Arty-A7 100t Development Board no longer powering on

[dh_ee]

 

I recently purchased an Arty-A7 100t development board from the Digilent site (2/06/23) and received the board with no issues. As per today, the LEDs on board no longer power on. This occurred while power cycling the board by removing the USB connector on J10 and then reinserting. I have isolated the issue to the board by ruling out the USB cable as the potential point of failure (connected different device with same cable to PC and was able to recognize it). I have also attempted to power the board via a different cable to no avail and even tried a different USB port on this PC then functioning USB ports on another PC. It should be noted that I had also had a pmod device plugged in at the time (PMOD BT2), my test setup was as follows:

 

PC (USB) --> Arty A7 BRD -> PMOD BT2

PC (Ethernet) --> Arty A7 BRD

 

NOTE: The board becomes noticeably warm when provided with power despite no LED being powered on.

I am afraid to break out my scope or multimeter to debug further in the event that I further damage the board and preclude us from solving the issue or void the warranty. I do not have an ESD wrist wrap here at home, but I am careful to ensure that no metal items can touch the board where I have it positioned. I am afraid that perhaps in my power cycle, something inside of the USB connector onboard became physically shorted. Wild card hypothesis: dust?

 

Are issues such as these covered under the device warranty?

[artvvb]

Hi @dh_ee

Apologies for the delayed response. To confirm, when you say the LEDs do not come on, is that specifically the user LEDs, or does it include the power good and done LEDs?

Thanks,

Arthur

[dh_ee]

Hi Arthur,

 

yes this includes the PG and done LED's. I probed around and the 1V8 rail appears to be fine, though the 5 V rail is sagging down to approx. 4.3 V max. The board tends to get warm when powered. Due to the 4.3 V measurement, I believe that there is an over-current condition possibly due to a short (ESD event? anecdotal).

I hope that the issue is relegated only to the voltage reg /SMPS onboard and not the FPGA. Fingers crossed.

If you have any recommended next steps, please let me know.

Also, is there any way this could be covered under the warranty? If not, I will get a bit more invasive with my troubleshooting techniques.

Thanks,

DH

[dh_ee]

On 2/23/2023 at 6:34 PM, artvvb said:

Hi @dh_ee

Apologies for the delayed response. To confirm, when you say the LEDs do not come on, is that specifically the user LEDs, or does it include the power good and done LEDs?

Thanks,

Arthur

Arthur, 

 

any updates or recommendations? Please advise. 
 

- DH

[artvvb]

Hi DH,

Further debugging as described would likely be fine with regards to the warranty, however, I'd recommend that you pursue an RMA. You can start the process by filling out the Sales and Order Support form available on the Digilent website here: https://digilent.com/shop/shipping-returns/#return-policy. You can link to this thread to show the Sales and Order Support team that you already worked with us here on the Forum.

Thanks,

Arthur