Arria V Starter kit - Simple Socket Server (RGMII) how to address DHCP failures?

Thanks for responding dlim.

The Ethernet IP is altera_eth_tse version 18.1 configured with RGMII, 2k x 32 internal FIFO, half duplex support, statistics counters, align packet headers, and MDIO. The design is based on cvgt_simple_socket_server except with internal memory consisting of 512KB instruction, 768KB data, and 8KB descriptor DPRAM. I also replaced the Scatter-Gather DMA controllers with Modular Scatter-Gather DMA Controllers. The network stack is the iniche stack generated using the Simple Socket Server (RGMII) project template from the Nios II Application and BSP from Template wizard. I had to increase the os_max_events parameter under Settings/Advanced/ucosii,miscellaneous parameter group from 60 to 68 in order to get the RTOS booted (I'm surprised no one is complaining about this).

I have made some small narrowing of the problem root cause, but it still looks like no TX packets make it to the PHY.

• I discovered that the RGMII TX interface was largely unconnected to the signal tap analyzer so I no longer trust the waveform display. Critical errors were generated during synthesis that said most of the connections were illegal. Is there a workaround for this?
• I got the statistics counters to work by enabling them in the settings/advanced/altera_iniche parameter group. Now I see that packets are being transmitted.
• I reconfigured the Marvel 88e1111 PHY to show only TX packets on the TX LED (the default configuration has TX and RX LEDS linked). Now I see no indication on the TX LED that packets are being transmitted, but normal indication on the RX LED. So even though the TX frame counter is incrementing, the PHY does not indicate any TX packets.

I haven't tried a loopback test since the statistic counters are indicting both TX and RX packets, but the PHY is indicating only RX packets. I suspect that the problem must be in the RGMII interface. Do you still think there is anything useful to be learned from a loop back test?

I don't understand the last question. Perhaps you could rephrase it.