I needed to go into safe mode and remembered the usb does not kick on till you get to windows. although when my pc posted, the lights were on, then went off before the HD detection began. this is not a deal breaker, but certainly something can be done, right? I tried a usb>keyboard port adapter and that did not work, i even tried pluggin the keyboard into a usb cable and the cable into the adapter. no luck. while i was trying to get into safe mode and switching keyboards, windows failed to load a couple of times, is there a keyboard config file i am trashing? I booted the pc with a ps2 keyboard then plug in the deck once i got to the desktop and it works fine. so no DOS for the Deck? i cant get into the bios, go into safe mode or anything. i think once this is resolved, we will be able
to throw out the ps2 kybds but not before, i fear.
Thanks.
walko

The USB ports are inactive during boot up and will be inactive until Windows loads the necessary drivers. On the newer Dell models there should be one USB port that is supported by the BIOS during boot up so you can access the BIOS Setup before Windows loads or use the keyboard in non-Windows activities. What you can try is switching the keyboard to one of the USB ports on the computer tower instead of using the monitor port. It may take a little detective work to find which port is the active one. On some models the active USB port is the one on the upper right near the center on the rear of the system.

i found this. research. what a wonderful world. anybody got a tip on this?

I fixed it. the 1st usb port should have legacy support and allow you to navigate the bios, etc.
sorry for the worthless post.
walko

Don't newer motherboard BIOSes have HID support built into them? That would enable USB keyboards such as the Deck to Just Work(TM).

maybe. im not really sure. i am using a soyo k7v dragon plus
however, the 2nd port on my pc did not work, i had to put it in the first one. have to check the doc. thx.