up? What are ideas on how to fix?:confused::eek:
 

voyagerfan99

Master of Turning Things Off and Back On Again
Staff member
Pull out all the memory and use just the one stick you just purchased. If it doesn't work, try it in different slots. If it still doesn't work, then it's probably a bad stick.
 

ta2ddaddy

New Member
i tried this, i even tried it with the old sticks and it still has no picture. It had picture before we put the new card in. Our computer has 4 DDR slots, all of which were full. Is it possible one of those is a video card? If so could it mess up the video output?
 

stalker

New Member
Try removing all the ram, and insert one by one. First try adding just the ones that were working and power the machine and then the new one. If after you put the new memory the computer stops showing image, take all the ram out then put just the new ram on the slot that the old ram were in, if when you have just the new memory is on the board and shows no image, then ram may be bad or you don't have the ram in properly.


Good Luck
 

Diamondsleeper

New Member
Check and re-check all your connections on the motherboard. Sometimes if I am inside working on mine I inadvertently will bump something else loose. One thing that can keep a picuture from coming up is if the 4 pin power lead connected to most late model motherboards is not connected to the M.B. or the PSU. I hope you properly had grounded your fingers to the case before touching any internal components. Its probably something very simple. Especially since when you put your old ram stick back in it still did not put up a boot screen. You get nothing but a black screen with no text or anything correct? :)
 
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ta2ddaddy

New Member
no text, just a completely blank screen with my power light flashing as if there is no signal coming into the monitor. The geek squad at our near by best buy just looked at it and said its possible that the mother board is fried, however i did ground myself before touching the internals and the new ram.
 

ta2ddaddy

New Member
no there is no audio, and they checked the video card, the put in a brand new one to see if it would work and it didn't.
 

Diamondsleeper

New Member
no text, just a completely blank screen with my power light flashing as if there is no signal coming into the monitor. The geek squad at our near by best buy just looked at it and said its possible that the mother board is fried, however i did ground myself before touching the internals and the new ram.

I wouldn't give up hope quite yet no matter what the Geek Squad says. How dusty is the inside of the computer? I would take all the components out of the slots and used real compressed air .. Not the bottled stuff, its useless, and blow it all out. Then I would install only the vid card and a ram stick and see if you get anything on power up. Dont forget to discharge any static elect. after you blow it all out. Don't put anything back in, Disconnect all cables from the M.B. No hard drive no nothing, just the CPU, RAM, and vid card. OH don'forget to check you monitor cable connections. It might me your monitor chord. Check for bent pins. Don't trust anything Best Buy says, they might just want to sell you another computer or charge you tons of money to fix yours. Just like auto mechanics.
 
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ta2ddaddy

New Member
well the problem with the e4100 which is the model we have is it is very slim, and a video card does not fit inside very well, along with the fact that i don't think i have a video card laying around. i might in my mac. but i will give it a shot.
 

voyagerfan99

Master of Turning Things Off and Back On Again
Staff member
well the problem with the e4100 which is the model we have is it is very slim, and a video card does not fit inside very well, along with the fact that i don't think i have a video card laying around. i might in my mac. but i will give it a shot.

I have the same machine for the family computer. I needed a video card to play Star Trek Legacy, so I swapped the components into a larger case. (MicroFly ATX case) so I could fit a video card.

Otherwise, you can put a new card in and just leave the top cover off.
 

ta2ddaddy

New Member
What i did is put the video card from my mac in with the top off, also took out the hard drive, cd rom, along with the zip and tried that. No luck, no audio no video, just a spinning fan and black screen
 
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