Dell Inspiron 3800 not booting.

[Bistro]

Hey, I have a Dell Inspiron 3800 (Yes it's old, brand new it came with Millenium). Anyway, I took out one of the ram chips to see the sticker to see what size it was incase I could upgrade with parts around the house. Anyway, didn't have anything bigger than what was already in it so I put it back in and also added a Lynksys wireless PCI card. Windows would not boot, came up with the option screen of safe mode/normal, etc. Then on either choice computer would reboot and repeat. Now the computer will not boot at all. I turn it on, and it does nothing and then just shuts down. Could the motherboard have been fried during this process?

[NooNoo]

Short answer... yes
You may have put the ram in backwards and forced it into the locks.

Alternatively, the linksys pci card can under certain circumstances prevent the machine from booting - have you removed it?

[Ferrit]

Or not all the way in and that shorted as well or
its just coincedental and the added pci card caused it.
As NooNoo said remove that card and try.
It may also be the power supply.

[Matridom]

This diagnostics works on all the newer systems, not sure if yours supports it; press the fn key + power. If you have a supported system, the keyboard lights (scroll/num/caps lock) should flash indicating the system failure or boot you into the built in diagnostics. I can't find any online reference, but i do know what they would indicate.. could you post the results if possible?