Possibly dead chaintech mystery board

Friend gave me and old machine that he doesn't remember what went wrong other than it doesn't boot. All I could discover about the board is that it has a jumper labeled 1-2 chaintech, 2-3 oem and it's an nforce2 chipset so I did some googleing and I believe it's an oem Chaintech 7NJS of some variety.
Here lies the problem:
It does nothing other than fans run.
tried new RAM, HD, PS, Video, etc to no evail.
Put the RAM from this board in another board and with all 3 sticks it shuts down immediately so I believe the RAM is shot.
So I'm guessing that the board is fried and it fried the RAM also.
Not sure about the Athlon XP 2600+, don't have a board to test it in.
I've got RAM, HD, Video, etc and found an ASROCK refurb board for $25 bucks but I'm not really willing to invest in a CPU.
Does my assessment sound correct and what are the chances the CPU survived?
Thought this would be a nice starter machine for my nephew.
Any suggestions, input or advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

I would test the power supply on another system first. You can't test the ram or cpu without a new board, so it could be either or both. You'll just have to gamble $25. I would also check your local craigslist for combo deals.

Hard to say. I've found combo deals on craigslist as low as $30 for the cpu, motherboard, and ram. Then you'll know all 3 work together. If your board is socket 462, 3b tech has 2 models for $17.99 with free shipping. I've done business with them before. For cpus, check pricewatch or starmicro.