I'm in Northern California.
So the problem I'm having is the BIOS counts up to 24192 KB (correct) then indefinitely hangs at "WAIT...." with the cursor flashing below. Ctrl-Alt-Delete does nothing.
There are three other anomalous symptoms that have coincided:
1) When testing memory, there is no longer the usual ticking sound accompanying the count. Speaker is properly connected.
2) The BIOS no longer displays "Hit DEL to run setup" while testing the memory.
3) Hitting delete anyway asks for a password. The BIOS has never asked for a password before. Per the manual, I tried the defaults: pressing enter and "AMI" or "ami".
There is no clear CMOS jumper on this board. Battery is not connected. I've also tried moving around the memory, installing less, etc. I asked on VCFed, and several user suggested it might not work without a battery (although it has before) and that it could also be a problem with the L2 cache.
I'm going to try both of those and will report back. If anyone has other suggestions, I'm happy to give them a try. It's sounding like it's not a problem with the BIOS after all.