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First off I'm going to present my problem. I have a Compaq Presario V5000 laptop that is not even 2 years old and is hardly ever used. A few months ago, I was about to use it and I had managed to tip it forward accidentally before turning it on. Well, when I tried to turn it on I received the beep code series 1-3-4-3. I looked it up and had different answers to what the problem was. It either was a) Test 512K base memory. or b) RAM Failure on data bits xxxx of low byte of memory bus. I've googled these two things many times over and every website I have been to has said to replace the RAM. So, I went out and bought a brand new 1GB stick of RAM and placed it in my laptop. Of course, I had no luck. I still got the same beep code 1-3-4-3. I don't know what else to do except to think that the slots have gone bad? Any idea what else I can do to figure out what is going on with my laptop?

Hi Ambriosity - Welcome to PCHF!!

According to HP/Compaqs website this is a system ram or motherboard problem. You will most likely have to send it to a HP repair centre to get it looked at. You can try what HP suggest on the following link which is for desktops not laptops but unfortunately I think your motherboard is the problem will need to be replaced.

HP and Compaq Desktop PCs- Troubleshooting Motherboard Issues

I took apart the laptop and nothing seemed to be wrong so I put it all back together. Once it was together I turned it on and it's magically working again. It went straight into the BIOS and I had to set everything back to normal. I hope this doesn't happen again cause taking it apart wasn't just a piece of cake.

There must have been a loose connections or something. Well done on fixing it yourself - will mark as resolved.