Urgent: cant program Cyclone III design

[Altera_Forum]

I have an FPGA based project that I have recently completed on my DE1 board, and as such I'm moving onto developing the final board. As an intermediate step I have developed a small breakout board for a cyclone III ep3c5. The problem is that i can’t get it programmed; not in JTAG, active or passive serial. I have looked over every cyclone III based development board on the internet, and have gone through the cyclone III handbook exhaustively but can find anything wrong with my design.  

Here are the details:  When i try to perform a JTAG program, it says “Error: Can't access JTAG chain”. I have attached a picture of what the JTAG chain debugger says.  When i try to program the EPCS device (it’s actually an m25p40 but i read this should be fine) it says “Error: Can't recognize silicon ID for device 1”. When i try to program via passive serial, it says “Error: Unable to reset device before configuration” I’ve attached the schematic for the appropriate parts as well. I’m leaning towards thinking that it’s the USB Blaster that’s at fault, but I have nothing to test it against. I can only assume that if it didn’t, my associate would have known, even though his subordinates mostly work with it.  Please, if anyone has experience laying out Cyclone boards, I’d appreciate some help.

[Altera_Forum]

You should try to put a scope on the jtag signal to check what they look like. 

Check also that the exposed pad is well connected to ground.  While I don't see anything really wrong with your schematic, it is dangerous to directly connect the USB blaster to the Cyclone III at 3.3V without any protection. The probability of destroying the JTAG part of the FPGA with overshoots can be quite high, especially since the FPGA doesn't have any clamping diodes on the FPGA pins.

[Altera_Forum]

i have active serial configuration in my design witn EP3C16 . some differences that i can find in your design are 

1. Pull up on TDO missing 2.nCE should be directly grounded unless there is another device in the chain. 3.I have 33ohm series resistor in place of your 1k on DATA0.  I actually dont see anything wrong but Cyclone III has very erratic nature in my case..so i guess..small changes in this case affect a lot.

[Altera_Forum]

thank you for the quick replies. i really appreciate it. As you mentioned, putting a scope on the signals was my first idea as well, so the first thing i did was take the board back to the university, ad while i was there I thought I'd test it on some of the other USB blaster cables. The first one i tried worked fine, but only for JTAG. interestingly enough though, the second did not... so i'm led to believe its not the programmer's fault, but probably something minor in the circuitry. unfortunately I never got to the scope, but rather replaced my able with the working one. Next I'm going to try the PCB changes (thanks by the way) and see what comes of that.  

Ill keep you informed.

[Altera_Forum]

I do have the same issue, however I have different configuration. 

I am using C II (EP2C5T1448N) and I do NOT have this device: EP3C5E144A7 which I believe a CPLD. I do have the JTAG and the ASP 10 headers and they are connected in the same way as the pdf file in this thread shows.  The EPCS1SI8 device is used.  Can you please help me first to know HOW can I program the FPGA? Can I with this configuration use SOF files? or I only can use POF files?  How to create the POF file if it is necessary?  I appreciate your help, I really need it.  Thanks.