trouble with quartus II programmer...

[Altera_Forum]

hi all, 

I just got my new cyclone III starter board with touch screen, and i'm trying to go through the tutorials. I'm running windows Vista, and have everything installed, including the USB blaster driver. From the NIOS II IDE, when i click tools -> quartus ii programmer, the initializing quartus ii programmer window pops up, and then just hangs. The progress bar only gets like 3 blocks in. I'm not sure what to do, and i've searched these threads with no luck. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks, D

[Altera_Forum]

just another note: When i check my USB device manager in windows, it shows the Altera USB-Blaster, and reports it as working properly.

[Altera_Forum]

What version of the Altera tools are you using? I wouldn't advise using anything less than the latest 7.2 tools with Vista. 

 There are also several Vista-related threads on both this and the Nios Forum. You might try doing some hunting for others who've had issues like yours.  Good luck!

[Altera_Forum]

7.2 on both the quartus and NIOS ide's. Thanks i'll check that out for sure.

[Altera_Forum]

Hello. I am trying out the "My First Nios II Software Design" and I have this same problem. My hardware setup is same as yours. Everything else seems to be in order.  

Any leads on this? thanks

[Altera_Forum]

haha, the only lead i have is that altera and vista to not mix. I ended up formatting my comp and installing XP. Machine runs much much faster now, even though it doesn't recognize all the ram, and everything is super smooth with altera. 

If changing your OS isn't an option, there is another trick you can do by changing the name of some of the low level ".exe" files to just ".ex", so they dont run. I dont remember the file names, and never pursued this method all the way. It would allow quartus to initialize, but would only start with a ton of warnings. I just doubted that it was going to work correctly, and opted for xp. If you need me to find those file names i can, would just take a bit of searching on this forum, which i'm sure you can do.

[Altera_Forum]

Hello.  

I’m a new Altera Cyclone II Starter Kit user, but I can’t already download a program to the device, not even the examples, I even read the handbooks and the user guide but I don’t find where is the problem. I have everything installed, including the USB blaster driver and I have made some proves, the status bar of the programmer window shows complete download, but when I flip the switch to the RUN position I only can see the preloaded program.  I would like to know if there are more documentation, step by step guides, tutorials or if somebody knows a link to a web page.  Thanks

[Altera_Forum]

Just a thought, are you un-plugging the memory card that came with the dev board? I'm not sure if i'm remembering correctly, but i think you have to be sure to remove the memory card otherwise it will boot from that. As far as tutorials and guides, i'd like to find more as well. Good luck.

[Altera_Forum]

Hello, 

 When I click on "hardware setup button" in Programmer option in Quartus 2, Quartus 2 bugs. The window is blocked and I cannot do anything.  Who had the same problem ? How can I solve it ?  Thank you for you help. It's the same problem with all my project which were working before...

[Altera_Forum]

DE2 board seems to be out... 

I read it could be an EEPROM error. :eek:

[Altera_Forum]

Problem solved... 

 In the driver installer assistant (prompting when DE2 just Connected) Install driver from list - next- Do not search I'm gonna search the driver - choose port com  So many times to find this bug...