The system is a Netvista A30 model 8315. It does not appear to have a system speaker connector on the motherboard (http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGR-42835.html) so I can not get any beep tones.
The CD light does flash (though the diskette light does not) so I tried to flash the BIOS by CD (http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MIGR-42952) but it does not load.
When I power on the system and CPU fans spin up, the CD lights flash, but nothing goes to the display. This machine has on board video but we don't seem to be getting far enough to output anything. As I said, no beep codes since no speaker.
The machine was working fine before the upgrade attempt, so it really can't be incompatible memory, etc.
I tried resetting the CMOS but no change. With no audio or visual clues I have no idea if that worked or not.
I followed
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/294233-28-computer-boot-upgrade to no avail.
I'm at a loss. Even if the new CPU wasn't supported I would expect going back to the old CPU to work OK. I can't see how a plug compatible but unsupported CPU could damage the motherboard.