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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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8 years ago

Using Byte Blaster Rev. C with FTDI232RL breakout board

I have a USB Byte Blaster Rev. C. For certain reasons I am trying to connect my FPGA to a breakout board that has a FTDI232RL on it.

There are 3 USB cables that I have to use at this time. The first powers the small FPGA board that I have, the second connects to the Byte Blaster, the third connects to the FTDI232RL breakout board.

The problem I am having is that, the Quartus programmer and the Nios II EDS, stop detecting my Byte Blaster after I connect the USB cable for the FTDI232RL. Once I connect the FTDI232RL into my laptop, I am not able to download my sof file or run Nios II configuration in hardware. However, once I remove the FTDI232RL USB connection, they start working again.

It seems that the two devices don't go along well. Has anybody else had this trouble?

2 Replies

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
    Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
    8 years ago

    Hi XAUI,

    This is kinda expected when using USB Blaster cable with another FTDI chip at the same time. Unless the driver provided for the external FTDI is different, then only Quartus programmer/Nios EDS can detect the FTDI chip separately. You may consider to use USB Blaster II cable as this cable is using a different driver (WinUSB drivers) from FTDI driver. Thus there won’t any confliction when using other FTDI periphery the same time.

    Regards,

    nyusof

    (This message was posted on behalf of Intel Corporation)
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
    Icon for Honored Contributor rankHonored Contributor
    8 years ago

    Presume you are asking about USB Blaster Rev. C rather than Byte Blaster.

    --- Quote Start ---

    This is kinda expected when using USB Blaster cable with another FTDI chip at the same time. Unless the driver provided for the external FTDI is different, then only Quartus programmer/Nios EDS can detect the FTDI chip separately. You may consider to use USB Blaster II cable as this cable is using a different driver (WinUSB drivers) from FTDI driver. Thus there won’t any confliction when using other FTDI periphery the same time.

    --- Quote End ---

    It's in fact a known problem, but not at all expectable.

    http://www.alteraforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=2015

    In fact it's a very old problem as you can see when reviewing old discussions related to FTDI driver conflicts. The problem was solved for many years and seemed to have reappeared with Windows 7/10 and/or 64-Bit USB Blaster drivers. In my view it's a real shame to Altera doesn't manage to fix the driver bug.