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Altera_Forum's avatar
Altera_Forum
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14 years ago

USBblaster does not show up in Quartus

Hi All,

I've got Quartus II V11.0sp1 installed on my Windows 7 64bit system. I've installed the USBblaster and device manager reports it as being OK, but Quartus refuses to recognize it in the programmer hardware pull-down.

It seems the JTAG server won't start (it starts then stops according to the services manager).

I've been through the forum looking for fixes, including installing the standalone programmer (tried 10.1sp1, 11.0 and 11.1sp1). Nothing seems to work. However I did see it appear once, but that was very early on after initial installation.

Can anyone help?

Thanks!

Mark.

16 Replies

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    14 years ago

    i've seen similar behavior. use the Device Manager to uninstall the USB Blaster. then unplug and plug the cable back into the PC and install the driver again

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    14 years ago

    Thanks, I've already tried that (I even unistalled the root hub to force Windows to re-install), same problem.

    The JTAG service isn't running. If I try to restart with services.msc the service starts then immediately stops. Funny thing is this has worked before (V11.0) , I think it stopped working when I installed 11.0sp1. I'm wondering whether I need to re-install as Administrator (I have admin privileges, but do I need to actually run the install programs as Administrator?)

    News just in: I had previously tried re-installing Quartus and all the drivers before without success. This time I re-installed by running the install programs as Administrator, and it seems to have worked. As belt and braces I've also set the JTAG service as 'delayed automatic' just in case there are timing or dependency issues with the install of the service. Touch wood things seem to be stable now (famous last words!!).
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    14 years ago

    The Jtag server runs even if you don't have any USB blaster connected so yes it was likely an access rights problem. Either something else had already opened port 1309, or the Jtag server needed administrator privileges for some reason.

  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    14 years ago

    Sometimes firefox happens to open port 1309 by chance and blocks jtagserver. Try `netstat -an | grep 1309` to see if anything is listening on that port.

    jtagserver needs administrative access to register with the service manager but once you've registered a normal user can start it. All the jtag programs (programmer, SystemConsole etc) will start jtagserver if it is installed but not running.

    The exception is if you have quartus installed on a network in which case the service manager will need a username and password to access the jtagserver binaries.
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    14 years ago

    Thanks for the replies guys. I'll run the netstat command if it happens again.

    Also (as per Altera's recommendations) I had disabled ZoneAlarm and AVG, but how do personal firewalls actually affect this? Should I add jtagserver.exe to allowed programs that can start servers locally? I could run ZoneAlarm from from the startup directory I guess but this defeats the object somewhat.

    Edit: Not out of the woods yet :( It seems I cannot open an existing project or create a new one without an internal error and Quartus shutting down. I've had to re-install again. Still got an internal error just once with the new project wizard (only on 64 bit version though), but seems OK now.
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    14 years ago

    --- Quote Start ---

    ... on my Windows 7 64bit system ...

    --- Quote End ---

    Hello.

    I had the same problem.

    The service exists in a 32- and in a 64-bit version. Quartus unfortunally comes with the 32-bit version only. This does NOT work on 64-bit versions of Windows.

    On the Altera WEB page you find a stand-alone version of the programming tool for FPGA/CPLD for download (unfortunately I do not know the URL). This tools contains both versions (32- and 64-bit) of the service.

    Download the programming tool and install it. Then programming from Quartus will work on 64-bit Windows versions.

    Hope this helps.

    Martin
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    14 years ago

    Thanks Martin. That is exactly what I did and it seems to be working. I think it worked though with 11.0, the problems came after 11.0sp1 was installed, so I don't think it is quite that clear cut. Anyway, problem is now resolved using the technique you posted.

    Mark.
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    14 years ago

    Just a note on how I solved this problem..

    It was the driver that came with 11.1sp2...

    I had the same problem above, and tried all the different suggestions:

    - using older DLLs

    - downloading the '64bit version' (I never found a true 64bit version)

    - using v10.0 programmer

    - re-installing the driver

    - checking that other applications weren't trying to use port 1309

    So I eventually just downloaded the USBBlaster driver zip from Altera website.

    <url deleted because I don't have url posting privileges - you can find it by googling "usbblaster driver windows 7">

    and reinstalled the driver with those drivers and it's working now.

    So if you have 11.1sp2, that might be your problem.
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    14 years ago

    Thanks, I was actually using 11.0sp1 and fixed it by installing the standalone programmer. This info may come in handy though if I upgrade to 11.1sp2.

    Mark.
  • Altera_Forum's avatar
    Altera_Forum
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    14 years ago

    Hi,

    I have the same problem.

    I'm using Windows 7, 64 bits

    I'm running quartus 11.1 sp2

    Installation of the usb blaster went correctly in the end.

    Redone itas described in

    http://www.altera.com/download/drivers/usb-blaster/dri-usb-blaster-vista.html

    I got an error the first time

    Attempted to access JTAG server --internal error code 82 occurred

    When I stop and start the server again, still no usb-blaster

    Also running as administrator (suggested also on this forum) didn't help.

    The cable and usb blaster works on another PC, so the hardware is working.

    Any idea?

    Rgds,

    Kimberley