dead or alive

The problem begins with run pelters and water cooling on a sh6 piii 850 sprung a leak in the water cooler and got the board wet.
Pelter got hot and burned up, but it still ran. (This used to be my primary system but then switched to t.b. 1.4 @1645. ) Anyway cleaned the mess up and packed it away until I could get another case, after making sure it all still worked.
Well the time has come to through it together and luck would have nothing no post nothing. Spent about two hours this morning cleaning the green gunk off and the old lime deposits off and wala it posted but wouldn't let me into the bios so kept fiddling with it clearing bios moving memory to different dimms.

Well got it into the bios but then it would lock up immediately at the setup screen for the chip. So powered down and cleared cmos and pulled the battery well left over lunch and powered it back up. Here's the problem I never put the battery back in, now it won't do anything no bios no nothing.

Is it dead? Did I lose the bios? I always though that the battery was there only to save the bios memory and that the base bios would only get corrupted, not loose it.

The whole system is laying out on top of the counter so being in the case (possibly getting grounded out on something is not a issue).

No, you did not lose the bios by removing the battery.

Haven't a clue why it won't post. Errors/issues that early in the boot process are a PITA to resolve.

Has it been doing this ever since it sprung a leak?

Yea, but it always been a pain in the @@@.

I believe its pronounced @$$

Well It will now boot every time but when it's put under heavy load it crashes immediatly and reboots.