Cyclone 3 Serial loader issue "Can't recognise silicon ID for device 1"

[Altera_Forum]

Guys, 

 I am having a little problem at the moment with programming a cyclone 3 device using the serial flash loader. I am trying to program an EPCS4 (actually a M25P40) through a EP3C16 using a .jic file. I haven't used this method before but it seems straight forward enough. The initial JTAG configuration goes well but then it stops at 85% and says "Can't recognise silicon ID for device 1" :confused:    Here is the transcript from the programmer window   Info: Started Programmer operation at Fri Feb 12 14:17:14 2010 Info: Configuring device index 1 Info: Device 1 contains JTAG ID code 0x020F20DD Info: Configuration succeeded -- 1 device(s) configured Error: Can't recognize silicon ID for device 1 Error: Operation failed Info: Ended Programmer operation at Fri Feb 12 14:17:26 2010   My quartus is the latest V9.1.    Here are the list of things I have tried   1) I have a SFL megafunction in my design 2) When I convert my file to a .jic I target a EPCS4 3) I have read AN370 inside out 4) I have tried all combinations of compression settings within quartus and the .sof compression setting in the convert programming file.   I was wondering if someone could help in understanding the "can't recognise silicon ID for device 1" error. From my understanding the JTAG is used to put the serial flash loader into the FPGA. Then the FPGA chip enable and conf done come high to start running the design. The serial loader design then takes the information from the programmer and writes it in to the EPCS4 chip.   Q) Is the above operational description correct.    Q) Is the silicon ID that it is failing the EPCS chip (so is device 1 the EPCS chip)? The silicon ID of the altera chip and the M25P40 match in the datasheet as 12h. My next job will be to see what the read silicon ID says on the EPCS interface.   Q) Is there any way of determing what silicon ID the code is looking for apart from what it says in the quartus programmer window when it fails. I tried to look at the .pof and .sof to see if there was any reference but I couldn't find any.   Thanks in advance :p    Chris

[Altera_Forum]

looks like it can not communicate with the EPCS device. Make sure they are correctly connected. And update to QII 9.1 sp1

[Altera_Forum]

thanks Amilcar, 

 Eventually found it, Msel power track was broken and it was getting forced in to a different mode