Cubic Cyclonium Troubleshooting

The driver that comes with Quartus should be sufficient, the old one that shipped with the board is too old for Windows 7 so I would make sure clean that old one out.

The board I have doesn't have have the jumpers populated and it appears to be running properly. The hardware that was preloaded on that board is from 2003 or 2004 so it might be a good idea to update the hardware and try getting the software working on it. The JTAG ID of the debug module and JTAG UART have undergone changes so I wouldn't be surprised if that tools you are using are too new for the hardware that is pre-populated on the board.

Sorry I don't have any more advice, I haven't used this board since 2004 so I'm just going by memory.

Yes, this is an old discussion, but it's one of the first hits that search engines find on this topic.

I suspect I'm not the only one out there who still has a vintage Cubic Cyclonium - and wants to keep it running under Windows 7. This is a follow-up message with some hints I learned along the way to getting my Cyclonium working again:

- As you probably already know, the USB driver that comes with the Cubic Cyclonium won't work under Windows 7.

- The debug instructions in the Cubic Cyclonium documentation talk about manually loading the driver when Windows first sees the new device. In my experience, this approach will not work under Windows 7.

- I was able to get my Cyclonium working under Windows 7 by first installing the Cubic Cyclonium software, and then installing Quartus II 12.1 (I suspect other versions work, but this happens to be readily available at my site), and then - with the Cyclonium connected to the local sytem - selecting the "Cubic Cyclonium" device within "Control Panel > Devices and Printers". Then I used the "Properties" window to manually install the driver from "C:\altera\12.1\quartus\drivers\usb-blaster" (your pathname will depend on your installation).

- Yes, you must complete the Quartus installation: There's more to it than just having the usb-blaster driver files. There are several Cycloniums at my site, and I tried giving just the driver files to a person who also had a Cyclonium; it didn't work. We started over - this time fully installing Quartus II on his system - and it started working.

- In my experience, the Cyclonium connection isn't always stable using the Windows 7 usb-blaster driver. I've seen a few instances in which the Cyclonium connection stopped working - but I was able to "wake it up" again by using the device "Properties" window to disable and then re-enable the device.

I hope this helps you keep your Cyclonium running!

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Yes, this is an old discussion, but it's one of the first hits that search engines find on this topic.

I suspect I'm not the only one out there who still has a vintage Cubic Cyclonium - and wants to keep it running under Windows 7. This is a follow-up message with some hints I learned along the way to getting my Cyclonium working again:

- As you probably already know, the USB driver that comes with the Cubic Cyclonium won't work under Windows 7.

- The debug instructions in the Cubic Cyclonium documentation talk about manually loading the driver when Windows first sees the new device. In my experience, this approach will not work under Windows 7.

- I was able to get my Cyclonium working under Windows 7 by first installing the Cubic Cyclonium software, and then installing Quartus II 12.1 (I suspect other versions work, but this happens to be readily available at my site), and then - with the Cyclonium connected to the local sytem - selecting the "Cubic Cyclonium" device within "Control Panel > Devices and Printers". Then I used the "Properties" window to manually install the driver from "C:\altera\12.1\quartus\drivers\usb-blaster" (your pathname will depend on your installation).

- Yes, you must complete the Quartus installation: There's more to it than just having the usb-blaster driver files. There are several Cycloniums at my site, and I tried giving just the driver files to a person who also had a Cyclonium; it didn't work. We started over - this time fully installing Quartus II on his system - and it started working.

- In my experience, the Cyclonium connection isn't always stable using the Windows 7 usb-blaster driver. I've seen a few instances in which the Cyclonium connection stopped working - but I was able to "wake it up" again by using the device "Properties" window to disable and then re-enable the device.

I hope this helps you keep your Cyclonium running!

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I have a Cubic Cyclonium I am trying to run. I installed Quartus 11.1 SP1 because it is the last web edition that has cyclone 1 support. I had installed 13.1SP1 earlier but it doesn't have Cyclone 1 support. I used the driver from 13.1 for the Cyclonium and it shows up correctly in my device list.

I then installed the Cyclonium software. When I start the cyclonium software I get Error : Cubic Cyclonium Communication Error. Is this what you were seeing?

Also I installed the Quartus 11.1 and 13.1 on different drive than Cyclonium because Cyclonium automatically installs to C drive.

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I then installed the Cyclonium software. When I start the cyclonium software I get Error : Cubic Cyclonium Communication Error. Is this what you were seeing?

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Yes, I was getting an error like that (sorry, I don't recall the specific text) that appeared as soon as Cyclonium launched.

I've attached a view of my Cubic Cyclonium Properties "Hardware" tab as it appears today (i.e., it works). Does yours look like this?