Other than that BIOS battery trick, I would have said to make sure to drain whatever capacitance was left in the mobo by unplugging the power then depressing the power switch for a few seconds. I've fixed a few odd issues that way (some of which BIOS updates did address what caused the problems).

As for the RAM not working, is it exactly the same as the first set? If not, what are the differences (speed, timings, size, brand, etc.)? Also, have you tried putting in JUST the new RAM, to see if it is a conflict between the mix of old and new RAM (rather than an incompatibility between the new RAM and your mobo, or just bad RAM).

If you can get it to boot in any way with the new RAM, you can boot off of a Linux Live CD (such as my preference, Lubuntu) and test your RAM with memtest (it is in the CD's boot menu, if you have UEFI disabled). Once that runs for a while, it should let you know if it finds any errors, which would indicate bad RAM.