GS108Ev3 firmware fail even on chrome/windows...

Hi, it seems a lot of folk are having problems with this switch and I'm wondering if I should give up and return it.  I've just unboxed and installed this switch on my network.  All was running great.  I then downloaded the most up to date firmware and tried to install it via the web interface.  It hung, and now nothing I do seems to get it working again.  It's stuck in firmware upgrade mode.

Have tried factory reset (this apparently does nothing?), have also sourced a windows machine (mine run linux) and used both the chrome/windows combo which has apparently worked for some but failed for me (the html portal still stalls during fule upload) and also the Netgear maintenance utility which fails to find the switch.

Time to give up or is there something else I can try?  Haven't been able to find anything else on the other threads about this issue...