Dell Inspiron 6400 not booting after memory upgrade

Here's a bizarre thing - I have two Dell Inspiron 6400. I decided to upgrade the memory in both of them from 512MB (2 x 256MB) to 2GB (2 x 1GB). Memory arrived, installed it in one of the laptops - worked fine. Did the other one exactly the same, turned it on and got a message along the lines of "amount of memory has changed, if you haven't changed it, reseat the memory". Uh? So, resat the new memory, turned laptop on, got same message. Being foolhardy, took out new memory and re-installed the old memory (2 x 256MB) and then turned on laptop, and now nothing apart from flashing caps locks and scroll lock LEDs. The num lock stays on all the time. After about 30 or so seconds, laptop just turns off. So what have I done, and what do I need to do to get this other laptop to work? Both laptops are exactly the same, one is used by me and wife, the other is used by the kids for their "home work". Fortunately, its the kids one that's broke! :-)

Any ideas anyone? Like "why did you buy Dell?"

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