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Altera_Forum
Honored Contributor
Honored ContributorProblems with Cyclone III - NIOS II Embedded Evaluation kit
Hi everyone,
I just received my Cyclone III devkit last week, and this weekend I spent some time trying to get it to work. I still haven't had any luck. Hopefully, someone here can point me in the right direction, because I've gone through the user manual and it isn't helping. 1. I powered up the board after inserting the included SD card, and nothing appears on the screen. The user manual says that I might have to press the reconfigure button twice, but that doesn't help. I have confirmed that the SD card does have the sample apps installed. 2. I then used the nios2-flash-programmer to reload the factory image .flash file. After doing that, I received the following status: Using cable "USB-Blaster [USB-0]", device 1, instance 0x00 Resetting and pausing target processor: OK Checksummed/read 1069kB in 1301.0s Erase not required Programmed 1101KB in 0.0s No change to device contents Leaving target processor paused I'm not sure why the target processor is paused, but I would bet that's why the application selector isn't running. :) Can anyone tell me how to fix this? 3. I cannot get any sample apps to run in Quartus II v7.2. Every time I try to compile a sample app, it gives me errors related to my license file not having support for SD_MMC_..., or other options. I have a free 150 day (?) license, and already pointed Quartus II at this license file. If I can't compile and run any sample applications, what good was it to even buy this devkit? 4. When I run the NIOS 2 IDE and try the hello_world sample application, it won't run because I don't have a JTAG connected. Do I really have to buy more hardware just to print "hello world"? Thanks in advance for any ideas / suggestions!21 Replies
Altera_ForumOk, so I did follow your instructions and things started to look up. However, when I built the project in the NIOS II IDE, I got the following error:
**** Build of configuration Debug for project count_binary_0 **** make -s all includes /cygdrive/c/altera/72/nios2eds/components/altera_hal/build/gtf_rules.mk:81: *** multiple target patterns. Stop. Build completed in 2.89 seconds Do you understand this error message?- Altera_Forum
The warnings in Quartus are no problem.
Have you installed the usb-driver? Have you created a new project? Or only oppened the .c File? Here is the Link to the Altera driver information http://www.altera.com/support/software/drivers/dri-index.html Can you download the design into the FPGA with Quartus Programmer? In the NIOS IDE start a new Project C/C++ Application. In the next dialog you can choose the sample applications (count_binary template) and you have to choose your Quartus hardware design, which should be used for this software. Click finish and the project will be created. Now right-click on count_binary and choose in the opened menu System Library Properties and only activate Programm never exits and Small C Library. That's all. Now you can build your project. Download the hardware design into the FPGA and than Choose Run<Run Hardware. http://www.altera.com/literature/tt/tt_nios2_hardware_tutorial.pdf I think this tutorial can help you to run the sample application. - Altera_Forum
Yes, everything looks correct. The only problem is that I get a build error when building in the NIOS IDE. Please see the post before yours... hopefully you know what it means. :)
EDIT -- ok, I happened to find something interesting with Google. Basically, it sounds like you can't have spaces anywhere in the project paths. I'm going to start over again using files in a path that doesn't have spaces, and we'll see what happens. - Altera_Forum
It looks like that weird error was indeed due to the spaces in my path. Here's what happened once I fixed that problem:
- I created a new project in the Nios II IDE again, based on the binary counter template. This time, it built successfully - I then went to run as hardware, and got the following message in the IDE log: Using cable "USB-Blaster [USB-0]", device 1, instance 0x00 Pausing target processor: OK Reading System ID at address 0x00021048: ID value does not match: read 0x00FFFFFF; expected 0x064BB6F8 Timestamp value does not match: image on board is older than expected Read timestamp 21:20:15 1970/07/13; expected 9:28:00 2008/03/25 The software you are downloading may not run on the system which is currently configured into the device. Please download the correct SOF or recompile. Restarting target processor I went ahead and added the .SOF file anyway at the programming screen, and when I clicked Start, it downloaded the program. The only thing that happened was my screen slowly turned all white, and all of the LEDs were on. For a binary counter project, I was expecting to see the LED states count up in binary, but they didn't. - Altera_Forum
Ok this correct.
When all the LED's turned on. Now you have downloaded my design file. After that you have to run the project. Than the LED's starts to count. - Altera_Forum
Very exciting stuff! I don't know why it worked this time, but I went through the same process, and now the LEDs are counting as I would expect! :) Thanks a bunch for giving me your sample app -- now I just have to go back and actually look at your design, and also need to read the hardware tutorial, since I know relatively little about this kit.
- Altera_Forum
OK, nice.
In my hardware design is alittle mistake, the buttons are not connected to the nios. So, if you wish to use the buttons, you have to connect the buttons to the nios processor in Quartus and then compile the project again. - Altera_Forum--- Quote Start --- OK, nice. In my hardware design is alittle mistake, the buttons are not connected to the nios. So, if you wish to use the buttons, you have to connect the buttons to the nios processor in Quartus and then compile the project again. --- Quote End --- I looked at your hardware design in Quartus II, but it looks like the buttons are actually connected. Did I miss something?
- Altera_Forum
click at the buttons and pull them a bit to the left side. Than you can see that the buttons are not connected. I need 2 days to find this mistake, because it seems that everything is correct.
- Altera_Forum--- Quote Start --- click at the buttons and pull them a bit to the left side. Than you can see that the buttons are not connected. I need 2 days to find this mistake, because it seems that everything is correct. --- Quote End --- That's what I had done. I attached a screenshot to my previous post so you could see that I had dragged the buttons, and wires did connect the buttons to the inputs on the NIOS. Of course, I don't know what I'm really doing yet, so perhaps I've missed something. If you want, I can try to figure it out as well if you'd like another pair of eyes looking at it.
