RMA Request for Arty A7 100-T

[gagey]

The board is unresponsive when powered through barrel jack or usb. It does not show up in vivado hardware programmer or the system device list when plugged in. The default program does not load when I hit the prog button. The only leds that turn on when powered are LD8, LD10, and LD11.

[JColvin]

Hi @gagey,

Have you configured this board before? LED 8 indicates if the board has loaded the configuration from its onboard flash memory (which it will do on power up if JP1 just below the reset button is loaded); if not, does any configuration load if you have Vivado closed and then connect power to the board?

LED 11 is of course the power good LED, but LED 10 would be indicating serial terminal/UART activity from the host computer and would not normally be constantly on.

You also mentioned that when you connect the board to the host PC that it is not detected by the system device list; if you are not able to see it in the Windows Device Manager such as in this post, https://forum.digilent.com/topic/21713-brand-new-basys-3-user-cant-get-vivado-to-see-it/#comment-62685, nor Linux are detecting with dmesg with an output similar to this post, https://forum.digilent.com/topic/23708-arty-board-not-recognized-by-vivado-or-dadutil/, there are a few potential culprits. The USB cable itself not supporting data flow (most likely), the USB port (I have one on a hub that is finicky), or the FTDI chip itself (least likely, but I have no reason to rule it out yet).

Please let me know the results if you get to try a different USB cable and, if the board has not had its flash overwritten with a different configuration, what happens if you have JP1 loaded and then power on the board with only an external power supply. The Arty A7 100T that I have does load its out of box demo when powered in this way, though it takes about 9 seconds before it loads. I'll have to look into why it takes awhile; I suspect the QSPI clock frequency is lower than I would have set it.

Thanks,
JColvin

[gagey]

This board's configuration flash memory was never overwritten. I had several other Arty boards from the same order which still worked as expected when connected to the same cable/power setups, so I know it is a problem with this unit specifically.

Powering via barrel jack only with JP1 loaded had no effect. When powered LD10 also stayed on with no usb cable connected.

[JColvin]

Hi @gagey,

I've sent you a PM on the chance that the FTDI chip is somehow misconfigured and can be restored to a default working state. If this does not work, then based on the additional information you have given, I am inclined to believe that the board has a manufacturing defect of some kind. I have given some addition instructions on next steps for RMA in the same message if this is the case.

Thanks,
JColvin