DGX Spark: Keyboard and Mouse Not Working After NVIDIA Driver Upgrade / DPKG Interruption

[e12morgan]

Hi everyone,

I’m running into an issue on my DGX Spark after a system update and driver upgrade that seems to have broken both NVIDIA and USB support.

Here’s what happened:

• I powered on the DGX Spark for the first time, plugged in HDMI, keyboard, and mouse.

• It went through a long update period after initial setup — everything looked normal and the display resolution was correct.

• After logging in, I tried running nvidia-smi but it didn’t run correctly — I don’t recall the exact output, but it failed to connect to the driver.

• I started troubleshooting to get nvidia-smi working, ran several commands like:

  sudo apt-get update
  sudo apt-get upgrade
  sudo dpkg --configure -a
  sudo apt --fix-broken install
  
  

• During that process, I saw repeated dependency errors for:

  linux-modules-nvidia-550-open, nvidia-hwe, nvidia-driver-580-open
  
  

  along with “dependency problems prevent configuration…” and DPKG errors leaving them unconfigured.

• After rebooting, the system now boots to the NVIDIA login screen and even shows correct HDMI resolution — but keyboard and mouse no longer work at all.

  • Tried all USB-C ports

  • xrandr previously showed None-1 connected before the crash

  • lshw -c video showed the GPU as UNCLAIMED

  • nvidia-smi failed to communicate with the driver before inputs died

Currently:

• The display works and I can see the login screen.

• The keyboard and mouse are completely unresponsive.

• I can’t SSH in either — the host doesn’t appear on the LAN (I checked router and scanned with nmap).

So I’m stuck: I can see the system boot and GUI, but have no local or remote input control.

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What I’ve Tried

• Multiple reboots

• Different USB ports (front/back, A/C) and devices

• Verified HDMI output works perfectly

• Tried to locate IP for SSH (no luck)

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What I Think Happened

It seems the kernel modules for NVIDIA and USB (HID/XHCI) failed to rebuild correctly during the interrupted upgrade, leaving the GPU driver and USB stack unclaimed.
Essentially, DGX OS is booting with display only, no input or network stack.

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What I Need Help With

• Recommended way to recover DGX OS in this state without USB boot media

• Any DGX-specific recovery tools or console access (e.g., serial, BMC, IPMI, or recovery mode)

• Proper method to reinstall or reconfigure the DGX NVIDIA driver/kernel modules once I regain CLI access

Any DGX Spark-specific steps or ISO recovery references would be greatly appreciated before I re-flash the entire system.

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System details:

• DGX Spark (DGX OS based on Ubuntu 22.04)

• Originally working fine before upgrade

• After upgrade: display works, no keyboard/mouse

Thanks so much for any guidance or recovery steps.

[kberger1]

The recovery iso and documentation are provided at this link DGX Spark User Guide — DGX Spark User Guide.

[therealmclovin]

Similar problem here. After the initial configuration (using mouse and keyboard locally) during the first boot, mouse and keyboard stopped working when the system rebooted and the login screen appeard. Fortunately, I was able to check the IP on the DHCP server and ssh into the DGX. I ran:

sudo modprobe usbhid
sudo modprobe hid_generic

rebooted - and everything was working again