Redirect here from customer care for consumer products.
Day 1 of issue: Powered on NVIDIA DGX Spark, connected a Logitech Unifying USB-A adapter to Anker USB-C hub to use a new Logitech Mouse. Within ~15 minutes, OS froze and I had to reboot the Spark. Rebooting the Spark froze on the login screen when attempting to log into local account.
Disconnected the Logitech Unifying USB-A adapter from the Anker USB-C hub and using a Logitech keyboard (using an older Logitech Unifying USB-A apadter) allowed me to log into the spark, but it immediately became difficult navigating the UI using hotkeys, tabs, etc. Plugged the new Logitech Unifying adapter to use the new Logitech Mouse back into the USB hub worked for a while to run OS updates, but after installing the latest updates for Spark’s OS. The host kept restarting.
Removing the Logitech Unifying adapter from hub did not resolve the issue, so I removed the Anker USB-C hub. Found a Dell keyboard (USB-A), connected it to an Apple USB-A to USB-C dongle allowed me to enter UEFI boot menu and GRUB, but the device kept on freezing and rebooting. I noticed two events where the boot-up sequence threw a kernal panic, but it rebooted to quickly for me to capture the error message.
The reboots triggered verbose outputs on the top left corner, and then “outputted a verbose audit log”. I noticed that the xHCI/USB runtime-PM kept appearing, so I tried to boot the Spark without any USB hubs or cables connected. While that worked, The OS booted as far as the user login screen, but without the field for me to enter my account password. I plugged in the Dell keyboard connected to an Apple USB-A to USB-C dongle, and restarted the Spark, only to end up seeing that verbose audit log.
I followed the system recovery steps (https://docs.nvidia.com/dgx/dgx-spark/system-recovery.html) and attempted to restore the Spark back to out-of-the-box (OOTB) setup, but the Spark kept on rebooting after copying just over 32GB of install files. Having spent more than 10 hours; a few different external USB drives to store the system to factory defaults, and the limited number of usable keyboards and mice; I only managed to get the Spark to complete the OS recovery installation twice. And each of those successful installation ended up failing because the Spark continued to reboot itself because of the USB issue.
I tried to suspend or delay the USB-runtime via GRUB (usbcore.autosuspend=-1), but was unable to reboot the Spark (i.e. ctrl+x or F10). And the only GRUB command that allowed me to reboot the Spark was entering ‘normal’. However, ‘normal’ reverts the change that I was trying to apply to suspend the USB-runtimes.
Day 2 of issue: Customer Care Representative recommended that I run the Field Diagnostics, but currently not possible.
Unable to boot past the UEFI menu. I had to create a boot path because it was not added, created the boot path to boot into the USB recovery image. And running the recovery process on first attempt successfully installed the OS and brought me through the OOTB setup–for Day 2’s first attempt. However, typing any keys from the keyboard froze and rebooted the Spark.
Now, I cannot get past either UEFI or grub menu without the device rebooting itself.
Caveat, there were a number of other troubleshooting steps taken, but not significant to include in this post. Other attempts included adjusting UEFI settings or editing configurations via GRUB resulted in the same issue (e.g. freeze, kernel panic, reboots, etc).
Any recommendations to resolve this issue? Or is this issue “fatal” and warrants an RMA?