Forum Discussion

mcmaster_ece's avatar
mcmaster_ece
Icon for New Contributor rankNew Contributor
2 years ago
Solved

Solution: USB Blaster Driver for Windows 11 ARM

Reddit user Space192 and I found a driver solution for the USB Blaster on Windows 11 ARM. It has been tested on Windows 11 ARM Parallels for M1/M2 Macs and also on a Raspberry Pi 4. The solution is t...
Configuration
  • mcmaster_ece's avatar
    mcmaster_ece
    2 years ago

    The USB Blaster driver attached to my original post should work for Quartus 19.1 through 23.3 on Windows 11 ARM.

    I've attached proven drivers for Quartus 17 through 18, Quartus 13, and Quartus 9. To install a driver without disabling signature enforcement, first add the security certificate to (Local Machine) Trusted Root Certification Authorities as well as (Local Machine) Trusted Publishers.

    If you have a version of Quartus not listed, the ARM driver version with DLL file sizes matching those found in \quartus\drivers\usb-blaster\x64\ should work. If there is no match, replacing the DLL files of any ARM driver version and disabling driver signature enforcement should work.

Ceniza's avatar
Ceniza
Icon for New Contributor rankNew Contributor
2 years ago

I also have an update for those with an USB Blaster II (such as the one integrated into the de10-nano).

The Intel 64 bits drivers can be installed in an ARM 64 bits version of Windows, but you will have to modify the INF file and disable signature enforcement.

  1. Make a copy of the folder with the drivers to some location you can freely modify (the drivers reside in "C:\intelFPGA_lite\22.1std\quartus\drivers\usb-blaster-ii" for my installation)
  2. Open the folder you just copied, then open usbblasterii.inf with Notepad (if you don't see extensions, it's the one with type "Setup Information")
  3. Replace the line "CatalogFile=usbblasterii.cat" with ";CatalogFile=usbblasterii.cat" (it's just adding a semicolon at the beginning of that line to disable it)
  4. Replace all occurrences of the text "amd64" with "arm64" (this also includes replacing "NTamd64" with "NTarm64")
  5. Save the file
  6. Be sure Windows is started up with signature enforcement disabled
    1. Go to Settings > System > Recovery
    2. Click on "Restart now" by Advanced startup
    3. Confirm Restart now
    4. Select "Troubleshoot"
    5. Select "Advanced options"
    6. Select "Startup Settings"
    7. Select "Restart"
    8. Press "7" for "Disable driver signature enforcement"
  7. Open Device manager
  8. Right click on the unknown device
  9. Select "Update driver"
  10. Choose "Browse my computer for drivers"
  11. Click "Browse..." and select the folder with the modified version of usbblasterii.inf
  12. Click Next
  13. Choose "Install this driver software anyway"

Quartus Programmer should now be able to connect to the device.

twister1398's avatar
twister1398
Icon for New Contributor rankNew Contributor
2 years ago

Thank you for this solution. I can confirm that I was able to use the USB Blaster II after installing the driver as you described.