[Koratah]

Alright, I have to admit I have no idea about the hardware for computers but god I'm completely boggled. There have been threads about this issue I'm having before, but I've struggled to understand them and I'd like some simpler explanations, if at all possible.

I have a desktop that is a Dell Inspiron 530 from 2008. It runs Windows Vista. Tonight, I attempted to turn this thing on--I hadn't in about a week, although it was working perfectly the last time I used it, it failed to turn on.
The tower turned on, I heard the fans going, but then I got a beep code. Four short, consecutive beeps. Pause. Four short beeps. Pause. on and on and on! I looked up what it meant and it said a cache error, but I honestly don't know what this means or how to go about fixing it.

In addition to the beep code, the monitor stayed blank. No lights, splash screen, dell or microsoft logo. it stayed on standby, its light stayed yellow and not green like it normally is when the computer goes on, and it stayed completely black. I'm boggled. Help?

(I've tried running diagnostics but I have no idea how to, since the screen won't show up. No amount of hitting F12 or F8 will work.)

[Elvandil]

Check all your connections. Remove and replace the RAM sticks to be sure they are well-seated. Make sure all cards are firmly in their slots.

[Dell-Kris]

Hi Koratah,
My name is Krishna and I work for the Social Media and Community Team at Dell. Based on your post, it looks like a RAM read/write failure. Try reseating the memory module and see if it helps. Also, swap the memory into a different slot on the system board and try installing a known good memory module into the various slots to pin-point either the module or system board slot causing the problem. Hope this helps.

Regards,
Dell-Kris K

[Koratah]

Thank you, the both of you! After fiddling around with both solutions and my lack of actual computer knowledge, I am now posting this from said computer. I'm surprised it really was that easy--thank you again. I'll mark this solved.