I recently had a problem with my hard drive not working.....while trying to fix that I think I wrecked my computer. My computer now will not boot up.....I disconnected everything and when trying to boot up, it would be constantly. I found out that the memory was wrecked (I think I might have hit it with the hard drive when i tried to move it.) I tried some memory of my roommates, and the beeping stopped. However, it still doesn't boot up. I have tried a different video card and a different power supply. Any suggestions? I have a Abit KT7A motherboard with a AMD Athlon 1 ghz processor with Windows 2000.

beeping generally means that it's getting part of the way thru the POST but not far enough to get anything on the screen.
you should have nothing connected except a known good video card, using your roommate's RAM is good, reseating the CPU and power may be needed too.

short of getting something on the screen, beeping is good. some mobos beep a number of times depending on the problem, but i don't know if this is one of them.

The beeb he was getting means the ram is bad we put in different ram and got no output at all. Then he reset the CMOS and with works fine with different memory. Maybe the bad memory messed up something ?

I reset the computer using this trick here However, now it reboots at 500 mhz and not 1 ghz. whenever I try to change it in the BIOS to 1 ghz in won't start and then I have to reset the CMOS jumper again.... It came up with an error saying "PRIMARY IDE CHANNEL NO 80 CONDUCTOR CABLE INSTALLED" and "CPU IS UNWORKABLE OR HAS BEEN CHANGED". i changed the ide cable around so that error doesn't come up. Then I changed the CPU in the BIOS back to 1 ghz and it still doesn't load. any suggestions?

PRIMARY IDE CHANNEL NO 80 CONDUCTOR CABLE INSTALLED

This is not an error message and is unrelated to the other problems you were having. It merely means that your IDE controller supports fast data transfer, but only if you use an 80-conductor cable. The motherboard can tell that you've only got a 40-conductor cable plugged in, and it's telling you that you might want to upgrade. If you use a new-ish disk drive, then you're probably not getting the best performance out of it and should consider buying some new IDE cables.

Of course, new IDE cables aren't going to do you any good until you sort out your RAM and CPU problems.

could it be that the RAM I am using is not the right kind? or would it make a difference if one is 133 mhz and one 100 mhz? I know my original one was 133 mhz, but I am not sure about the other one.....

I would say that RAM speed would be it. Although it's unusual that it doesn't POST at all. Try some fresh PC133 and see if it POSTs. You would need all ram to be 133MHz otherwise it will either give problems or run at the slowest rate.

can RAM go bad just by bumping it? is there other ways to tell if went bad? I don't see any physical damage (although that doesn't mean anything.) Also, dumb question....what does POST stand for?

POST
power-on self-test

It depends on how hard your "bump" was and if you had any static charge. If you hit it particularly hard then you might have damaged a trace on the PCB or one of the chip leads. If you were wearing a wool sweater and zapped the RAM then that also would have killed it. *shrug*

Does the RAM still work in your roommates computer? Put it back in to his/her's computer and run memtest86 on it.

The bad thing is he got the memory from a computer of his that is taken apart and I don't think all the parts are there......I will have to find out if it is under warranty (but I think it is generic so I doubt it.) I got it from a place called Microbarn (i know....any place called Microbarn can't be a good idea...)

how can I tell (other than the obvious ways) who the manufacturer of the memory is? the only thing i see that might identify the manufacturer are two greek letters across the bottom...does anyone know who makes that?

Did you, perchance, bump or loosen the heatsink? It sounds like your CPU could be heating up, causing the computer to end up in the weeds when you're booting. That could explain the rather random behavior you seem to be describing, and why it seems to work at 500MHz but not 1GHz.

Just a thought.

I never touched it at all

Ram's almost impossible to tell who the manufacturer is. Sometimes a place such as Crucial will have a sticker on it with their name, but usually there ie nothing. Not even looking at the chips will tell you, many companys such as Samsung sell chips to even more companys to use.

RAM is simple - if it works, it's good, if not it's not, or at least not compatable. PC100 and PC133 is a big difference. Most 133 is backward compatable to 100, but not all. It usually just doesn't show up as being installed at all, but it's possible it would cause this type of problem instead. PC100 won't handle the PC133 speeds either.

I think you need to decide which stick(s) of RAM work, and at what speed. Then just get more. Even the ones that don't work may not be faulty, just not correct for the application.

Also - beep codes can generally be deciphered. You probably have an Award or Phoenix BIOS, perhaps another. A google search with your codes - track the number of long and short beeps, should tell you why the board is hanging up. However, NO beeps usually has to do with the CPU. Either it's dead, or maybe the motherboard requires a fan to be plugged in to cool it (the CPU), and one is not.

ok...I replaced the memory with PC 133 256mb thinking that it would remedy the problem, but it hasn't. AND it seems that I have the latest BIOS update as well...any other ideas?

it turns out my computer is running at 1 ghz...however, the bios thinks it is running at 500mhz....I tried updating the BIOS last night and I think I did it right....so supposedly the only thing wrong with my computer theoreticaly would be that i have to press f1 to start it every single time I reboot and I can never change anything in the BIOS ever again.....i think I need a new computer