stratix III quickUSB problem

[Altera_Forum]

Hi! I am trying to setup a new stratix III board but I am experiencing problems. Maybe I am doing something stupid, I am completely new to FPGA programming... Anyway, I unpacked the board and followed the 'quickstart guide' instructions, but when I switch on the board, the 'CFG DONE' led doesn't light up. I realized I had not installed the USB blaster drivers (do I need them even if the USB blaster is actually integrated in the board?), so I tried to do this. When I plug the usb cable in the board, the hardware is seen as 'QuickUSB QUSB2 Module v2.11.10 (SimpleI/O)', and when I follow the altera instructions to tell the PC (running winXP 32bit) where to find the driver, it just says something like 'Windows could not find dirver software for your device' (I am not quite sure as my OS is in italian...). It looks to me like I first need to get a driver for QuickUSB but searching the forum it looks like I am the only one having this issue... 

Any ideas? Thanks a lot!!! Martino

[Altera_Forum]

i'm not sure why your CFG DONE LED did not light up, but i don't think its related to the USB Blaster issue. 

 yes, you will need to install USB Blaster drivers even for embedded (on board) USB Blasters.  i don't think the QuickUSB is right, i recommend you uninstall this device driver, then reconnect the USB Blaster and point it to the driver in: c:\altera\9.1sp2\quartus\drivers\usb-blaster, or similar. to uninstall the device right click on My Computer, go to Properties, Hardware, Device Manager. open up the USB section, right click on the QuickUSB, and choose Uninstall.

[Altera_Forum]

Hi! 

Thanks. I didn't think either... yet then I don't know why the CFG DONE led doesn't light. According to the quickstart guide, even just switching on the board should lead to it lighting up (and other user-led flashing in a pattern), which it does not. May it be an hardware problem? As far as the USB blaster, I already did that (uninstall and then reinstall the driver, following the same procedure you suggest), but to no success... Thanks for the help!

[Altera_Forum]

well there's a chance the flash didn't have the factory image loaded. you can solve this if you can get the Blaster to work. 

 i would think that any potential issues with non-English versions of Windows would have come up before.

[Altera_Forum]

Do you think that upgrading the Quartus II software could help? The version shipped with the kit I bought is actually pretty old (8.0). Yet I even tried getting the update version of the driver downloading the 9.1 DSP builder, still nothing. 

Mmmm.. another doubt: my OS has D:\ as 'root' directory. Could this be an issue? Thx

[Altera_Forum]

in almost all cases i recommend upgrading software. the DSP Builder 9.1 download probably won't have the driver, you'll need to download Quartus II 9.1sp2. 

 when you plug in the hardware, do you choose not to use Windows Update and the other automatic stuff and point it to the actual drivers directory in the quartus directory?

[Altera_Forum]

yes, I did point directly to the location of the USB blaster driver, and still it keeps saying that the location doesn't have information on the hardware. isn't it a problem the fact that, when the 'new hardware found' window opens, it says that a QuickUSB QUSB2 device is connected? It never says anything about a USB blaster, so what I think is that looking in the usbblstr.inf file he looks for something referred to the QUSB2 device and finds nothing... can it be so?

[Altera_Forum]

that sounds very strange. are you able to contact the distributor where the board was purchased? between the flash not having the proper configuration to make CFG DONE light up and the wrong USB description showing up from the board, something seems off.