I have built my own computers for years. I have upgraded motherboards, CPUs, video cards, and everything else in a case, many times. Today, I needed to update the BIOS on my computer’s motherboard — something I have done many times before without difficulty.
But today, there was a difficulty. That is to say, it tanked. After the BIOS was flashed, it said “press F1 to continue.” I pressed F1. Black screen… black screen… nothing happened. A sinking feeling in my stomach set in as I realized that the software that makes the computer’s spine (motherboard) work was broken. I hit reset — hoping that just maybe the program just froze up. Nothing. Black screen. They always say that flashing a BIOS constitutes a “risk.” But this is the first time I have ever seen it actually fail.
Part of the costs of living on a small island like Kauai is that you can’t always drive to a store to get something you need. I called up the only computer parts store on the island that is likely to carry a selection of motherboards and asked: “do you have any Nforce2 chipset boards with RAID?” Their response made it obvious that they didn’t know what I was talking about. So I have put in an order with NewEgg for a new motherboard and it will probably take four or five days to get here.
So for now, I am stuck with my laptop. At least I can still check email, fill orders for SwordSearcher, and update my blog.