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Altera_Forum
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15 years ago

Cyclone III: Cannot Access JTAG Chain

Hi guys, I am new to FPGAs and I have been playing with my Cyclone III. I was experimenting different sample codes such as the power measurement code and everything worked fine. When I tried to...
Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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15 years ago

I wonder if you (or anyone) could elaborate a bit more on this problem. I have a Cyclone III Development Board that is giving me the "Can't Access JTAG Chain" problem when I try to program it. I am simply trying to program it with the "my first FPGA" SOF file over the USB Blaster connection. I have tried both JTAG and Passive Serial modes. In Passive Serial mode I get a different error: "Unable to reset device before configuration"

There is nothing in any of the documentation I've seen so far that gives any hints as to what to try or check when this kind of problem happens, so I'm at a bit of a loss.

My board does not have anything on it with a designator that starts with "JP" so I'm not sure if we are using the same board or not. I configured the SW3 and SW1 switches exactly as specified in the documentation that came with the board. There are jumpers on J6 and J7, right where they were when I unpacked the board. There are no other jumpers on the board.

I see nothing on my board that says "USB-Blaster enable". However SW3 has a switch designated as "MAX_ENABLE" and there is text above SW3 that says "EMB BLASTER". This switch is set to "1".

Anyone have any idea why the USB Baster refuses to cooperate?

Thanks,

Lynwood Hines