The tech came out.
He couldn't get the edit mode (ctrl-a) to bring up the system id's in the security menu either.
He verified that I entered all the information correctly and was stumped as well.
He was on the phone with HP to order another system board when after a couple dozen reboots, the error disappeared and has not returned.
Nothing was changed in the bios. as we were unable to edit the previously entered values.
I have no idea what caused it to disappear, but we can mark this issue resolved.
