Computer Not Working

[Questi4110]

About a month ago i replaced my ram and everything has worked fine until then...replaced 128meg sdram pc-133 with a 256 sdram pc-133...the 128 did not work after replacing. Everything has worked fine until then.
On sunday morning after leaving the computer on for about 18 hours i shut it off around 6 AM. at 12 PM that same day when i tried to put it on nothing showed up on the screen however the power was fine and the loading light was on. This is a fequent error where it just doesn't load and i usually restart in order for it to detect the hard drive properly. After restarting i heard a series of beeps (same beeps i heard when trying to put my 128 meg ram back into its slot but eventually giving up and leaving only 256 in there). So i restarted again (btw still nothing on the screen and my mouse was not getting any power (its an optical so i know when the red light gets on)) and this time back to no beeps but still nothing on the display. I shut it off and tried to figure out what to do. Usually the hard drive makes a noise when it is loading...didn't happen this time...so i know that this problem is not with the video card or monitor. I put the computer on its belly (stays open all the time) and looked for any loose wires or anything like that. I did find a tack that i dropped in there about 2 weeks ago sticking the computer's internal speaker magnet. I took out the tack and the ram. I made sure i put the ram back in securely and restarted the computer again. After turning it on i heard more beeps so i shut it off. From that point on all i have heard are beeps...no more blanks screens alone...now beeps and a blank screen. I bought new ram to see if that is the problem but they did not work either. I don't know what to do please help. BTW, all the power seems to be fine (cd-roms...both, and the hardrive goes on from what i heard).

SPECS

AMD Athlon 800 mhz
Biostar VIA chipset
Windows XP Pro
Elsa Gladiac Video Card
Ethernet Card
Sound Blaster Sound Card
30 gig 7200 rpm (i think thats the speed) HD
Crucial 256 SDRAM pc-133 Memory


I really dont know what happened...motherboard fried? HD messed up? RAM screwing things up? Virus (doubt that it can do this)?



THANKS
Please help i am writing this from a friends house and i dont have much time

 

[Questi4110]

bump come on someone has to know

 

[veryape]

Reset the cmos and go from there. Take anything that is not needed to start up the computer out of it,i.e. sound card,modem,blahblah. Just leave the memory, hard drive, processor blahblahblah. See if it boots with minimal components and go from there.

 

[zodder]

When you power on your machine, make a note of the number and lengths of beeps you get. Most BIOS/mobo sites have a list of what the beep codes are. They are a form of diagnostics. Check with them to see what the problem is.

ie:

1 long + 3 short = A fault has been detected in memory above 64KB

Check BIOS Central. It seems to cover most BIOSes.

 

[Questi4110]

how do i reset the cmos...the jumper settings on the mobo?

i will try checking the beeps...thanks for that

THANKS

anymore comments?

 

[Bleep]

Questi4110

First you need to look at your motherboard manual as to resetting the CMOS. DO NOT reset the CMOS with the power supply plugged into the motherboard. Take out the RAM and boot the machine if the beeps are the same with the ram out it is a ram or ram slot problem.
Generally ram beeps are just a repeating single beep.
After reinstalling the RAM remove the Video card and reboot if the beeps are the same as with booting with it in you probably have a video card problem. Generally video fault are a single beep followed by some long beeps.
Do a search in tech support forum and this has been rehashed many many times this is the best place for help.
Bleep
edit! just went back and looked at you origonal post and found this

<< same beeps i heard when trying to put my 128 meg ram back into its slot >>

are you saying you plugged the memory in while the machine was turned on??