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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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12 years ago

How to get Cyclone IV GX dev board to auto-load user design?

I have been pulling out my rapidly dwindling hairs trying to figure out how to get the dev board to power up and boot my design and not the factory load. Following all the directions in the manuals got me to the point where on power-up the board loads my design -- briefly. I see the CONF_DONE LED light up and my design starts to work (I blink some user LEDs). After a few seconds the board reboots itself and loads the factory default. Sadly repeatable. I'm using the web portal to load the design into parallel flash. SW1 is set for "user."

So, my design does load and run but it gets overwritten by the factory load for some unknown reason. How do I tell the board to stop rebooting the factory load automatically? It is behaving like someone pushed the PGM_LOAD button. I've done plenty of searches and scoured all relevant manuals/docs, but to no avail.

Lastly, the sof2flash utility creates the desired .flash file for my design, but it also creates a .map.flash file that is tiny. Is this supposed to get loaded somewhere into the FLASH? If so, where and how?

Any advice will be greatly appreciated. This should be the easy part of the project... ;-)

5 Replies

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    12 years ago

    It's a while since I played with this but it sounds like there's a watchdog kicking in which sounds vaguely familiar.

    Can you look at any example designs and look for something kicking a watchdog?

    Nial.
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    12 years ago

    Thanks for responding Nial. Unfortunately I don't see any kind of watchdog on that board. Also, if I use the pushbuttons to force the board to load my design it loads and runs just fine without the weird reboot and my design doesn't connect to any external watchdog. It is only a power-up condition. I've been checking for a brownout condition on one of the power rails but so far those all look just fine too. It appears that I'll have to over-write the factory load to make it reliably power-up to my load.

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    12 years ago

    I have the same issue. Cyclone IV GX dev board doesn't auto-load user design, even if SW1.1 (FACTORY) is set to ON. It works if I load through push buttons.

    How I'm developing a PCIe design, it shall start on power on. Does somebody knows a workaround?
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    12 years ago

    paulorc: I figured out a kludge that may work for you. So far it has worked for me but I haven't cycled power enough times yet to feel 100% confident. What I did was bridge across the PGM_SEL button (S7) leads -- the two pins facing the CPLD. On power-up my user load gets programmed, then the weird reset-like event occurs and the bridge across the pushbutton acts like I pushed the button. The user load LED lights up and my load is re-loaded into the FPGA and runs fine after that. A total kludge that shouldn't be necessary but I was at a loss for what else to do at this point. I sure would love to sort out why it doesn't load as expected but the kludge is better than nothing. You can test it by simply pressing S7 and holding it down while you cycle power. Don't release the pushbutton until after your design loads the 2nd time. If it works you can solder a small wire across the switch leads. Good luck!

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    12 years ago

    --- Quote Start ---

    paulorc: I figured out a kludge that may work for you. So far it has worked for me but I haven't cycled power enough times yet to feel 100% confident. What I did was bridge across the PGM_SEL button (S7) leads -- the two pins facing the CPLD. On power-up my user load gets programmed, then the weird reset-like event occurs and the bridge across the pushbutton acts like I pushed the button. The user load LED lights up and my load is re-loaded into the FPGA and runs fine after that. A total kludge that shouldn't be necessary but I was at a loss for what else to do at this point. I sure would love to sort out why it doesn't load as expected but the kludge is better than nothing. You can test it by simply pressing S7 and holding it down while you cycle power. Don't release the pushbutton until after your design loads the 2nd time. If it works you can solder a small wire across the switch leads. Good luck!

    --- Quote End ---

    It works.

    Thank you.