Vivado Hardware Manager no longer detect the Arty A7 board

[Rice]

Hello，
I used FT_Prog to do some actions on my Arty A7 board. I changed the value of Hardware of Port B from the original RS232 UART to 245 FIFO and changed the value of Driver from the original Virtual COM Port to D2XX Direct. 
This caused the Vivado hardware manager to no longer detect the Arty A7 board.The specific operation is as follows:

 

I changed the values of Hardware and Driver of Port B to the initial values respectively. After testing, the Vivado hardware manager could not detect the Arty A7 board.

FT_Prog can be downloaded from here:  https://www.ftdichip.com/Support/Utilities.htm#FT_PROG

 

I don't know how to solve this problem, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Rice

 

[JColvin]

Hi @Rice,

I suspect that the EEPROM was changed while you were working with FT_Prog, inducting you into the long list of users who attempted to do something similar here: https://forum.digilentinc.com/topic/3123-how-to-restore-ft2232-eeprom-back-to-factory-settings/. I have sent you a PM with the reprogramming application.

And I guess to answer your other upcoming question, I'm not aware of a way to readily get the FTDI chip working in a different way via FT_Prog, though if you want higher speed communication, I would recommend taking a look at this post:

Thanks,
JColvin

[zygot]

15 hours ago, JColvin said:

inducting you into the long list of users who attempted to do something similar

@JColvin, is perhaps too gracious; someone else would have said that you're the latest to report doing the 'walk of FTDI shame'.

I have successfully managed to change the eeprom configuration for a number of FPGA boards using an FTDI device for configuration and as a USB UART. Here's some friendly advice:

1. For the vast majority of you out there...Don't
2. If you insist on ignoring advice #1 then make sure that you have a means for an alternate method of configuring your board, e.g. JTAG header and HSx programmer cable.
   • Make sure that you know what you are doing and what the potential ramifications are as well as the potential pit-falls if something goes wrong
   • It's never a bad idea to have a few TTL USB UART cables or break out boards available as a secondary UART. You can find some that are cheap. They will pay for themselves over and over.
   • Avoid doing something that is irreversible and or will put your project in stasis for a week or longer.
   • Make sure that you understand the behavior for your OS for using the tools, drivers, and FTDI device modes. Are you sure that the FT245 Synchronous FIFO mode is absolutely  necessary and worth the hassle of dealing with a device driver that isn't the default one?
   • save the default eeprom contents to a file for future reference before changing it.

The best results are when you can add an FT232H or similar device to your board without having to change any of the default functionality. The Terasic DE0 Nano is a good candidate for this approach. In my experience, the CMOD boards are not due to a variety of design choice reasons.

Ideally you might want to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise on a board that you can afford to 'throw away' for a while. Finding out that you aren't as cleaver as you thought you were isn't fun, but there are cheaper ways to do that.

 

[Rice]

On 4/18/2020 at 7:35 AM, JColvin said:

 

On 4/18/2020 at 7:35 AM, JColvin said:

Hi @Rice,

I suspect that the EEPROM was changed while you were working with FT_Prog, inducting you into the long list of users who attempted to do something similar here: https://forum.digilentinc.com/topic/3123-how-to-restore-ft2232-eeprom-back-to-factory-settings/. I have sent you a PM with the reprogramming application.

And I guess to answer your other upcoming question, I'm not aware of a way to readily get the FTDI chip working in a different way via FT_Prog, though if you want higher speed communication, I would recommend taking a look at this post:

Thanks,
JColvin

Thanks for your help information, now my arty a7 board is working fine!

 

[zygot]

For FTDI devices supporting 245 Synchronous FIFO mode there are three requirements to use this mode:

• Modification of the eeprom configuration data
• Switching to 245 mode in the software application that uses it.
• Using the D2XX driver instead of the default VCP driver.

Also, you need to use the 60 MHz clock that is generated in the device after all of the requirements are met.

I heartily recommend anyone interested in experimenting with the FTDI devices to study the excellent  busbridge3 demo.

For boards supporting the Adept DPTI mode this is a far easier way to achieve reasonably good data rates between the busbridge3 demo and 245 Synchronous FIFO mode.