Re: PCIe FPGA and Thunderbolt to PCIe interfaces

Altera_Forum · ‎02-26-2018

Hi,

Did anyone try using a pcie fpga board over thunderbolt? I am trying to run some OpenCL code, but "aocl diagnose" doesn't seem to work. Fails trying to communicate over the PCIe bus. Drivers are all loaded, after I disabled signed drivers in Windows 10. I don't know if this is a problem with my drivers, installation, or the thunderbolt port...

Thanks,

QG

Altera_Forum · ‎02-27-2018

Please get more info (with pictures).

Our PCIe kit "quietly" have 1-year liense to WinDriver and quietly "die" 1 month back, only debugging with sources "diagnose" utility shows a cause WD_NO_LICENSE.

Altera_Forum · ‎02-27-2018

I am using a Nallatech 395 on a Windows 10 laptop. The board is connected via a Thunderbolt-to-PCIe chassis:

http://www.akitio.com/images/products/akitio-thunder2-pcie-box-expansion-card.jpg

In order for me to install everything, I had to disable signed drivers in Windows 10 as the "aocl install" kept failing due to this. Do you think WinDriver has problems with a PCIe card on this chassis? The next thing I am going to try is to install the card on Windows 7 desktop and see if I can get it to work properly...

Altera_Forum · ‎02-27-2018

This may be simpler and rather. Call next to customer service if a board is not work.

You keep all board producer recommendations ?

More other boards (Video-, Net-cards) through this thunderbolt is working properly ?

Altera_Forum · ‎02-27-2018

Have you programmed your board via JTAG with an OpenCL binary to enable the PCI-E core on the FPGA?

Altera_Forum · ‎02-27-2018

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More other boards (Video-, Net-cards) through this thunderbolt is working properly ?

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Just to give you an idea as to what I originally did to test the Thunderbolt to PCIe interface, I connected a PCIe-to-PCIe expansion chassis to the Thunderbolt system. That increased my PCIe slots from 1 to 8 double-width slots. So, running that on my laptop produced no problems when I hooked up a nVIDIA GPU, AMD FirePro, IBM PXCAB, Intel Phi and an Altera FPGA. So, I doubt there is any problem with the thunderbolt chassis. I am now running just one PCIe card in the thunderbolt chassis, so I expect it to work (and I also tested the scenario with an Intel Phi in the thunderbolt chassis as well).

There is something else going on here. I am thinking that the windriver is having problems with this setup. I am going to try to move this to a desktop to verify...

https://software.intel.com/sites/default/files/managed/4e/60/p6.jpg

Altera_Forum · ‎02-27-2018

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Have you programmed your board via JTAG with an OpenCL binary to enable the PCI-E core on the FPGA?

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What I did was to follow the instruments for the installation of the BSP for the PCIe card:

1) aocl install <- The installation of the drivers failed due to the secured driver criteria for Windows 10. Fixed this by turning this off. Once that was done, the drivers installed properly. Furthermore, I am getting the error that was reported in this thread https://www.alteraforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=56977...

2) aocl flash acl0 base.aocx <- This failed with PCIe errors and hence I flashed base.aocx using JTAG/USB instead. That worked.

aocl diagnose acl0 fails with PCIe errors.

what do I need to do next? I just want to compile hello_world and run it on the board...

Altera_Forum · ‎02-28-2018

Well, you are trying to use the board in a non-standard environment; you shouldn't really expect it to work out of the box. How did you flash the board with the "base.aocx" file via JTAG? This file needs to be first converted to SOF and then used to flash, it cannot be directly flashed via JTAG. If your board is flashed correctly, it should show up in device manager as a PCI-E device with some name that has "Altera" in it.

If you have a machine with a PCI-E slot, I recommend first trying on that and making sure the board works correctly, then putting it back into your Thunderbolt enclosure and following the same steps.

Altera_Forum · ‎02-28-2018

Device Manager indicates that the board is active:

https://alteraforum.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=14896&stc=1

I flashed the it using the following command based on the installation guide:

flash_recovery.bat base.aocx

which uses the JTAG instead. Documentation states that if "aocl flash acl0 base.aocx" has issues, you can flash using that command instead and that worked. Running "aocl diagnose acl0" produces the following:

D:\intelFPGA\17.1\hld>aocl diagnose acl0

Verified that the kernel mode driver is installed on the host machine.

MMD ERROR: failed to scan for the PCI device.

Using platform: Altera SDK for OpenCL

Failed clGetDeviceIDs.

Error code: -1

Verified that the kernel mode driver is installed on the host machine.

MMD ERROR: failed to scan for the PCI device.

Using platform: Altera SDK for OpenCL

Failed clGetDeviceIDs.

Error code: -1

D:\intelFPGA\17.1\hld>

The next logical thing to do is to try it on a desktop PCIe slot once I get the license key from Nallatech. The BSP is linked to each individual machine, unfortunately and this laptop setting was mainly for me testing out the setup. Its a university board that I am using on loan to work on a project. I still got a few other Nallatech boards that needs to be installed...

Altera_Forum · ‎02-28-2018

I see these many "MMD ERROR: failed to scan for the PCI device." on bad WinDriver with ended license.

On last picture, please open node "Jungo Connectivity" -- for what device it present ? If no kit is inserted, this node is present ?

And reload first picture for us, this is bad.

Don`t use "aocl flash" and "flash_recovery.bat" until "aocl diagnose" is failed.

You may only load base .sof with BSP to FPGA through Quartus Programmer and refresh device configuration in Device Manager, may be Reboot is need, then try "aocl diagnose".

Altera_Forum · ‎02-28-2018

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I flashed the it using the following command based on the installation guide:

flash_recovery.bat base.aocx

which uses the JTAG instead. Documentation states that if "aocl flash acl0 base.aocx" has issues, you can flash using that command instead and that worked.

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This is the correct method. Device manager also seems to indicate that your device is working correctly. I have never used Windows for this purpose, maybe there is some Windows-specific step here that I am missing.

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The next logical thing to do is to try it on a desktop PCIe slot once I get the license key from Nallatech. The BSP is linked to each individual machine, unfortunately and this laptop setting was mainly for me testing out the setup. Its a university board that I am using on loan to work on a project. I still got a few other Nallatech boards that needs to be installed...

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You need a license only for installation of the BSP. When it is installed, it can be copied to any other machine and it will work just fine. You can just copy the installed BSP from your laptop to any other machine you have.