Problems with Mindstorms RCX2.0

[StaHiMooney]

I am having trouble with communication on the RCX. I set up a VMware win98 environment, got a USB to serial converter... went throught that mind-numbing software, it detects the transmitter, says the RCX is fine and ready to load firmware. Software says two minutes and it will count to 1600. Display hits 20 and starts over. Never makes it past 20.

Does this mean the RCX is bricked (pardon the pun) or that maybe there's already a custom firmware in there or something?

Help anyone please. Had this thing a week and all I can do is run the 3-4 default things.

Thanks in advance.
Chris
513-379-7904