compaq boot

[mooo]

I have been reading about a laptop of mine and was wondering if this could be the problem.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1617601,00.asp

it says the DRAM is messed up and you have to send them the old and they send you a new one. But they do not tell you what would happen if the ram has gone bad alrady. You can get a testing utility BUT i can't get into windows to use it.
As of right now I am looking at the red compaq logo from boot and it doesn't go anywhere from there. Could this be a "symptom" of what would happen if the DRAM has gone bad?

 

[VenomXt]

hey mooo go and google memtest 86 and run it from boot. its a long test but if the ram is fuclked then it will tell you .

 

[mooo]

It doesn't do anything from boot. The compaq design as i understand is that it boots with bios under this logo. On another laptop I have used on the same screen it says "press f10 to go to setting" or something of that nature. BUT this one doesn't even show that. I will to put a bootable floppy in it but i don't even think that will work at this point.. put a fork in this one, its done