Cyclone 3 E144 package getting hot and Cannot program the Cyclone using EPSC4 Chip

Dave,

Thanks for your help. The problem is solved now. It was very unclear how Altera called different power pins. I had used an altera Max II before and the unmarked power pin in the Pin Layout represents a 3.3 V. But in this case when i printed out a copy of the pin layout from Quartus the unmarked power pin represents VCCP/VCCR/VCCT. I thought that was meant for 3.3 V for the chip main power supply. So after checking the pin names from Quartus Pin Assignments, there it shows me to be VCCD_PLL, which is meant to be connected to 1.2 V and not 3.3 V. Therefore fixed my problem, I also added decoupling caps to make sure that my power supplies have monotonic ramps. Everything works as its suppose to now. I hope this help any potential users of the Cyclone 3, to be careful about power pins. Altera documentation is horrible at their nomenclatures.

Thank You again Dave for your help.