the 3000 has a cpu on the motherboard it is a 68030 with a 68882 math chip.
the only way the cpu slot would keep the system from running is if you had the jumpers set wrong on the motherboard. jumpers for cpu clock and other things need to be set.
here is a link to a site the has tons of info. if you click on models and then on a3000 there is a page that has info on the 3000 including jumper settings.
