Just went through first boot on a brand new second DGX Spark and ran into the same onboarding issues as my first unit (six month ago) so documenting it in case others hit this.
The advertised WiFi onboarding never appeared.
The card in the box says the Spark should broadcast its own local WiFi network (SSID + password printed on the card) so you can connect from a Mac and complete setup wirelessly. In both cases, no such network was ever transmitted—the Mac never saw the Spark’s setup SSID, regardless of how long we waited or how many times we power-cycled. That effectively made the headless onboarding path unusable.
Having seen this once already, I knew to move on quickly—but on a first encounter this would be a confusing dead end.
The QR code doesn’t land you on setup instructions.
It resolves to the DGX Spark product page
with the usual overview content—images, specs, and links. There is a “Getting Started” section further down that links to the Quick Start Guide and User Manual, but it takes scrolling and extra clicks to reach.
Here is the PDF guide link:
When you’re standing next to a half-configured system, it would be much more useful if the QR code linked directly into the quick-start flow. This is especially noticeable when the advertised WiFi setup path fails, since the landing page doesn’t surface any troubleshooting for that scenario.
Monitor + keyboard was the path that worked.
Connecting a display and keyboard brought up the first-boot wizard immediately. User creation, networking, and updates all proceeded normally from there.
Suggestion
If your Spark doesn’t appear on WiFi during onboarding, skip the wireless path and plug in a display—it’s the fastest way to get unblocked.
Curious if others have seen the missing SSID behavior, or if this is isolated.
NVIDIA please make it easier for people to get started on their new DGX spark rather than fighting with configs.
Mark