MSI - please get out the software business

I spent a wonderful, hairy, preposterous 3 hours tonight.

Why? MSI's "LiveF***date".

I mean, FUpdate. Of course.

Scenario: Strange things are afoot with brand new hardware. Strange latency on screen updates in 3D games, odd pauses during web browsing and the occasional random 0x00000009c blue screen.

These things encouraged me to make sure all of the hardware drivers were up to date. So I visit MSI's website (who make the mainboard).

Much to my surprise certain files are only available via their "LiveUpdate" services.

And I use the word "services" losely.

I install the web version of the software, and it tells me there is a much more recent BIOS for the board. I nervously click the "Update" button thinking 'Hey, it's probably OK. You've updated the BIOS in Windows on lots of computers.'

After a looooonnnngggg wait, the "Winflash" utility spits out a "checksum verify failed!" and I am left 'holding the cursor' - as it were.

So I do what any slightly manic person would do at this point and try it again, and again. And again.

I'm fairly certain that if I reboot the machine at this point - it will fail to boot.

I was correct. And it did. Fail, that is.

Now, what I really should have done at this point was bust-out with a floppy drive ("G!") and plug it in to another computer (which has an identical board), make the DOS image, and flash the BIOS that way.

Instead I got all clever-like and booted the other computer, removed the CMOS and threw it in the broken machine. After that booted, I swapped the chips back and attempted to flash again. And again. And again.

My god, how stupid can one person get?!

In the end, I did what I should have done in the first place, and flashed via floppy.

MSI, please remove BIOS updates from LiveUpdate. Or, better yet, just get rid of LiveUpdate and let us get our drivers via good-ol-reliable ftp.

Oh, and those wierd problems? They went away. I'm guessing they may have been caused by a lose and dangling 12v + wire that was meant to panel the case front-panel light display.

Oy.