Problem with using RS232 on DE2-70

I have recently bought one of the DE2-70 boards for use in our embedded systems course, but I'm having a lot of trouble getting information through the UART.

We are using the standard DE2_SD_CARD_AUDIO sample firmware on the DE2 (not DE2-70) boards at uni - and it works flawlessly, but when I try and load the corresponding DE2_70_SD_CARD_AUDIO sample firmware onto my DE2-70 board (given on the CD), the serial fails to work!

I have noticed that the TX light stays on permanently on the DE2-70 (as soon as the firmware is loaded), but I'm not sure what this would mean. This does not happen on the DE2.

When i try and read from the serial port, it DOES seem to open correctly, but it does NOT read from it. I have used the errno.h and errno variable to find that a "cannot allocate memory" error is occurring - even though this thing has ~64Mb of SDRAM.

The open, read, write, etc. functions I am using are described on this page:

h t t p : / / rabbit. eng. miami. edu/ info/ functions/ unixio. h t m l.

(Spaces will have to be removed from the link above - I cant post links in my first 4 posts).

Also note that it still occurs using stdio.h and the FILE handle aswell.

If it makes any difference, I am loading the NIOSII stuff onto SDRAM_U1 (rather than the default SSRAM), because using the SSRAM seems to throw a "verify failed between address *some address*" error.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!!!

Thanks in advance,

Greg.