DINNER 101: Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Wendy had rehearsal tonight, so I thought I would spend some time preparing for the upcoming hardware upgrade to my PVR by updating the BIOS on the motherboard (Shuttle AK38N v1.1) and re-configuring my Beyond TV channel setup. The BIOS is the Basic Input/Output System and is a built-in software that determines what a computer can do without accessing programs from a disk. On PCs, the BIOS contains all the code required to control the keyboard, display screen, disk drives, serial communications, and a number of miscellaneous functions.

Though it’s fairly nerve-wracking because you’re tinkering with the very core of the PVR, re-configuring the channels went smoothly thanks to Tuck and this knowledgebase article. I didn’t lose any shows or scheduled recordings.

Upgrading the BIOS went a bit less smoothly… I located the BIOS version I needed and installed it without errors. The BIOS Flash utility worked fine as did the installation of the brand-spanking-new version of the motherboard drivers, but then the system was very unreliable — hard-crashing randomly. As a result, we didn’t record our shows — AMERICAN IDOL, HOUSE, and others. Thanks to Tori for agreeing to burn those shows for us so we don’t miss them completely! Late at night I think I figured out the issue. I flashed the BIOS again and re-installed an older version of the motherboard drivers. Things seem to be working fine, but I am still walking around with my fingers crossed.

Dinner tonight was very simple… Just a Boca Burger. No cheese, no bread. Nothing alongside. Just. A. Boca. Burger. I’m sure I’ll be STARVING tomorrow!

The hardware upgrade that I mentioned above is going to take the CPU from an Athlon XP 2400+ and 512 megs of memory to an Athlon XP 3000+ and 1 gig of memory. This should improve performance in general, and with Hi-Def recordings in particular. After a lengthy online search, I ordered the hardware from Spartan Technology and hope to receive the order before the weekend.