would a failed BIOS flash be covered under warranty?

I always operated on the assumption that it would.  Always keep my BIOS up to date while under warranty (12 Months) and forget about changing it after that.   Somethimes the rating of the BIOS update is urgent in that case it should be covered.   Will be intrested to see what other say.

Usually after 12 months the PC has been replaced by another model so usually no updates after 12 month anyway.

the rating for the upgrade on mine reads "optional" I should probably call dell and verify, I just do not have all night to be on the phone.

My mind is wandering again, :smileyvery-happy:and I am thinking.... if I want to upgrade this cpu to an 8400 in the future (maybe a few months from now) I should probably have the most up to date BIOS and what better time to try than while I still have a couple of weeks of warranty left. This is unless of course the 8400 would work with the current BIOS(I pray) then I would not have a reason to update BIOS.

As you can probably tell i am a little nervous about messing with the BIOS as I have never done this before.

Depends, according to what I've seen on the forum.  If it was something Dell told you to do and it failed, and you are still under warranty, it seems it was covered (they had a problem last year with a BIOS update for one model and it was corrupting the BIOS when they tried to upgrade and those that were in warranty Dell replaced). 

Otherwise, if it's out of warranty, from what I've seen you are "on your own" and if it fails you will have to buy a new board.

So basically I should get them on the telephone and make them think that it was their idea that I need a bios update and then I can just take it from there.

Thanks guys, any other thoughts are welcome.

Maybe not but I will surely try.