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Power monitor from the Arria II GX kit doesn't see USB blaster?

Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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Sirs, 

 

I have got USB blaster working on Windows 7 (see my previous post (http://alteraforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=35765)). Programmer works well, I was able to auto-detect and program my device. However, Power Monitor and Board Test System tools from Dev Kit installation doesn't seem to work - the error message is not very informative: 

 

 

--- Quote Start ---  

java.lang.Exception: java.lang.Exception: No USB Blaster detected. Please check connections and restart the program. 

 

--- Quote End ---  

 

 

Does anyone know how to fix it? Please advice. 

 

Thank you, 

Vlad
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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Ladies and/or gents- 

 

I have exactly the same problem except I'm on Windows Vista. Help would be appreciated. 

 

Pete Z.
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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Are you using exactly the same version of Quartus that the kit ships with? 

 

In my experience, the Java GUIs provided are not portable between versions of Quartus. 

 

If you have multiple versions of Quartus installed, start the NIOS IDE shell for that version, and first run jtagconfig -n to list the JTAG devices on the board (this may need to be run twice, since another version of the server may be running). Then run the GUI executable from that command line. That will ensure the paths are correct. 

 

Cheers, 

Dave
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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Thanks for the tip. I have actually gave up on Windows software. Got everything up and running in Linux, mostly using command line tools as they are a lot more convenient and are easily scripted. After a few rounds of clicking "Auto Detect", "Change File", checking "Program" and pressing "Start" etc.. I wrote a simple script that does all of that for me :D 

 

Power monitor still doesn't work. But it should be easy to roll your own.
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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DWH- 

 

Ran jtagconfig -n in NIOS command shell. Here's what I got... 

 

Altera Nios2 Command Shell [GCC 4] 

 

Version 11.1, Build 173 

---------------------- 

bash-3.1$ jtagconfig -n 

1) USB-Blaster [USB-0] 

025030DD EP2AGX125 

Node 19104600 Nios II# 0 

Node 0C006E00 JTAG UART# 0 

Node 04206E00 JTAG PHY# 0 

020A40DD 5M(1270ZF324|2210Z)/EPM2210 

Node 00406E00 (110:8)# 0 

 

 

... then I tried to navigate to the appropriate install directory, ran BoardTestSystem.exe, and here's what I got in a pop up ... 

 

Quartus or Quartus Programmer's Active version is not 10.1. Please set 10.1 to be the active Programmer version 

 

Still no joy 

pjz
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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--- Quote Start ---  

 

Ran jtagconfig -n in NIOS command shell. Here's what I got... 

 

Altera Nios2 Command Shell [GCC 4] 

 

Version 11.1, Build 173 

 

--- Quote End ---  

 

 

Note how this is version 11.1 

 

 

--- Quote Start ---  

 

... then I tried to navigate to the appropriate install directory, ran BoardTestSystem.exe, and here's what I got in a pop up ... 

 

Quartus or Quartus Programmer's Active version is not 10.1. Please set 10.1 to be the active Programmer version 

 

--- Quote End ---  

 

 

and this wants to use 10.1. 

 

Do you have 10.1 installed? 

 

If you do, then start the Quartus GUI for 10.1, and then start the board test system GUI. Starting Quartus first should set the paths correctly. 

 

If that does not work, start the NIOS IDE shell for 10.1, and then from that shell run the executable for the board test system GUI. 

 

Cheers, 

Dave
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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor II
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--- Quote Start ---  

Thanks for the tip. I have actually gave up on Windows software. Got everything up and running in Linux, mostly using command line tools as they are a lot more convenient and are easily scripted. After a few rounds of clicking "Auto Detect", "Change File", checking "Program" and pressing "Start" etc.. I wrote a simple script that does all of that for me :D 

 

Power monitor still doesn't work. But it should be easy to roll your own. 

--- Quote End ---  

This is also my attitude :) 

 

The power monitor is generally implemented via the Virtual JTAG component. 

 

Writing a Tcl script to control it directly should not be too difficult, so long as the interface is documented. 

 

In the case where it is not documented, you can trace the USB activity by running Windows+Quartus+BoardTestSystem inside a VirtualBox VM, and use Wireshark on a Linux host to capture the USB traffic and in turn convert that to Virtual JTAG commands. 

 

Cheers, 

Dave
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