I am sure you have tried flashing in XP, but if not try that. Also I would try using both the dos flasher and the windows one. I dont remember any special settings, just make sure you dont disable the printer port, But I had a printer installed just unplugged it and plugged in the matrix with no problems. Also its very likly you have a bad programmer. Many people have been complaining about bad programmers and still got thier matirx chip flashed using someone elses programmmer (so it was not a bad chip). Once you get an inital flash you can always update via the dash