Thanks to all the gentle people who kindly offer advice to those who are ignorant as I am. I am interested in hearing from anyone who has any other ideas besides the "take out the battery and completely discharge the CMOS by holding the power switch for 50 seconds, then put in your old RAM, plug in w/out a battery, and pray to the Motherboard" one below.

My other question is, have I likely blown up the new RAM by not removing said "dead" battery?

I have a 4-year old tablet laptop that was serving me well except that I needed more RAM to run Creative Suite 3. (Which of course I didn't realize when someone going out of business gave me their copy. Why the program even lets you install without the right RAM is another question for another day...)

I know how RAM installation works, and, as it happened, the machine had a totally dead battery (i.e., when it was unplugged there was no indicator light about the battery) so of course you know what's coming-- I did not even think about taking the battery out, and now when I try to boot up, I get nothing.

I saw some posts on other boards that suggest that you take out the battery and completely discharge the CMOS by holding the power switch for 50 seconds, then put in your old RAM, plug in w/out a battery, and pray to the Motherboard.

Since I am now reduced to using the net at the library, I am going to go back home and try this. Hopefully I will be back to you with a good result.

Thanks to all