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BobDole's avatar
BobDole
Icon for New Contributor rankNew Contributor
4 years ago

Quartus Prime Lite - issue installing USB-Blaster driver -- unsigned driver

Hello,

Currently having an issue getting Quartus Prime Lite to install properly on windows 10 machines. Did some digging around and the issue is caused by the driver certificate being out of date for the USB-Blaster driver (Expired in may of this year I think).

Now I managed to get the driver to install once I disabled driver signature enforcement in windows 10, but it seems it's still technically not working as the software wont interface with our DE10 FPGA devices.

This is the first time I've encountered this error as there was never a driver cert issue going on, but now I have professors unable to use their hardware on my lab machines as the USB-Blaster driver, even though technically installed, still isn't allowing for hardware/software interface to happen.

I did see there were patches made for this by intel, but none work for the lite version of the program, only the pro version.

Any solutions would be appreciated as I've ran out of ideas on how to get it to work, other than going the VM route which I'd like to avoid.

3 Replies

  • YuanLi_S_Intel's avatar
    YuanLi_S_Intel
    Icon for Regular Contributor rankRegular Contributor
    4 years ago

    Can you elaborate further on "software wont interface with our DE10 FPGA devices."? Is that programming issue on quartus? If so, what is the error message?


    • BobDole's avatar
      BobDole
      Icon for New Contributor rankNew Contributor
      4 years ago

      Basically windows 10 won't take the driver certificate for the USB Blaster 2 driver. They have an updated driver but I was not able to get windows to install it.

      I've solved the issue by downgrading to the 18.1 version which will install and interface with the DE10 Lite device. I'm just going to keep my labs running it for the time being until Intel finally updates the Quartus Lite software.

      See, they've fixed the outdated driver in the latest version Quartus Prime Pro, but they have yet to update the standard and Lite versions of the program, hence it's a big stupid mess right now. Boggles the mind why they'd only update the Pro version and not the standard or Lite, but I think it's kinda obvious why it's so...

      Thanks for trying to render assistance though, I do appreciate it. Shame we gotta use forums to find assistance as I wasn't unable to find an actual Intel rep to render aid.

      Oh well. Hate to use older software but what can you do...

  • YuanLi_S_Intel's avatar
    YuanLi_S_Intel
    Icon for Regular Contributor rankRegular Contributor
    4 years ago

    Understand.


    Another approach you may consider is manually disable the driver signature enforcement. After driver installation, then only enable it back. Below are the steps.

    1 - Go to windows 10 settings and search for "advanced startup options"

    2 - Under Advanced startup, hit "Restart now"

    3 - After a moment, you'll get a "choose an option" screen - choose "Troubleshoot", then "Advanced options", then "Startup Settings"

    4 - You'll get a screen telling you what you will be able to change and a single "Restart" button - press it.

    5 - If your boot drive is BitLocker encrypted, you'll need to enter the recovery key (press return, enter the key in the text box then hit return again - it took me three goes to realize I had to hit return before I could enter they key !)

    6 - You'll be given a menu of options, number 7 disables driver signature enforcement

    7 - When the PC restarts, use Device manager to update the drivers - this time you'll get a warning about the signature, but they install fine.

    8 - When you've finished, restart normally to re-enable signature enforcement