Using a Dell XPS17 laptop for the last 3 years. It's been running pretty stable through all the versions of Cakewalk starting with Home studio xl and then though the X1a,b,c,d X2 version who knows at this point. Anyway, I thought that maybe if I bumped up my ram from 4Gb to the maximum of 16Gb some of my quirky issues might get resolved. I chatted with a Dell rep on their web site and the guy told me that my computer is capable of using 8Gb max. Ok, that's fine.

The next night I decided to call and purchase some ram from Dell. The lady says that my computer is capable of having 16 Gb installed. I thought wow, the guy last night told me 8 Gb was the max. She rechecked my computer specs and assured me that 16 will work fine. So I purchased two 8 Gb ram cards from them about $80 a piece. I finally got them and ran downstairs to get them babies in. Easy.....pop em in, rehook everything back up and turn it on. Black screen white letters saying blah blah Error and my computer is barking out a series of 5 beeps over and over...... ****, what's wrong? Did I not plug them in right? Disconnect everything and retrace my steps. Everything looks good, close it back up, rehook everything up, turn it on...... ****, same thing.

My thoughts went back to the lady was wrong, my computer will only take the 8 Gb of ram. So I call Dell, patiently on hold for 15 minutes I make my way through the channels and finally get a tech, we start the troubleshooting process of reinserting the chips, swapping them back and forth, only inserting one at a time to finally be told that my bios has been corrupted and I need to reinstall my operating system. He tells me to get my operating system disk out and let's reinstall windows. I said to the man.....they never gave me a windows disk with my computer, it came pre-installed. He told me he can send me the necessary disk for a mere $129. WTF!!!!!! I said, knowing I'm being bilked for more cash. This is getting expensive, why did I do this? I should of just let it be.

Now the kicker, I will lose all my programs, plug ins, drivers and need to start from scratch and rebuild my arsenal of goodies from the various web sites. Fortunately, I did a backup to an external drive on my cakewalk projects file before I did any of this. Norton also recently backed up but I'm not sure what that backup will contain.

So, I will wait for Fedex to deliver my disk so I can begin my rebuilding/recuperation process. This should be fun.

I feel for you.
 
Can you not reset the BIOS by taking out the battery on the MOBO for a couple of minutes.
 
I assume laptops have one of these, I don't know as I've never taken one apart.

I used to do a lot of support on the Dell forums.  16GB is the correct amount according to both Crucial Memory and the spec's in the Dell manual.
 
Resetting the BIOS does not mean you have to do a complete reinstall.  The beeps at the startup is the Power On Self Test and it has never gotten to the BIOS or to booting up the Operating System.
 
5 beeps, according to the Dell beep code chart I have is "RTC clock failure" and a possible cause is CMOS (BIOS) Battery failure.  There is a CR2032 coin cell CMOS battery on the motherboard.  With the unit powered off, remove the CR2032 battery (observe polarity so you can reinstall it correctly) for AT LEAST 10 minutes (Intel says 15 minutes).  If you have a volt meter measure the battery voltage (it should be at least 3VDC).  If the battery measures good, replace it and see what happens.   I would also reinstall the original memory, to start with.  Otherwise I would suspect something may have got "zapped" when you were into it to change/add memory and if that is the case the motherboard will have to be replaced.  Static Electricity is one culprit (I use a "grounding wrist strap" when I work on PC's), improper parts handling is another - only handle memory modules by their edges. 

  Still waiting for the "disk" from Dell...They called last night to check my status an i explained to this guy (who knew no details of my issue untill i gave him the incident #)what the problem is, He told me that I actually did not pay for a disk.... but I paid $129 for that technial support to get me through this issue I'm having. The original tech i was working with did mention an internal battery and through a series of swapping the memory chips to test the chips themselves for proper function determined that my operating system has been corrupted and needed to be reinstalled and it was not the internal battery.
  I made a point to ground myself out (by touching it) to my power conditioner before handeling the insides of my computer. I'm still awaiting the Fedex girl to deliver the package so i look at my laptop sitting upside down on my desk waiting to be tampered with some more. i'm depressed and worried that it can only get worse with the help of Dell.

I seriously doubt that the OS is corrupted.  A corrupted OS will not cause any diagnostic beeps when you first power on.  When you first power on it is only checking hardware for errors, it hasn't even got to the point of trying to load the OS.  It hasn't even got to the point of loading the BIOS, which it has to do first before accessing the hard drive to load Windows.
 
The reload the OS is standard with many tech supports.  Whether its needed or not they do that first and then mumble and stumble around after it doesn't help.  I've been in computer hardware and support since before PC's and managed a Network and hardware help desk for 23 years (until I retired).  I worked (users helping users) on the Dell forums for 10 years.     
 
 

Thanks Fireberd, would pulling out ram cards kill the internal battery?

It shouldn't, but anything is possible.  Did you check the battery as I suggested (assuming you have a voltmeter)?  If not, just get a new CR2032 battery (you can get them almost everywhere) and replace the existing battery and see what happens. 
 
As you were inside the PC, even just to swap memory, something else could have been inadvertently bumped touched or whatever that is causing the problem.  Sadly, if its something other than the CMOS battery I would suspect its going to take a motherboard replacement. 
 
Although you got the new memory from Dell, I've seen cases of them selling or sending incorrect memory.  Don't know if that is the case with yours.  On the Dell forums, all the techies on there recommend Crucial Memory, for non-Dell branded memory as Crucial guarantees their memory to work in Dell's. 

The new ram cards have identical numbers on them but the two 8Gb cards differ from each other in appearance, each card has 8 small black chips attached to them but they are noticeably different in size ( the black chips that is) I questioned that with them as we'll but he said that does not matter. The numbers do match. That's why he had me insert each chip one at a time and try to boot with only one chip at a time. Windows would not start in safe mode by pressing F2 upon start up.

FYI.... The ram is made by Corsair. That's what Dell sent.

Back to the original problem.  Are you still getting the 5 beeps when you power on the PC?