3 Long Beeps - Ram?

Doesnt make any sense. There was 2 sticks in this system. Pull out one stick of ram and replaced it with another. Pressed the power button, no beeps but nothing on the monitor. Pulled that stick back out and put back the original one. Pulled the second stick and replaced it with another, now as soon as you hit the power button, it instantly gives off 3 long beeps and thats it, nothing on the monitor

i have 5 sticks of ram sitting here, 3 of them i know 100% work, and no matter what dimm slot i stick it in (three total) or what order they go in, nothing. Just 3 long beeps and fans spinning

I cant see any damaged parts on the mobo, capacitors etc....argh

the agp video card was slighty hit, this wouldnt be a video card problem would it?

ideas?

 

I doubt if this would be the video card. That is usually one long beep, usually.

I think maybe if you put the two back into the machine that were in it when it was working, and then reset the CMOS you might boot back up.

 

is resetting the cmos a standard procedure across all motherboards? I did it awhile ago, I think it involved pulling the battery and moving a jumper around for a set number of seconds. I will google the steps

 

It should be about the same. Usually you will find three pins next to the battery. You would move the jumper from left to right and then back again.

 

well no idea if I did the reset properly, but it did abolsulty nothing

I pulled all ide drives, pulled all PCI devices, still nothing!

if I have to sit there and listen to those 3 beeps any longer I think i will kill myself. what pisses me off the most is that it just doesnt make any sense what the hell is happening