[SOLVED + DOC BUG + HARDWARE NUANCE] DGX Spark Recovery: “Press ENTER to continue” does nothing – Apple Magic Keyboard invisible + only USB-C ports +

Accelerated Computing DGX Spark / GB10 User Forum DGX Spark / GB10
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Posting this for anyone who hits the exact same wall on a brand-new DGX Spark (Blackwell Founders Edition, recovery image 1.105.17). Took two units and several hours to fully untangle.

Symptoms

  • Valid recovery USB (official tar.gz + create_recovery_drive script)

  • Boots to the blue welcome screen

  • “Press ENTER to continue or ESC to exit” → zero response

  • Tapping Del (as the official docs say) also does nothing → feels completely bricked

The perfect triple-trap that makes this insanely hard to debug:

  1. Apple Magic Keyboard (wired USB-C) is completely invisible to the recovery kernel Apple signs their descriptors and adds proprietary timing. The minimal recovery HID driver drops every single keypress silently until the very last progress screen (25 minutes in). You literally cannot press Enter, Esc, or anything useful.

  2. DGX Spark only has USB-C ports There are zero full-size USB-A ports on the entire machine. If you only have old-school “big plug” generic keyboards lying around (which you need!), you must use a USB-C → USB-A dongle/adapter to connect them.

  3. Official documentation tells you to press Del instead of Esc

Working fix – 100 % reproducible:

  1. Grab any cheap, old-style USB-A keyboard (Dell, Logitech, Amazon Basics, etc.)

  2. Connect it via a USB-C → USB-A dongle/adapter (any $5 one works – the system has four rear USB-C ports)

  3. Power off completely → plug in the generic keyboard + dongle

  4. Power on → rapidly tap Esc during the NVIDIA logo → instantly drops into Aptio Setup

  5. Verify USB is Boot Option #1, Secure Boot = Enabled, Restore Factory Keys if prompted → F4 save & reset

  6. Welcome screen appears → wait 3-5 seconds → single press Enter → proceeds immediately

  7. Recovery finishes in ~25 min → reboot → plug your Apple Magic Keyboard back in; works perfectly under full Ubuntu

Requests to NVIDIA:

  • Update the System Recovery page to say “Press Esc or Del” (matching the rest of the docs)

  • Add a one-line note: “Use a generic USB keyboard connected via USB-C adapter; some modern keyboards (e.g., Apple Magic Keyboard) are not recognized until the final stage.”

  • Long-term: a small UEFI update to improve early-boot USB HID compatibility would eliminate this entire class of issue.

  • Future software updates to add a recovery partition similar to how Apple do and change Bios Menu to have a simple boot to factory setting and set all flags correctly. Set default boot to be USB they other partitions.

Hope this saves the next person who stares at a GDX Spark “brick” because they only have an Apple keyboard and no dongle in the drawer.

3 Likes
2

Thank you for the feedback.

3

Hi, which specific keyboard did you use that was unresponsive with the recovery image?

4

Sorry for the delay responding. Standard Apple Keyboard wireless keyboard but connected with USB C

1 Like
5

Hello there, sorry for responding to this. was not sure where to post the question. I recently got DGX spark. I have multi port dongle to USBC, i used to connect both keyboard and mouse. i can see mouse and keyboard on screen both but it is not registering on dgx spark. how to fix this?

6

Hi @Doctordolittle, have you complete the setup phase yet? If not, have you tried setting it up over the network?

7

We have not been able to reproduce the issue with an Apple Magic Keyboard. Could you share the specific model number?

1 Like
8

Hello again, sorry for the late response. I figured out what was wrong. It was a specific brand of mouse that was not responding during the setup phase. I initially used a gaming mouse, which failed, but when I switched to a generic mouse, it worked fine during setup.

9

I am using an older mac magic keyboard with lightning connector not more modern USB

10

I’m having the same issue with the keyboard not being recognized or usable in the recovery image. It’s a standard Cherry keyboard, specifically a Cherry Stream 3.0, with a USB-A to USB-C adapter. I also tried two different USB-C hubs. Neither an ESC nor an Enter press is recognized; however, plugging in and unplugging the keyboard is recognized. The keyboard works without issue in the BIOS.