USB peripherals not working-can't boot!

[raskren]

I'm having trouble with an older Gateway machine that I'm working on for a friend. Its a Celeron based mini-tower with no PS/2 ports at all. The original keyboard and mouse are both USB.

In preparation for installing Windows XP I flashed the bios to the latest revision. Upon flashing I restarted and booted into Windows Me just to make sure everything was ok, which it was.

So then I went to completely wipe the BIOS settings via jumper (as you should always do after a flash). When the machine boots up now I get a warning that the CMOS values are invalid (not uncommon) and to press F9 to enter the BIOS or press F1 to continue. The problem now is that the keyboard/mouse do not respond at all. I've tried using a different USB keyboard/mouse (wired and wireless) and nothing seems to work.

I would suspect that these peripherals require USB legacy mode to be "ON" in order to work, yet you cannot get into the BIOS to turn this on without a USB keyboard!!

I've Googled this issue and there are a few others that have had this problem yet I cannot find any solutions. The Gateway webiste is of -zero- help as well.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I've had this computer forever and I need to get this worked out! Thanks in advance.

[raskren]

Here are some more details on the machine...

The model number is "Flexatxstc Bro Essential 900" Manufactured on 8/9/01. It appears to be using the i810 chipset. What I think is the BIOS chip is socketed and has this on it:

"Intel

N82802AB8

A0390133"

[CoffeeFiend]

If you can't go in the bios to enable legacy USB support... there's not much you can do. Usually, when the cmos checksum isn't ok, then it does enable it by default, or at least for the pre-boot bios setup part.... weird.