Nios II Evaluation Kit Cyclone III Edition Usb Blaster Not Detected

[Altera_Forum]

Hey 

I am using NIOS II EVALUATION KIT CYCLONE III EDITION. the usb blaster is not recognised in both the flash programmer and the quartus programmer. The driver is installed. I am able to program other fpga boards. I am new to this board. Its given that the usb blaster is inbuilt. The kit comes preloaded with a few applications. Please help me out of this :)   With Regards  Aditya

[Altera_Forum]

This means, the on-board Blaster isn't available in Quartus prorammer hardware setup, while a regular USB Blaster is? 

 Does the USB device display any way in windows control panel device manager, particularly under USB controller or unknown?

[Altera_Forum]

Ya exactly a regular blaster appears in hardware setup of quartus programmer 

In control panel also there is no unknown device, or any change when i plug in the usb... My guess is, the usb is not responding... Either its not configured properly or is being used as something else..  With Regards  Aditya

[Altera_Forum]

To detect the Dev Kit hardware as USB Blaster, these conditions must be met, I think: 

 - The USB related hardware must be oprational and connected to USB - The board ust be powered and the EPM3128 have a configuration, that sources 6 MHz clock to FT245 - The 93C46 EEPROM must contain the correct configuration. Cases have been reported, where a Dev Kit lost the FT245 configuration and was detected as a USB to serial adapter instead - The driver must be installed  So in addition to what you alredy did, you could check for unexpected serial adapter. If it is detected as such, it may be a lost configuration or a driver issue. You can also check, if a 6 MHz clock is present at R42 and C35.

[Altera_Forum]

Thanks for the info. 

I tried using the USB Blaster (stand-alone cable) cable on J4 (after shunting JP8) - it does detect a chain, but shows "unknown_20F30DD" under 'Device'. When i connect the usb, in the device manager it is recognised as 'USB High Speed Serial Converter', and the manufacturer is given as 'FTDI'. So i guess theres some configeration error. The clock appears properly at R42 and C35

[Altera_Forum]

At the beginning, I had also problems with using the embedded USB Blaster - an external one worked probably. After some experiments I found out that I have to plug in the USB cable after powering up the development board. Otherwise the JTAG chain was not recognized by Quartus.

[Altera_Forum]

There is a certain possibility, that's a driver problem, but most likely the 93C46 EEPROM has lost it's configuration or wasn't programmed at all. It would show FTDI default VID=0403 rather than Altera VID=09FB and USB Blaster PID=6001. 

 The FTDI MProg tool allows to reprogram the EEPROM, you can also display the existing configuration (if the EEPROM isn't blank), I discussed the topic in another thread: http://www.alteraforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2445  I attached a MProg ept file read out from an Altera USB Blaster, programming it to the EEPROM should turn your board in an USB Blaster as intended. If it would be a driver problem though, deleting the device in device manager and reinstalling it, using the USB Blaster driver could help.

[Altera_Forum]

Hi, 

I reprogrammed the EEPROM with no success...I am still not able to see the USB Blaster in the hardware window..any advise?:confused:

[Altera_Forum]

I had problems with McAfee. 

When I turned off McAfee it magically worked.