The Story of a Computer: It had served for a while as our lab firewall, and doing that required significant...

The Story of a Computer:

It had served for a while as our lab firewall, and doing that required significant networking and not much else, so it had 2x512MB RAM. When my Linux box wouldn't let me into sudoers, I looked to this machine as my replacement, but balked at the lack of RAM.

I ordered some RAM, tried it, and got a beep code, which is computer for "You got the wrong RAM, idiot", and I left it on the bench for a while.

Specifically, until one of our half-time workers became a full-time worker, who needed a computer. I put Windows 7 on it, discovered that the motherboard battery had died, and discerned that this didn't behave very well on 1GB RAM.

I researched and ordered more RAM, being sure the item name on the page was "Memory for THIS DEVICE", and we got a new CR2032 for it, and when I came in today, I'm told it had freaked.

Yes, it had freaked. The screen was all goofy, but close enough I could see the tell-tale signs of Windows 7 on the screen. I yanked the power cable, cracked the case, popped the battery, then pulled both memory sticks.

Now, when I press the power button, I get nothing. Nothing. Once, when checking connections while plugged in, I got it whirring, but with no memory. I quickly unplugged and added memory, but get no sign of power or function with either the old or new RAM.

I hate hardware.

Any thoughts? I'm out of ideas.

Link