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Altera_Forum
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17 years ago

PCI Express-to-DDR2 SDRAM Ref Dsgn Locks up PC

Hello,

I have an Arria GX PCIe Development Kit and I am having trouble running the PCI Express-to-DDR2 SDRAM Reference Design. Here are the steps I take, and here is the problem that occurs:

Steps

1. Program board with .pof file included with PCIe arria gx ref design download.

2. Install Jungo driver on PC.

3. Turn off PC, install PCIe dev board, turn on PC.

4. Found new hardware wizard selects Stratix II GX driver.

5. Start using SIIGXPCIE.exe to test the board.

The behavior after starting the executable is never reproducable. Sometimes I am able to make make 10 DMA reads or writes, sometimes none at all. The problem that always occurs is a message box will appear that says 'DMA Still Pending'. This message does not seem correct because the main window will report the DMA transfer is complete. Also, message box will appear sometimes when I am using the control in the bottom right corner to read DMA configuration registers, almost as if it is out of place.

The reference design that came with the board, and the one used by 'altpcie_demo.exe' runs fine, and has never given me any problems. Thus, I dont know if I am seeing a hardware issue or not.

An additional note. After the 'DMA still pending' message box appears, the whole PC is locked up. The only way to recover is to manually reboot the system.

Has anyone else seen similar issues?

1 Reply

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
    Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
    17 years ago

    An additional note. After the 'DMA still pending' message box appears, the whole PC is locked up. The only way to recover is to manually reboot the system.

    Another noticed behavior is after an undetermined amount of time, all registers go to 1's. For instance, all the configurations space registers viewed from SIIGXPCIE.exe go to 0xFFFF...

    The same can be said for the DMA control registers. This event seems to occur at variable amounts of time, and even if no memory transactions occur (DMA or register). The 'DMA Still Pending' message box might be a side effect of everything being set to 1's and the DMA Still Active bit remaining high.