Re: MB won't even attempt POST

You cleared the CMOS when you pulled the battery out. Not all no post motherboards come from bad caps. I've seen boards that boot from one CPU and won't boot from others of the same family IE P3 but with either 66/100/133 FSB even though the bios supports all 3 and the jumpers are set correctly. Bad CPU sockets can cause similar problems. If you want to get into M/B repair even part-time you'll need a few things.

1 power supply tester ( and not the cheapos, you want one with decent load resistors so you can run the PSU for a bit to test)...