Hello everyone, I have searched for a long time to find a solution to this problem but have yet to have any luck.
I have a Dell Dimension 8200 which I have had since about 2001. 6 months ago, I went to go boot up my computer, when I pressed the power button the Bios beeped. I shut the computer down and tried again, the same beeping had occurred. After trying 7 or so more times, it finally booted up. Once the computer boots up, everything runs fine and like it should. This last week however, it has not been able to boot-up.

The Bios beeping code reads 5-2-2-1 which I found translates to "unsupported or mismatched memory". The diagnostic lights on the back of the computer reads a-orange, b-orange, c-green, d-green which I found translates to "memory failed to be sized or enabled"...While the Bios is beeping, my computers fan kicks on full blast and will not stop until I turn the computer off.

I have tried blowing out the memory slots to free any dust that may be causing this; I have also pulled the Bios battery for 20 minutes to reset the Bios. I have also tried a different hard drive and a different power supply. All of my ideas have resulted in failure.

I have not upgraded or done anything with my memory/RAM. The only thing I have done to the computer is installed a Radeon graphics card and Antec power supply in 2004. I have had no problems prior to the bios beeping which like I said, started about 6 months ago. I have run out of ideas on how to fix this. Any suggestions/help would greatly be appreciated.
Thank You

#1 The power supply you added, does it meet the wattage requirements of your computer specifications. (You probably need a 450-500 watt supply).

#2 My first guess is your ram is bad, my second guess is your board is bad. Usually if there is a problem with RAM you'll know the moment or within a week of having used it, ram doesn't usually just go bad. Your board however can go bad at a moments notice due to lightning, static, and other things.

How much ram does your computer have? What type of ram is it? Have you tried just 1 stick of ram in 1 slot only (and tried this with both sticks to check if 1 stick was perhaps the problem?).

The thing that makes me think the board is not bad, is the fact that you did get it running a few times (which probably would not have happened if the board were shot).

Do you know which model 8200 you have? There are 2 different models, a 400mghz bus and 533 bus model.

* Maximum Memory: 2048MB
* Slots: 4 (2 banks of 2)
* Standard Memory: 128MB removable
* Installed in pairs of modules.

PS: In case you didn't know when you install the ram they need to be matching.

Imagine the ram slots in your pc look like this. || || (thats all 4 slots) from left to right number them 1,2,3,4 (and if you notice the space between seperates the 4 slots into 2 groups.

The ram needs to be in slot 1 and slot 3 so like this *| *| (* being ram loaded) each group needs to be matching the other group. Can you confirm this?

This post has been edited by AitrusSkyy: Oct 7 2008, 09:31 AM

Testing your memory is the first thing that you should do. Download memtest86 from the link in my list below, follow the instructions and create a bootable CD. Boot with the disk and run it for about an hour. No error should be found.

It can also be the video card memory. If you have your old video card try to replace the new one with the old. If you don't have the old one but you have a video connection built into the motherboard take the new video card out, connect to the built-in video and see what happens.