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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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20 years ago

FTDI chips & USB Blaster

I am just develloping a device which connects to a pc using a ftdi usb-chip solution - which is also used in the usb-blaster. If there is only one of these devices connected to the pc, everything works fine but if i connect them both, the device connected as last won't work and windows tells me "Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware because a previous instance of the device driver is still in memory. (Code 38)" at the device manager window. As the new devices also contains a cyclone chip containing a nios2, it is necessary for develloping purposes to use them both at the same time.

Is this a general problem of the usb-blaster/ftdi chips or is my software installation faulty?

Any suggestions?

3 Replies

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    20 years ago

    This sounds like a bug in the FDTI host software - USB-Blaster uses its own JTAG ID so there's no hardware reason why you shouldn't be able to connect them both at once. Have you tried talking to FDTI about this?

    If you have two PCs available then a clunky workaround might be to connect the USB-Blaster to one and your hardware to the other and use Remote JTAG to get to the USB-Blaster.
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    20 years ago

    I've tried the same configuration and I've the same problem. When you connect the other FTDI chip (not usb blaster), windows found a different product/device id and ask you for a new driver. But the driver is the same. Try to add support for standard FTDI device/product id in the .inf file for usb blaster (driver/usb-blaster folder of your quartus home directory) (see appendix 2 for details http://www.ftdichip.com/resources/utilitie...user_guide.pdf) (http://www.ftdichip.com/resources/utilities/ftd2xxst_user_guide.pdf)).

    PS: I've tried this !! It's only a suggestion !
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    20 years ago

    Hi,

    I also found the same problem and solved it by installing the FTD2XX driver with other name to use it with the FTDI chip. I suggest to follow this steps:

    1.- Download the FTD2XX drivers from www.ftdichip.com

    2.- Change the name of the files to whatever you want: i.e. FTD2XX.dll -> xxxxxx.dll; FTD2XX.inf -> xxxxxxx.inf and so on

    3.- Edit xxxxxx.inf with the new names, where it says FTD2XX.sys put xxxxxx.sys and so on with any other name that changed in the last step

    4.- Install this driver as the driver needed by your FTDI chip.

    So now you have two identical drivers but with different names, and windows stops complaining http://forum.niosforum.com/work2/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif

    That&#39;s what i did and everything works fine since that moment.

    Bye,

    Luis