Having trouble with Del XPS 420 upgrades.

[britchaz]

Hi guys,

First time post here, and doing so from my iPhone. I'm having trouble with an upgrade I'm making to my XPS 420. I bought a PC Power and Cooling 750watt PSU, 8 gb (4x2gb) ddr2 800 6400mhz Crucial Ballistix RAM, and an MSI NVIDIA GTX 260 Twin Frozr. I get get a beep code when I have them all in the tower together. It's a 1-3-2 beep code which usually means RAM. I replaced the Crucial RAM with the original stock 3gb RAM. Still a beep code. Took the GTX 260 out and replaced it with an HD 2400 pro. Now I don't get a beep code, but I still get no screen. I took out the CMOS battery and put it back in and still nothing. Any ideas guys? I really need to get this thing up and running as soon as possible!!

 

[o1die]

Dell stuff isn't designed for upgrading. Same for other oem brands. You're practically building your own already, and your dell copy of windows won't work with a non dell board. If your new ram doesn't work with the dell board, you might want to get a non dell board, and another copy of windows. Or simply return the ram and pay a restocking fee. Crucial.com guarantees it's ram to work if you use their configurator and order from their website. You pay a little more but I don't think you have to pay any restocking fees. I buy at frys; they never charge a fee to return ram within 15 days.

 

[britchaz]

Dell stuff isn't designed for upgrading. Same for other oem brands. You're practically building your own already, and your dell copy of windows won't work with a non dell board. If your new ram doesn't work with the dell board, you might want to get a non dell board, and another copy of windows. Or simply return the ram and pay a restocking fee. Crucial.com guarantees it's ram to work if you use their configurator and order from their website. You pay a little more but I don't think you have to pay any restocking fees. I buy at frys; they never charge a fee to return ram within 15 days.

What I don't get is that other people here have upgraded their xps 420's. I said in the original post that I put the stock ram back in, so it wasn't the ram obviously. And it's not the OS because I have Windows 7 Ultimate which I purchased. Plus it wouldn't matter about the OS anyways because it doesn't even get to any screen. I can't even enter the BIOS. I checked crucial's website before buying to see if the ram was compatible and it was.

 

[o1die]

Then you may be screwed. Can't determine if one of the ram sticks or one of the board ram slots is bad. You'll have to do some more troubleshooting on your own and decide if you want to change motherboards. Good luck.

 

[britchaz]

Best answer selected by Britchaz.