If it Ain't Broke, Destroy It

WARNING: The following post contains some technical language. I will attempt to clarify the terms you don't understand in that down-to-earth folksy manner for which I became famous on The Andy Griffith Show. Please try to make sense of this. I believe in you.

SECOND WARNING: The following post is long. Clear your afternoon.

My computer's been working quite well since I, you know, completely reformatted the hard drive, reinstalled the operating system, and tracked down the registration key of every program I'd ever stolen. (Just go to Google, type '"program name" "registration key"' or "serial number" or whatever the program calls for, and then go to like page 10. Works every time.)

Part of the process is updating everything. Take my sound card, for example, which, unless I'm mistaken, I first purchased in 2000. That was the year I first built my computer (we'll call it Mark I), and then I did it again in 2002 (let's go with Mark II) using many of the same parts along with some new ones. So, all my hardware is kind of old, and all of the drivers have to be updated when I do something drastic like reformat my harddrive and reinstall my operating system.

And if you don't update everything, if some little thing slips through the cracks, then that video game you play too much won't work, and you'll write an angry email to customer support, and they'll come back at you with "hmm, your sound card drivers are five years out of date, MORON." They won't say it that way, but they'll be thinking it.

That's how I discovered that I needed to update the firmware on my Linksys Wireless Access Point Router, something that had never even crossed my mind. This was a relatively easy and educational process, and it got me thinking: "what the hell is firmware, anyway?" (As a person with a degree in computer science, I often get cajoled for not actually knowing how or why computers work.) As I suspected, it's just software embedded in hardware. Wikipedia points out that the BIOS on your motherboard is a kind of firmware, which makes perfect sense.

Which reminded me, I had in fact never updated my motherboard's BIOS in the three years I'd owned the thing. That couldn't be good! Imagine the function and usability I'd been missing out on. So I began to research just how to update the motherboard's BIOS.

First I had to figure out what my motherboard was. No, no, I know what a motherboard is -- I mean I had forgotten the brand and stuff. I was pretty sure Mark I had an A-Open brand motherboard, and Mark II was Asus, but all I have lying around is the A-Open installation disks, so there's no telling. I quick reboot showed that I have an Asus A7M266-D, and sure enough, the BIOS was at least four revisions out of date. Unacceptable!

A quick note on this motherboard: it was expensive. This was during the year when I got my first job, a year that included a string of extravagant purchases, including a certain spider-infested television, and even I didn't think I should buy this motherboard. The "D" stands for "Dual," as in "Dual Processors," as in my computer has two processors (why get one when you can get two for twice the price?). Those are 1.3 GhZ processors, which isn't too impressive by 2005 standards, but man, back then it was fast.

So there I am researching just how to update the bios, and I keep coming across the same phrase: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Sensible, if hackneyed, advice, and certainly a lesson my computer has taught me again and again over the years. (How many times has your dorky friend insisted on "fixing" your computer, and then you turn around the next day and the thing crashes and won't start up again? Because I now have a policy of not even letting my dorky friends web-browse on my machine. Dorky friends are like computer kryptonite.)

Anyway, with an expensive motherboard BIOS, this advice probably goes double. If you didn't know, the motherboard is the "spine" of the computer -- everything is plugged into it. (The hard drive is the brain, the processor is the heart, and the power supply is, I don't know...something food-related? Not the intestines though. I digress.) So the motherboard is essential, and it depends on its BIOS to know what it's supposed to do. Without the BIOS, or with a damaged BIOS, your motherboard becomes a big worthless lump of nothing. That...would be bad.

Now consider that the process of updating your motherboard's BIOS naturally means erasing the current BIOS -- the one that you know works -- and replacing it with the newer one, the one you've never used before, the one you're taking it on faith from the kind people at Asus that it isn't damaged even though they don't speak English particularly well. I'm pretty sure that Asus is not a Japanese company, but a company run by the 1940s Japanese stereotypes we see in old Superman cartoons. Do me a favor and read any of the warnings on this Asus page that ostensibly tells you how to update your BIOS. Specifically look at the warning next to the drawing of the creature with giant closed eyes and buck-teeth wearing overalls and a tie. Please look at that.

Right, and also keep in mind that those are the instructions I was following.

I know this post is getting long, but I want you to fully comprehend how stupid I am. I was well aware that updating the motherboard's BIOS had no tangible benefit; extreme potential for disaster; and directions that were clearly false or incomplete. I knew they were false or incomplete, because the first instructions didn't work -- I had to go to other sites written by native English speakers for tips. Sites that repeated the mantra, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." That, my friends, is how stupid I am.

So I followed the instructions to the letter. I booted in DOS; I loaded the Asus utility; I saved a copy of my old BIOS (a lot of good that would do if I screwed this up); and I loaded the new one. The next instruction had been "follow the onscreen instructions," so I was relieved that there were, in fact, onscreen instructions. Less relieved, though, to see that they were also written in Japanese stereotype English. "We recommend powering down..." That's all I remember. The rest of it was nonsense, so I'd have to play it by ear. I powered down.

I turned on the computer again. The fans started running. I waited for the new BIOS to load up...but the screen was blank. "BEEP...BEEP...BEEP...BEEP..." I broke out in a cold sweat. I had done it. I had destroyed my motherboard for absolutely no reason. So, so stupid.

I vaguely remembered that motherboard beeps are supposed to indicate various fixable problems. So I went to Julia's computer, which I never touch and which is thus working just fine, and checked the manual online. For this pattern of beeps, it advised that there was a problem with the memory -- that maybe the memory wasn't "seated" properly on the motherboard. Of course, I hadn't actually touched the inside of the computer yet, so that clearly wasn't the problem. I removed and reinserted the memory anyway. No go.

Panic setting in. My shirt is now entirely unbuttoned, and I'm still feeling very hot. (Yes, I wear button-down shirts sometimes. Don't dress for your job, dress for the job you want, right? I usually wear a robe.) I look around online for troubleshooting tips. What I find is people writing into tech support with a similar problem; tech support asks some obvious follow-up questions; and the person who wrote in never responds. No help.

Then, somewhere in the back of my brain, panic triggers a memory -- nay, a vision. Somewhere on my motherboard, there are three tiny, tiny pins, maybe a couple of millimeters in length, lined up in a row very close together. Two of the pins have a removable plastic cover on them. What did it mean? Was it a genuine memory? Was there really something like that on my motherboard?

Naturally I couldn't find my flashlight, which makes finding teensy pins inside a box with only an overhead light very difficult. I moved aside some cables, and there they were, south of the memory cards, west of the hard drives. Three teensy pins, plastic piece on the left two. What did it mean?

In the vision, I had removed the plastic piece; put it on the right two pins; removed it again, and put it back on the left two pieces. I tried that. I want to impress upon you how difficult this was, as the piece of plastic and the pins were so small and packed into such a small crowded space, and it's so dark in there and my fingers are comaratively huge...but no luck Still with the beeping. This was clearly madness.

I went back to the online manual. The three teensy pins had something to do with jumpers. Consciously, I had a tenuous grasp of the manual's meaning -- I'm pretty sure that, in one position, something physically on the motherboard decides how fast the processors are, and in the other position, the BIOS decides the processors' speeds -- probably something unrelated to memory, which seemed to be the problem I was having. Subconsciously, I felt there was a connection.

I went back to the computer and moved the little plastic piece again, this time leaving it on the right two pins. I start the machine up. No beeps -- rejoice! I win, machine! But the monitor is black. Panic again. Oh wait, the cable just came out because I had to move the computer around. Rejoicing again! The emotional rollercoaster continues.

Yes, in a way, everything worked out in the end. Here I am, blogging and listening to internet radio. Something is working. But why does updating my BIOS mean that I have to move a teensy piece of plastic from the left two pins to the right two pins? Why on earth should that have worked? Why did I think to try it? And, is my computer just giving me a last few days to say my goodbyes before it kills itself? If so...I'm sorry computer, for whatever it was I did to you. I hope you'll understand when I use your insides to make Mark III.

EPILOGUE
Yes, this post was exactly that long. So what have we learned? Don't update your BIOS, kids. It's stupid. I gained nothing -- my computer works just like it did before -- except I have a nagging feeling that there's something very, very wrong with having that piece of plastic on the right two pins. Something horribly, disgustingly wrong. This has been my story, Internet.