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AShiv's avatar
AShiv
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7 years ago

Obscure Quartus Issue Generating DDR/SDRAM Controller

This isn't actually a question but an answer, since after much struggling and attempts at finding a solution I was actually successful. I had been running into an issue generating any DDR/SDRAM memory controller in Quartus for about a week, with no real reason. It would get stuck every time at: 

Info: p0: "DDR3_Controller" instantiated altera_mem_if_ddr3_phy_core "p0"
Info: m0: "DDR3_Controller" instantiated altera_mem_if_ddr3_afi_mux "m0"

Now according to Altera this is an issue with your TEMP system variable being set to a network drive, but that wasn't the issue since mine was set to a C drive folder. Out of the 5 computers we attempted it on, it failed in the same way on two of them, so I re-imaged my machine, and started piece meal installing my software to figure out the issue. What I figured out for our case was that it was the Windows-Linux-Subsystem Enable command that you need to do in order to install the Microsoft supplied Ubuntu command shell. You don't need to un-install the Ubuntu launcher, but simply run the opposite of the Enable command. So to turn on the subsystem you run this in Powershell: 

Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux

To fix this bug with Quartus run: 

Disable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux

After the restart I was able to generate the Qsys System. I tried it on a few different versions, and as far as I can tell its a common issue with all of them. As far as a work around to get it to work without turning off the subsystem, I didn't look into it, but I'm sure there's a way, Or maybe Intel will fix it in a future release, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Hope that helps someone, Cheers.

4 Replies

  • KennyT_altera's avatar
    KennyT_altera
    Icon for Super Contributor rankSuper Contributor
    7 years ago

    May I know what Quartus version that you were using? ​Q18.1Pro edition?

    What device that you were using?

    This will be a good input for people face the same issue in the future.

  • AShiv's avatar
    AShiv
    Icon for New Contributor rankNew Contributor
    7 years ago

    All of the Quartus Versions:

    12.1 Lite Edition

    12.1 SP1 Lite Edition

    17.1 Lite Edition

    18.0 Lite Edition

    18.1 Lite Edition

    Given this I would assume it affects all editions 12.1-18.1. I chose 12.1 since that was what the examples that came with the board were originally built in, that and the issue was the same using any edition.

    Also since this is a Windows issue it would help that all computers were using Windows 10 Pro Edition, however the specific builds were different, however there was no correlation between build and functionality. All the computers were using different Windows builds, and even after we updated them all to the same build, the computers that had the Linux subsystem still did not function and the ones that did not continued to work.

    My Board was a Cyclone V E Development Kit.

  • AShiv's avatar
    AShiv
    Icon for New Contributor rankNew Contributor
    7 years ago

    That is not the way Windows tells you to do it, but it very well may be a way to do so. This is the way Microsoft suggests it be done and the way I did it: 

    https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install-win10