As a previous poster noted, the processors got upgraded to 2400s for the Vegas stop. Mine was the first name called...w00t! I also left with a T-shirt and a couple of notebook bags.
I showed up a little after 7...that was during the reseller part of the evening, but I've been in that line of work before. Since there was hardly anyone there at that point, they let me in with the confirmation I had printed out earlier. Besides, the company I'm with now could end up doing more in the future than license its software to other companies...we might end up doing some VARish things. I've also broken the boss of his habit of buying computers at Best Buy/Circuit City/etc...I've built about a half dozen machines over the past year. Three Athlon XPs, a dual Athlon MP, a Pentium 4...and a 486DX2-66 assembled from parts in my junkbox. (The 486 is a print server, running Slackware 8.)
In the end, about 100 people (give or take) showed up, so you had a pretty good shot at walking away with a processor. 50 were up for grabs.
I'd swear I saw the idiot lights light up on the computers (both of them) in the box-building contest. I know at least the power LED came on...maybe the HD LED was or wasn't working. I'm not so sure that an idiot light improperly connected is worth disqualification, as in the real world you'd notice it's hooked up the wrong way and fix it before you sent it out the door. That said, I had printed the page from the K7N420 manual that has the button/light hookups, in case I had gotten called. I also had occasion to crack open one of my machines @ work that was built around this motherboard (had to put in a video-capture card). I wouldn't have flubbed that part of the contest. The biggest problem I saw was with the box-stuffers who filled out dozens of entry forms each.
Yes, it was permitted...but it was also lame as hell. I think it would've worked better if they had just drawn from the same boxes they used for the processor giveaways.
(The only snag now is that Biostar sez the top speed supported for my M7MIA is 1.33 GHz. It currently has a 1.0-GHz Thunderbird installed. Does anyone here have experience getting faster processors working with this board? Is there some reason why a 2.0-GHz (2400+) Thoroughbred wouldn't work? I'd have no problem buying another motherboard if necessary, but if it'll work with what I have, I'd only need to upgrade the PC1600 memory currently installed to PC2100.)