Fried Motherboard?

[Artician]

A friend of mine just finished setting up his first PC, but ran into trouble shortly after powering it on. The configuration for this system was a P4 2.4, GeForce 6800 GT, and 350w Power Supply. We were assured the 350 power supply was enough to power this guy, but it after we powered it on it let out a continuous high-pitched scream until we cut the power from it. We figured that it wasn't supplying enough wattage for the system and confirmed this by removing the GeForce and trying again. It seemed to power on fine afterwards, but now we have our real issue:
We swapped in a newer, less-demanding card (GeForce 5200), to configure the system until we could get our hands on a better power supply, but the system does not display any video output at all when booted. The only conclusion I can make is that the motherboard was fried by the insufficient power supply the first time we booted up, but I'm not sure. What I'd like to know is simply if it's possible to ruin ones motherboard if you boot it with hardware that's not sufficiently powered.

Thanks in advance for any help, it's very much appreciated!

 

[Artician]

Works now. As it turns out, our one backup video card was a bad one (found on a random desk at our office). Luckily our second back up video card proved that we hadn't completely destroyed the PC in question.

Thanks for all the views.

 

[TheInvincibleMustard]

Stupid questions, but they needs be asked -- are you sure the video card is seated correctly? Cable secured? Monitor turned on? Any beeps from the onboard speaker? Are you sure the video card (the 5200) was working 100% before you put it in the problemsome system? You're obviously posting this message somehow, how about taking the PSU from the computer you're on right now and checking that one out?

 

[TheInvincibleMustard]

Fark!

You had to post that you got it working before I could respond, eh?