Hi,
I've got a dc7800 Small Form Factor system. It was working fine but after a reboot it won't start up normally anymore. The black POST screen appears, RAM testing starts to count up and then I see and error about "system options not set". After less than a second, a blue window in the middle of the screen displays the message "smart card authentication" and below that, "smart card reader not present".
From a bit of reading it seems like a BIOS problem but I can't figure out how to really reset the CMOS and get things working again. I've tried removing the CMOS jumper and booting the system, removing the power cord and CMOS battery for 10 minutes, and have tried putting a BIOS .bin file on a FAT32 USB key in an attempt to use the BIOS recovery option, none of which has worked.
Is there a way to do one of the following:
- force the CMOS defaults to reset and remove the configuration that requires the smart card authentication?
- force a BIOS recovery, with a key combination or by using a different jumper or jumpers on the motherboard?
I see various other jumpers and pads on the motherboard like "ROM RCVRY" and the E15 Boot Block Recovery Header but scant information about how these might be used to solve the problem.
It seems to me that the hardware is fine as it powers up and displays the POST screen. It's like a BIOS setting has been reset to require a smart card, even though there isn't one, nor even a smart card reader, in the system.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.