On Sun, 22 Apr 2012 15:16:24 -0600
Dan Kern Photo <dankernphoto@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Stefan!
> Thanks for the fast reply! And the comforting words (although panic is
> for noobs, yes?) :-)

well we regularly receive similar emails, followed later by some
regretful confessions that they have rebooted nevertheless. so we
really try to make that point clear. :)

> I updated flashrom as you suggested and ran it again. Thanks for that. 
> I think it worked fine. Here's the output:
> 
> 
>         desktop2@Desktop2:~/Downloads$ sudo flashrom -w 1101.BIN
>         flashrom v0.9.5.2-runknown on Linux 2.6.32-40-generic-pae
>         (i686), built with libpci 3.0.0, GCC 4.4.3, little endian
>         flashrom is free software, get the source code at
>         http://www.flashrom.org
>         
>         Calibrating delay loop... OK.
>         Found chipset "NVIDIA MCP51". Enabling flash write... OK.
>         Disabling flash write protection for board "ASUS M2NBP-VM
>         CSM"... OK.
>         Found SST flash chip "SST49LF040B" (512 kB, LPC) at physical
>         address 0xfff80000.
>         Flash image seems to be a legacy BIOS. Disabling
>         coreboot-related checks.
>         Reading old flash chip contents... done.
>         Erasing and writing flash chip... Erase/write done.
>         Verifying flash... VERIFIED.          
>         desktop2@Desktop2:~/Downloads$
> 
> 
> What say you, doctor?
> Thanks again.

seems like everything is fine now.
if flashrom says verified at the end it has read the contents of the
flash after writing it and found it to be equal to the file supplied.
so if 1101.BIN contained a valid firmware for that board, everything is
fine and you can reboot whenever you want to.