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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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20 years ago

Warning: FTDI USB Chip

Hi Guys,

I'm not sure if this is off-topic, but I thought I aught to warn anyone who is doing development work using an FTDI USB chip.

The Altera USB Blaster also uses an FTDI chip and I have just accidentally reprogrammed the eeprom inside it with settings for my own USB device, so the Atlera software no longer recognised it. Fortunately I have got two, so I was able to read the good one and re-program it.

So I would recommend that you disconnect your USB Blaster when using FTDI's MPROG utility.

I hope this will prevent others suffering the same fate.

2 Replies

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

    Thanks for the info, I was about to start playing with that chip in a little while.

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

    To add to the warning, this can also happen to the Altera Nios II Evaluation Board and the Cubic Cyclonium. It seems like there's no way for the MProg software to specify which device it is programming, so make sure only one FTDI device is connected to your PC at a time while using MProg.

    Dennis Scott

    Microtronix Datacom