Signs of a fried Atmega8 chip?

[Myrmidon]

Greetings all!

Could someone tell me what the key signs of a fried Atmega chip would be when trying to program it via avr isp mk2?

My story, using raphnet.net to make a snes usb pad, i soldered up the circuit last night, placed my programmed Atmega8 into my inline connector on my circuit. Plugged in USB plug and my laptop switched off! Tried again after fixing a small issue then windows doesn't recognise usb device then i notice smoke at the port, aaargh!

So i leave it till morning, verify my laptop usb port is fine then look over my circuit again and i discover my EXTREMELY rookie mistake, i haven't cut the connection between atmega pins on my circuit (using stripboard by the way) and the vcc line goes straight into the gnd on the other side, DOH!

I fix that, and try to reprogram the atmega, however, using the same setup to program it last night, i am getting all kinds of errors that programming can't take place, device signature doesn't match etc.

So,finally to my point, does this sound like a dead chip?

I ordered 2 more just in case but i was looking for some verification of the deadness of chip.

Many thanx.

[adafruit]

yup that would do it!
always have a few spares, they cost $3 and are pretty much disposable