is it broken or what?

[Altera_Forum]

whenever i plug in the powersupply to the fpga the power supply led on the charger turn off, however if the charger is just plugged in the wall soket it is on. the fpga dosent seem to be working at all. any advice?

[Altera_Forum]

--- Quote Start ---  whenever i plug in the powersupply to the fpga the power supply led on the charger turn off, however if the charger is just plugged in the wall soket it is on. the fpga dosent seem to be working at all. any advice?  --- Quote End ---  1) Measure the impedance between the power and ground pins on your FPGA board. If its zero ohms, then you have a short on the board (possibly a dead device).  2) Use a lab supply and power the board from that. Adjust the lab supply current rating to be similar to your wall-wart current rating. If the supply goes into current-limit, then you have a problem on the FPGA board.  If you have the schematics to the board, then you can decide whether its worth trying to fix.  You didn't happen to hear a loud bang and smell smoke the last time you used this board did you? :)  Cheers, Dave

[Altera_Forum]

no bang, i just got it, tried it and it pretty much worked, restarted my computer and cant figure out what went wrong in 2 minutes. but im not so sure i was in the room the whole time.

[Altera_Forum]

--- Quote Start ---  no bang, i just got it, tried it and it pretty much worked, restarted my computer and cant figure out what went wrong in 2 minutes. but im not so sure i was in the room the whole time.  --- Quote End ---    The external power supply could be bad. The LED might be on when there is no board attached because there is no load on it. You could try shorting a resistor across the terminals of your supply. Just make sure to calculate the resistor size correctly, eg., account for its power rating, and try not to exceed it by too much (since it'll get hot). If that causes the supply LED to go out, then you know that the supply is probably bad. (You can use multiple resistors in parallel to draw more current without exceeding the power rating of a single resistor).  Cheers, Dave

[Altera_Forum]

i guess its a short, changed the supply, (this one has no led, but the board became hot rather quickly near the .) any way to fix it?

[Altera_Forum]

--- Quote Start ---  i guess its a short, changed the supply, (this one has no led, but the board became hot rather quickly near the .) any way to fix it?  --- Quote End ---  If you have the schematics, and an ohm-meter, then you can take a shot at fixing it - its not like you can make it worse right?  Your input regulator might be the dead component. You could measure the impedance at the input and see if there is a short, and then again at the output and hopefully there is no short. Then you just need to figure out how to replace the linear regulator.  If its not the regulator, then you need to determine where the short is. If the board is well designed, then there should be ferrite beads in series with power rails. You can start removing those beads until the short clears. That'll tell you where the short is.    Cheers, Dave

[Altera_Forum]

tnx for your help. ill see if i can get someting out of it.