how do you tell if a ram chip is dead?

The only way to really tell is replace the chip, if it boots that answers your question of whether or not it is bad.

by the way:

Had fingers in my eyes,
had needles in my veins
a knife right through my heart,
I am a victory.

You might also be able to detect a bad RAM chip by using a multimeter, which is described about three-fourths down this page.