Lesson is learned and I'm not at all trying to rub salt in the wound but I've learned that lesson the hard way as well. You are not alone. I never update the BIOS anymore unless I am trying to address a specific issue. It's not worth the potential havoc.
Thanks, yuup, not even close to worth it. I was sitting there thinking "man I really want to try some games right now, but I really should update the BIOS... argh let's just get it out of the way" followed immediately by hours of desperate sadness. >_<
This kind of thing is seriously the norm for me though. PC hardware loathes me. Only the second dead mobo, but I've had no less than 10 incidents that stopped a new build or upgrade cold. and it's why I wanted it assembled by someone else this time around (considering I was getting it out of necessity). Fingers crossed it will give me an easy out.
Luckily, no. I think it helped that the water went in through the top, where the fan is, so the fan kinda sprayed a lot of the water around, preventing it from really hitting the mobo. But enough went straight down onto the GPU that it still killed it. Ah well. I managed to get a non-reference (and most likely non-mining, but I didn't ask and don't really care anyway) 290x for $300 off ebay and its working perfectly.
Yeah, BIOS updates still freak me out to this day. The first reboot after I do it can be pretty crazy for my emotions haha. Really just think you got unlucky, though.
Did the fan work?! I'm fascinated by the idea that water could touch a computer at all and not everything inside would immediately go kaput forever. You must have been so terrified
Funny thing is I've had that experience in the past of booting and being like "oh god come on please work new BIOS please work" but this time the process was so simple and the PC so brand new that I didn't think twice about it, just tra la la, hey UEFI sure is cool, wow that was easy, BIOS successful yay, ZOMG NO POST WHAT.
thanks for the emotional support you guys. was kind of losing it there I admit, I hate that feeling of "why the hell did I even do this." Gonna try to get it in before the end of business today and see what they say.
Have you tried pulling out the motherboard battery?
Other than what mkenyon suggested... Have you tried MSI's recovery instructions? (You'll need another computer/laptop though)
http://service.msicomputer.com/msi_user/support/TechFAQdetail.aspx?formid=3046
Oh, thanks so much for the suggestions you guys!
I pulled the battery out and reseated it (while looking for a CMOS jumper that apparently doesn't exist)- do you mean booting without the battery in?
I did try that recovery option, everything just stayed black. However, it's not really specific about some things... do you happen to know if the BIOS needs to be the ONLY file on the drive? What is the right video I/O to use to ensure something will show up on the screen if it's going to at all, VGA? Could be worth another shot.
