I found one of those programmers on Amazon with Prime shipping for $10. That will do!

I am hoping the instructions with it are good? Even things like how to tell which slot to use for my chip (I don't know how to tell the type...), and which way to insert it (I saw no indication of where pin 1 is on the chip? Help?). I didn't see any of that in the thread about it, so I hope the user docs will fill me in!

I indeed noticed the notch on one end of the chip! I was looking for a triangle or dot, however, as that is usually the indicator.

If I am holding the chip with the pins facing away from me (so I am looking on the printed top of the chip) and the notch end facing upwards, I believe that means pin 1 is the top left from that perspective?

O.M.F.G.

That was so shockingly simple... I wish I found out and tried one these USB flashers months ago!

It freaking works. Took a few minutes to confirm I had the chip in correct (the diagram I am sure is different on all of them, but a close examination of mine showed a picture on the PCB of a 'notched' edge with a tiny dot next to it that had the correct orientation). Read the simple guide here :[Guide] Using CH341A-based programmer to flash SPI EEPROM and downloaded the program (I had Comodo run it sandboxed, because, well, Chinese freeware...) and it worked flawlessly and quickly. Plugged it back in, and there was LIFE.

For US folks, since the links in that thread are for other countries, I bought this guy: http://www.amazon.com/SMAKN%C2%AE-Progra...ailpage_o00_s00
Free 2 day shipping with Amazon Prime, and only a couple bucks more than one from the slow boat from China? Absolutely worth it. It is good quality from all appearances too. Little bit of discoloration on the PCB near a few of the solders, but nothing worrysome. All connections look solid and clean. And, most importantly, it worked.

I feel like a fool for spending as much time as I did trying to fix it the old way. This did it for 10 bucks and 10 minutes of time. Sheesh.

Live and learn. It is going to definitely be one of my new favorite tools/ toys in my kit of PC repair stuff. :)