It's all good. I was headed down this path anyways as it was in the back of my mind. The good news is Stern is sending me a new CPU. The bad news is it's my daughters b-day tomorrow and with lots of guests to entertain, it will be a downer to not have SW running.
That said, I don't entirely believe it's a CPU issue. I have 3 different USB sticks and have downloaded the update both via Chrome & Internet Explorer. No matter what USB stick I use, the update fails at 4377mb to the tee on the chrome download which is like 95% away from completion; and fails right away at around 300mb if I use the IE download. Im trying another download from chrome and will unpack it straight on the C: drive and see what my results are. Unfortunately, I don't have another computer to try from at the moment nor do I want to download another browser on my work pc. I am downloading the code via wifi, and I may try running a hardline to pull it.
If anyone has successfully done a full install with the latest code; or even an earlier code and wants to share it with me via dropbox or something, let me know and ill give that a shot.
I'm open to other ideas or suggestions.