Enter The BIOS, Part 2

Woke up way too early this morning so I thought I would see if I could sort out some of the problems with my new toy (Zotac ZBOX).

Figured out a few things about getting into the BIOS:

• Does not have to be a cold boot.
• Press the Del key immediately after power on. Do NOT wait for the Zotac splash screen. You have about three seconds after you turn on the power and splash screen comes up.
• Wireless keyboard works fine. I bought a wired USB keyboard just to see if that would make a difference. It did not.
• Only the left hand, front panel USB socket works with the BIOS. Either front panel USB socket works with the OS. Matter of fact, I had both keyboards plugged in at once and I could use either one.

The power on push-button can also be used to turn it off. Press and hold for about five seconds and it will shut the machine off. Reminds me of the run-away car tragedy in Southern California back in 2009. Guy couldn't figure out how to turn off the engine in his rented Lexus.

Now we can look at the HDMI problem. Enter the BIOS and look around and find . . . nothing at all about audio or video. I issue reports of my findings to Zotac and Nvidia technical support. I will have to wait and see what they have to say.

Next I try Netflix. I can get to their website and get logged in, but I can't watch anything. You can't play Netflix on Linux. I poke around a little more, and I see something about how you can use Google's Chrome to watch video from Netflix. I download and install Chrome, and now I need Netflix's special plug-in module, but it's still no go. I finally realize that the Chrome / Netflix combination only works on a Chrome Netbook or some-such. Fortunately I still have my Roku.

I am beginning to think I need a panel to hold all the remote controls for this collection of gizmos. At least I'm not paying the $100 a month to the cable company any more.