Bizzare situation with Dell Dimension 4500

Today a friend of mine bought some new memory for a Dell Dimension 4500. It was a KBYTE 1GB DDR2 533 Desktop Memory from Best Buy. So anyway he removed the old set and put in this one, then cranked it on. He said nothing happened, so then he unplugged everything and put back in the old memory modules. Afer cranking it back on, he said it didn't boot up and that he smelled smoke, and hear 2 beeps. He then called Dell and they said he had a fried motherboard. However, that doesn't make much sense in that if the motherboard were fried, then wouldn't the computer not even be able to make 2 beeps (The dell manual says that for 2 beeps, there is a problem with the memory) My guess is that he didn't reseat the memory properly or that he may have 'static-shocked' the old memory chips.

After he called me up, I suggested that he unplug everything, remove the CMOS battery and put it back in, then reinsert the old memory chips and then reboot. So far that hasn't worked. He says he can't boot into BIOS.

So what do you all think? Is it really a fried motherboard, or is it something else? What steps should he take from here?