nios&vhdl

[Altera_Forum]

I connected vhdl, which is o.k., to a full featured nios 2c35 via a 16bit pio.  

The seven segment pio and the parts were removed.  The compilation to the sof and quartus was o.k. too.    So I ran the board test, where deleted the seven segment part. That went o.k.    Then I put the simple socket server in the NIOS IDE. Compilation goes o.k.    But...   ----  Simple Socket Server starting up  Can't read the MAC address from your board (this probably means  that your flash was erased). We will assign you a MAC address and  static network settings    Please enter your 9-digit serial number. This is printed on a  label under your Nios dev. board. The first 3 digits of the  label are ASJ and the serial number follows this.   -->050500368  050500368    [lwIP]: See STDERR for expanded diagnosis translation.  [lwIP]: [init_done_func] Fatal: lwip_devices_init failed, perhaps ethernet inter  face.  [lwIP]: ERRNO: :    [lwIP]: See STDERR (FAULT_LEVEL is SYSTEM).  [lwIP]: FAULT_LEVEL is SYSTEM.  [lwIP]: FATAL Error, Restart required.  [lwIP]: Locking scheduler - endless loop.  ----  What is the reason for this?  Is there a collision between vhdl and the nios core? Would the use of an avalon logic component avoid this problem?    Thanks for your help.  andy

[Altera_Forum]

I assume this is a custom board with a CFI flash chip named ext_flash, and a lan91c111 chip. 

 The 91c111 does not store its MAC address internally; it has to be loaded by the driver during initialization. Altera stores theirs in a part of the flash chip; if you look at the LWIP code, you should see where it goes looking for this during initialization (sorry, I haven't looked at the code myself, so I can't tell you exactly where). You need to either program a new MAC address there, or change the routine to get the MAC address some other way.