help with m1710 not booting - "no memory installed" led code

ok, guys, so this is the deal: last night a friend brought me a m1710 just to see what kind of ram it has and what could be done in sense of upgrading it. i've grounded myself just in case, we've unhooked the battery and the power supply and all that, then proceeded to unscrew and open the ram cover and to extract one module just to see what we're dealing with. he got an urgent phone call and had to run, so i reseated the module, closed the cover, he repositioned the battery and went away.
an hour later he's skyping me that the laptop won't boot. the code it gives (lock leds) - first on, second and third flashing. so, he finds out it's a "no memory installed" error. but the memory is installed. he reseated the modules, tried with one in (original, the one we didn't even touch at all) and one out, even with both of them out but the error remains and the laptop won't boot. does anyone have any idea what could be the problem? could the solution be in clearing the cmos or some kind of an fn-power-... keypres reset? could it be that the ram slots got fried someway? could the solution be in clearing the cmos or some kind of an fn-power-... keypres reset? i'm not even entirely sure that the code explanation that he got for his lock leds flashes is correct.

thanks in advance

ola! thanks for taking the time to read this and reply. unfortunately we've read about that and he's tried it, but to no result. the thing still doesn't boot with the same lock led code.

2×512MB, he had 1GB total installed. don't think there is a problem with the size of the modules, since they worked before we took one out and reseated it.
the problem is, i don't have any ddr2 notebooks home, so i can't test the modules. he's coming by tonight, so i'll try installing two ddr2 modules (also 512MB a piece) i have home from some friend's hp laptop i upgraded a year ago and see if it boots that. if not,

i'm gonna try the cmos clear procedure. just to make clear, there is no jumper for that, i have to remove the cmos bat?

about the bios update, i'm not sure it's possible. i believe you can't upgrade bios if you can't even "boot" into it (no splash screen, no screen at all), but i surely will try an outside boot disk just in case.

if there's another idea you guys might have, feel free to pitch it

thanks again for trying

i remembered something, btw. a long time ago, i had a friend's pc at home that had a pci slot itself partially "unplugged" from the mobo. could it be that we, when reseating the ram module, unplugged the ddr2 slot itself from the mobo? not all the way, of course, but enough to loose contact on a pin or something?
we didn't use almost any force, there is really no need for it when installing the modules, but maybe (excuse me for my english, not my native tongue) we made a "lever" of sorts when pushing the module down to "click" and unplugged the slot a bit. do you think something like that could be possible?

all done

my sys hdd raptor finally died that night too (thank god for imageing it on every prog/update install) so i couldn't post. got a sweet ssd system drive now and feel contemporary again

so the problem was solved. somehow (really weird) both of the ram modules in the laptop obviously got fried when i removed one of them for inspection (despite all precautions taken). i installed the ram from the hp laptop as i wrote in a post or two ago and everything is ok now. since the dell lappy is not mine and i don't have anything that'd take ddr2 sodimm i didn't test the ram modules in other combinations (one original, one mine in different slots etc).

everything i can say now is thanks for your time guys and that dell seems to know when it's ram isn't working. good to know.

btw. to future anyone that comes up with the idea of the slots themselves being unplugged on this laptop (like me), upon inspection, i don't think it's a viable possibility since i believe the construction and soldering prevent it from happening.

bb