so i did the firmware update and it told me that it failed. after it says that it says its restarting but it keeps recycling back over and over...saying "starting up" then going to "system update started" and finally "system update failed"...anyone with any suggestions??

What happens when you remove the update CD? What is the boot sequence then? I wanna say that I've heard somewhere before that you will get that message sometimes but upon reboot without the CD in, it's fine. Also, have you tried to download and burn the update on a different CD or manually choosing a slower write speed? Don't forget that when you burn a CD, you can have the burning program test it to make sure it burned properly, though it takes longer, you will get a better burn.