Two usb-blasters with one PC?

[Altera_Forum]

Hi, 

 Have someone tried to use two USB-blasters with one PC at same time? If you can, do you need to open two Quartus II?  I'd like to know it because I will use transceiver tool kit for two boards back to back.  Regards

[Altera_Forum]

I've done it on Linux, and it should work on Windows too. You don't need to open Quartus twice, you can just select in the programmer (or signaltap, or Nios IDE) which hardware you want to use in the list.

[Altera_Forum]

Works on windows. You can have multiple USB blasters hooked up to 1 computer, and also have mutliple usb blasters hooked up to multiple networked computers. Just shows up in a drop down menu and you have to select which one you want. At least that is how it works on signaltap, nios debugger, and the programmer.

[Altera_Forum]

interesting, i was under the impression that 2 USB Blasters of the same rev cannot be used on the same (Windows) PC because the ID numbers are the same

[Altera_Forum]

Wow, looks like i spoke too soon. When i tried to plug in the second device windows pops up an error code 42, which says "Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware because there is a duplicate device already running in the system." So, looks like thepancake is correct in that you can not have two device plugged into the same computer.  

 However, if you have one of them attached to another computer and then use the jtag server, you can use both of them at once.  Apologizes, Kevin

[Altera_Forum]

Oh, too bad... It is probably a restriction in the Windows driver, because I had up to 6 blasters connected to a single PC under linux and it worked fine.

[Altera_Forum]

i think you can download the FTDI utility and change the serial or ID number and then use more than USB Blaster. i haven't done it but i could be coaxed into playing around with it :) 

 alternatively you can find 2 USB Blasters of different revisions which will work

[Altera_Forum]

check the forum, there might be instructions, i'm not sure

[Altera_Forum]

I have been using more than one same revision USB Blasters on a Windows PC simultaneously. I'm also not aware of USB Blasters using the same ID, but it may be the case with some revisions.

[Altera_Forum]

I checked the ID of 2 Rev. C USB blasters and they are indeed the same. 

Usually FTDI chips have unique IDs. I know, because that caused me a lot of trouble in a recent project.  -- Ton

[Altera_Forum]

--- Quote Start ---  they are indeed the same  --- Quote End ---   It's apparently different with Terasic, i'll check occasionly. I guess, they did it because Quartus requests a driver installation every time a device with a new ID is plugged for the first time. So you have to edit the IDs with the FTDI tool if you want to connect more than one simultaneously.

[Altera_Forum]

Hi all, 

 I appreciate answers!

[Altera_Forum]

--- Quote Start ---  It's apparently different with Terasic, i'll check occasionly. I guess, they did it because Quartus requests a driver installation every time a device with a new ID is plugged for the first time. So you have to edit the IDs with the FTDI tool if you want to connect more than one simultaneously.  --- Quote End ---    I don't know if you have succeed on this. I made it long time ago, and it's quite easy with FTDI tool to rewrite FT245 external eeprom.  Search for FT_PROG tool in FTDI website.