ByteBlaster II

[Altera_Forum]

Hi  

I hope for some help with a problem  I generally use USB Blaster with Quartus II Web Edition V7.1 Build 156 on XP Version 2002 SP3  An coleague has taken my USB Blaster with him on a trip I now tried to install my Byte Blaster II.  I have followed the instructions as per below   

1. Click on the Start menu, and click on control panel. 
2. Click the switch to classic view link if necessary. 
3. Double-click the add hardware icon to start the Add Hardware Wizard and click next to continue. 
4. Select yes, i have already connected the hardware and click next. 
5. Select add a new hardware device in the Installed hardware list, and click next to continue. 
6. Select install the hardware that i manually select from a list (advanced) and click next to continue. 
7. Select sound, video and game controllers, and click next to continue. 
8. Select have disk .... 
9. Browse to the win2000.inf file in the \drivers\win2000 directory of your Quartus II software or MAX+PLUS II software installation and click ok. 
10. Click continue anyway when the Software Installation warning appears. 
11. Select altera® byteblaster and click next to continue. 
12. Click next to install the driver. 
13. Click continue anyway when the Hardware Installation warning appears. 
14. Click finish in the Completing the Add/Remove Hardware Wizard window. 
15. Reboot the computer.

 In Quartus II When I attempt to add hardware I see the following message  "Kernel mode Driver not installed"  My LPT1 is set to ECP in the BIOS  Any help will be appreciated

[Altera_Forum]

--- Quote Start ---  Hi  I hope for some help with a problem  I generally use USB Blaster with Quartus II Web Edition V7.1 Build 156 on XP Version 2002 SP3  An coleague has taken my USB Blaster with him on a trip I now tried to install my Byte Blaster II.  I have followed the instructions as per below 

1. Click on the Start menu, and click on control panel. 
2. Click the switch to classic view link if necessary. 
3. Double-click the add hardware icon to start the Add Hardware Wizard and click next to continue. 
4. Select yes, i have already connected the hardware and click next. 
5. Select add a new hardware device in the Installed hardware list, and click next to continue. 
6. Select install the hardware that i manually select from a list (advanced) and click next to continue. 
7. Select sound, video and game controllers, and click next to continue. 
8. Select have disk .... 
9. Browse to the win2000.inf file in the \drivers\win2000 directory of your Quartus II software or MAX+PLUS II software installation and click ok. 
10. Click continue anyway when the Software Installation warning appears. 
11. Select altera® byteblaster and click next to continue. 
12. Click next to install the driver. 
13. Click continue anyway when the Hardware Installation warning appears. 
14. Click finish in the Completing the Add/Remove Hardware Wizard window. 
15. Reboot the computer.

In Quartus II When I attempt to add hardware I see the following message  "Kernel mode Driver not installed"  My LPT1 is set to ECP in the BIOS  Any help will be appreciated  --- Quote End ---     I have the exact same problem:confused:

[Altera_Forum]

We had the same problem - turns out it was because we were using PCI parallel cards. The altera install sets LPT1 as the port, and parport.sys as the port driver for the byteblaster. It does this via the registry entry: 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/ControlSet001/Services/AlteraByteBlaster/ DependOnService ..... on installation this is set to 'parport', which is what points Quartus to the port driver parport.sys.   If you install a PCI card it will need the manufacturer's driver installed. This willl be placed in c:/WINDOWS/system32 by the card install software, but Quartus does not know about this - so it can't use it (yet)and you get the error "Kernel Mode Driver not installed"   The card we used (by SWEEX) had a driver PciPPorts.sys for the parallel port, other examples use NMpar.sys - you will need to look in your card install folder, or through system32, to find the name of the driver for your card. It is then simply a matter of editing the registry entry to change parport to whatever the driver name is.... in our case we changed the registry entry from 'parport' to 'PciPPorts' , restart WINDOWS, and all was well.   Worth pointing out we are using XP.

[Altera_Forum]

I have installed quartus 10.0 on windows xp sp3. There is no 2000.inf like user manual mentioned. The only one that system took is oemsetup.inf. The rest of procedure are pretty much like the other users. When I launch quartus programmer, it shows the kernel mode driver not installed.  

I have check parallel port is ECP/Bi-directional, driver is parport.sys altera registry is correct. However, it is not working.... Please let me know what else that I missed. Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

[Altera_Forum]

Does your motherboard have a parallel port, or are you using a PCI plug-in parallel port? If using a motherboard praallel port you should not have any probelm, as long as it is LPT1: 

If the latter, then it will most likely come with another driver - not parport.sys. Parport.sys is the Windows default driver - you should have an installation disk that will put the appropriate XXXXX.sys file into windows/system32 (as I mentioned in my post above). You also need to switch the port number to LPT1:

[Altera_Forum]

I tried to install earlier version 9.2 instead of 10.0, then it works. 10.0 doesn't have 2000.inf, I am wondering if higher version doesn't support parallel port anymore.

[Altera_Forum]

I have the same problem with the "Kernel mode driver not installed". I use a laptop hooked to a docking station. The docking station has a parallel port. The docking station requires no drivers at all it just works... so I don't know what driver should I use. 

I had windows 7 64 bits and just removed it and installed XP -ONLY- to be able to use my FPGA boards. I have many projects that use old FPGA cards so I need to use the byteblaster cable. With windows 7 I had the same problem with Xilinx, but once I moved to XP all the Xilinx cables (parallel port based) work ok! only Altera brings these problems. Any thoughs on how to make it work?

[Altera_Forum]

Do you use quartus II? or MAX+plus II? 

For me, MAX+plus II doesn't have much problems.   p.s. Do you power on the board before launching the program?

[Altera_Forum]

Well finally I can use it -which doesn't mean that it is fixed. 

I sent the installer to the trash inbox. I took the old Quartus 9.1 installer and execute it. Didn't wait for it to complete, just as it started to copy the files I went to the recently created bin folder and execute the "bblpt.exe /i" command... run quartus 10 (I didn't uninstall it before) and give it a try... works!!!  So it seems to be as simple as something is broken in 10. I moved the bblpt.exe to the 10's bin folder and try again but it didn't work...  meaning there's another file in 9.1 that is good while its counterpart in 10 is broken.... Wonder why Altera hasn't look at this.... it seems so simple to resolve if you know what every file is for.

[Altera_Forum]

Edge, 

 Did you also install the win2000.inf file?  Thanks,  Bob

[Altera_Forum]

Hi 

It seems that altera wants us to switch to xilinx parts. We need cheap lpt jtag cables, it seems that they just want to **** their valuable customers!!! 

[Altera_Forum]

--- Quote Start ---  Hi It seems that altera wants us to switch to xilinx parts. We need cheap lpt jtag cables, it seems that they just want to **** their valuable customers!!!    --- Quote End ---    Why not use a cheap USB-cable? Like our eeblaster (http://www.entner-electronics.com/tl/index.php/eeblaster.html) for EUR 49,-.  Thomas

[Altera_Forum]

Hi all, Windows 7 32bit or 64 bit DOES NOT support Byteblaster. You MUST use USB-blaster. I went through the whole already. Get a USB-blaster from www.terasic.com or www.digikey.com 

 I was not a lovely process to find out this issue. Good luck.

[Altera_Forum]

I have already bought the 150$ byteblaster, why should I pay any more?I managed to solve the problem by installing quartus 5.1 standalone programmer. Now Nios II®-IDE cannot detect it.But in quartus i can use it to program .sof files. Do you have any recommendation?

[Altera_Forum]

Hi, I tried this on one of the SUNIX PCI parallel port. Byteblaster II and Srunner works fine after changing the registry info. Thanks.