BIOS freezing in ME

[nikerw]

Allright, my friend was having trouble with her computer freezing and requested my help in fixing it. (system specs at bottom) Of course I have some background in troubleshooting computers, and have even built a couple, but this one is kinda throwin me for a loop. Here is what I have done so far.

1. Cleaned up the dust in the case on heatsink and RAM as best I could.
2. Reseated the RAM into the slot after cleaning the dust out.
3. Updated drivers and ran windows update, and fixed problem recognizing modem.
4. Fixed windows problems with norton systemworks windoctor.

But the system still freezes. All fans are running fine, and system does not seem to be hot, but (this is the weird part) i cannot get into the bios. To enter the bios on a Gateway machine you press F2, but when I do this the system freezes on the gateway screen and does not boot up at all. This is leading me to believe that flashing an updated BIOS would be in order. Is this correct? Any other suggestions? Thank you for your help.

System Specs
AMD Keystone Mobo (http://support.gateway.com/s/MOTHERBD/MSI/2513146/251314625.shtml)
AMD 1200 Mhz
128mb sdram (16mb allocated for integrated video)
40 GB WD400
Linksys LNE 100Tx
Windows ME

[ktkendall]

The first thing I would probably do is to reset the BIOS to defaults, either via the clear CMOS jumper if it has one, or just remove the battery for a minute and replace it. It would be a good idea to be able to back up the current BIOS file before updating it!