problem with bios update - no boot & long continuous beep

I think I killed my 70 year old mom's 2-year old Dell Inspiron 531s. Before I go crawling back to apologize and tell her she needs to buy a new one (guilty as I feel I can't afford to get it for her right now) I wanted to see if anyone had any suggestions.

It all started after she lost her internet connection. She had just done some  updates (Windows Vista Home - auto updates). Hardware all checked out ok so I updated drivers, firmware hoping that would do it. I also installed some other urgent and recommended updates from the Dell. As my last (perhaps foolish) act, I tried to update her to the latest bios. Never made it through the process. Computer would not shut down and restart. I waited about 10 minutes then manually shut it down. Now  it won't boot. Power light comes on (solid blue), screen is blank, and computer makes one continuous beep. Does anyone know if this is a bios code? If so, what does it mean?  I tried a few suggestions I found in the forum - taking out the CMOS battery and clearing the CMOS settings (jumper reset). No change. One continuous beep. Is there any other method for bios recovery? Does the motherboard need to be replaced (something I don't want to mess with)? Or...do I go tell mom she can't play on Facebook for a week and needs to shell out some $$?