unknown issue but have idea

my mother has my dell Dimension 5150/E510. the other day she said it flashed something about memory then shut down never turning on again.

here is the thing i cant "trust" my mom when it comes to computers.

any ideas, i am picking the computer up later to look at it.

i am sincerely sorry about the lack of info but i have nothing else to go on.

TIA
matt

 

unplug then check cards
maybe bad memory card ? swap or or pull one at a time ,make sure whats left are even if more then one left , 1 gig with 1 gig 256 with 256 or what ever . or just use one at a time that is is large enough to run system .
hope it helps rt

 

There are several different interpretations of it 'never turning on again'. That might mean she hits the power button and *nothing* happens, or lights and sounds come on but the monitor remains off, or the monitor comes on but there's an error at the BIOS screens...etc. It sounds like you know enough about computers (and your mom!) to know it could be any of those situations and that you won't know until you get there. Unfortunately the same is true about this error mentioning memory. Perhaps the virtual memory was low, or there was a fault at a memory address, etc.

- If you are able to get the computer to boot to Windows (even in Safe Mode) then open Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Event Viewer, and look for any errors or warnings around the time this happened.
- If you're unable to boot to Windows but are seeing things on the monitor then make a copy of the Ultimate Boot CD, and run both a check on the Memory and Hard Drive(s).
- If the computer won't boot from a CD or is showing very little signs of life then your mom becomes a really important source of information. She may not have the computer vocabulary to enunciate what happened but she was a key witness so the more you can get out of her then the easier it'll be to troubleshoot.

 

If it won't boot to Windows and still powers up, you might be able to install an easy Linux distro on for her.
Linux Mint comes to mind. I used it for a short period as a trial, and seem to recall it being a lot like Windows.