compaq armada 7800 laptopboot problem

Hi,
I was given an old armada laptop, P2 200 Mhz, with 32 megs on-board
memory, win98se and it was working fine, although s l o w l y. So, i
bought a 32
meg sodimm at a computer show last week for $5 (PC100) and put it in, and
viola! now I have 64 megs and all's well. In the
meantime I had ordered a 64 meg sodimm, PC100, from ebay ,and I waited for
that to arrive before my next step, upgrading to ME. Yesterday, the 64Meg
Arrived. I installed it, and the laptop hasn't run properly since. I think
it is just a co-incidence, and not related to that sodimm. Here is what it
does:
When you go to start it, it partially boots, and then shuts down, and tries
to boot again, and shuts down and restarts again. It does this endlessly
sometimes reaching the desktop and allowing me a minute or two of control,
but then it restarts. I am unable to "turn it off" because when power is
applied it enters this looping routine. This happens if I am on AC with the
battery in, or out, and when it is running only on the battery.
I have removed, and then reinstalled in all combination, the sodimms to see
it that changed the behaviour of the laptop, but it doesn't.
The abberation is the same regarless of the memory configuration, and is the
same with no sodimms installed. The manual says the laptop supports up to
128 Mb of sodimms in any combination where none exceed 64 Mb, so a 32 and a
64 is an ok combo. System max is the onboard 32, plus 64, plus 64. The
bios saw both of my sodimms and registered them properly.
Any ideas on what may be causing this would be much appriciated.
Also, I pulled the hard drive and set it up in a usb external case, and it
works
fine, so it's not the hard drive. It also makes a click just after
it reboots, but I don't know what is causing the click.
The clciking is coming from inside the case above the keyboard.
Thanks,
Mike