no access to bios or usb keyboards

My dell e310 won't boot, even to the Bios. It needs a USB mouse and keyboard (it has no PS2 options in back. Problem is the battery was changed, so the bios needs to enter setup to boot to change the time, etc. NO USB ports will recognize the USB keyboard (and i tried several other keyboards, slots, and even two PCI usb cards, no luck). What's going on? The mouse will power on to show the red LED(optical) but no luck when the keyboard gets plugged in there, even after a reboot.
(all other parts are stock, and no recent changes).
Thank you

Try flashing the BIOS with an updated version. That might help out with enabling legacy USB support in the BIOS.