upgraded RAM... monitor and usb ports not working... any ideas?

i have a 2003 gateway media center, win xp, sp3. it had 1G RAM. i got two new 1G RAM pieces and installed them. also, the fan was impacted with dust, so i cleaned it with tweasers as best i could.

now the monitor does not come on, and it seems that the usb ports are also gone because the mouse uses a usb and i have plugged it into all of them and it does not flash a red light.

i am sure of these two problems because both the monitor and mouse work fine on my laptop.

the gateway was going slow, and sounded like it was straining all of the time. now that it has the higher ram and clean fan, it sounds great... but since i have no monitor, i can't see any messages.

any ideas?

thanks.

 

Can you boot to safe mode? If you can, do you have any issues at all while in safe mode (other than the obvious lack of internet access)?

 

What's your computer's product model? The ram you installed may not be compatable with your computer. (you can use tigerdirect.com's ram calculator... http://memoryselector.cnetchannel.com/tigerdirect/
to make sure its compatable)

 

I love it and agree, nowadays I always take digital photos as well.

If you don't have a decent manual displaying your motherboard please DL and install EVEREST Free Edition 2.20 and click on Summary and this will give you the motherboard name, google that and find the manual or post the name and we will find it.

Okay so you got 2 new RAM modules I hope you have installed them in DIMM_1 and DIMM_3 and installed the old module in DIMM_2, please refer to your manual. The reason for doing this is to ensure you have matching RAM modules that can go to Dual Channel and play nicely.

Your USB ports may be affected by the USB lead from your case working lose on your motherboard and may need to be re-seated back into place properly, please refer to your manual for motherboard USB socket.

Can you check at the rear of your case for the Video/Monitor is seated snuggly (but don't force it), it seems obvious that you have done this by testing on your laptop but please do again to humour me. You may also need to remove and reseat your Video Card to ensure it has not worked lose during the RAM install.

Post back with actions from above.