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DLP9000: Controller /DMD Incompatible and JTAG programming

Part Number: DLP9000
Other Parts Discussed in Thread: DLPC900

I have a DLP9000 evaluation board that has a "Controller /DMD Incompatible" error.

I took the following corrective actions, in detail;

  1. Start "DLP LightCrafter 6500 & 9000 - 3.0.0" software
  2. Power up DMD
  3. Verify good indicator lights (D5, D11, D12, flashing D7, flashing D9), pass
  4. Connect USB
  5. Verify good status, failed "Controller /DMD Incompatible"
  6. Select firmware files (DLPR900PROM-9000-v4.0.0-master.img, DLPR900PROM-9000-v4.0.0-slave.img)
    1. Pop-up message appears saying bootloader will be upgraded to v3
  7. Upload
  8. Verify upload was successful, pass
  9. Disconnect USB
  10. Power cycle DMD
  11. Verify good indicator lights (D5, D11, D12, flashing D7, flashing D9), pass
  12. Connect USB
  13. Verify good status, failed "Controller /DMD Incompatible"
  14. Close "DLP LightCrafter 6500 & 9000 - 3.0.0" software

Attempt to reload bootloader using JTAG, as suggested on TI forums

  1. Disconnect USB
  2. Power down DMD
  3. Attach J10
  4. Connect J11 to JTAG programmer (already setup)
  5. Power up DMD
  6. Start "JTAG Flash Programmer"
  7. Select "Board File", "BoardFile.brd"
  8. Select "Flash Image To Write", "bootloader_9000.bin"
  9. Enter "Flash Image To Read", "dump_9000.bin" in the same location as above files
  10. Set "Setting, LPT Port >" to "USB"
  11. Run "Board, Detect Chain"
  12. Repeat until chain is detected, I get the following errors; Maximum device error
  13. Select first DLPC900
  14. Verify indicator lights change color (D6/7,D8/9), fail no indicator lights
  15. Run "Flash, Flash Info"
  16. Verify flash information is correct, fail?  
    1. I read something like 0xFFFF, 0x0000, A
    2. I couldn't pull this up again (see bellow), so this is from memory
    3. I don't know what the values should be...
  17. Run "Flash, Erase Flash"
  18. Select sectors 0x0 to 0x1FFFF (128KB, 5 sectors)
  19. Set "Start Address HEX" to 0x0
  20. Set "Size (HEX)" to 0x20000 (128KB)
  21. Run "Flash, Program Flash"
  22. Verify 100% complete, pass
  23. Repeat for second DLPC900
    1. Verify indicator lights, fail
    2. Verify flash info, fail? as before
    3. Verify 100% complete, pass
  24. Power down DMD
  25. Disconnect JTAG programmer
  26. Remove J10 jumper
  27. Close "JTAG Flash Programmer"

Retry firmware upload

  1. Follow sequence as before
  2. Verify good indicator lights (D5, D11, D12, flashing D7, flashing D9), pass
  3. Verify good status, failed "Controller /DMD Incompatible"
  4. Verify upload was successful, failed
    1. software hangs
    2. disconnecting the USB restores software
    3. error message; "Error: Unable to get bootloader information"

Retry JTAG programming

  1. Follow sequence as before
  2. Failed to find chain even after many repeats, I get the following errors;
  1. Sync error with MPSSE
  2. No Device found

I'm not sure what my next steps are.  We use a good number of these boards and ~30% of them have issues with failed "Controller /DMD Incompatible" errors.  I have been informed by our technicians that TI will not accept these for RMA since we load a custom firmware, which is frustrating since the firmware only has minor changes from the default firmware and was developed using the TI tool.  Initially some units were accepted and some of those were found to be good with the following notes;

  • Tests fine.  Reset flash over USB and seeing full operation.
  • Flash may have been corrupted during customer operation.

Following the procedure in the user manual appears to have made the DMD even worse, so I am reluctant to try it again without further direction.  "Reset flash over USB" is vague since the bootloader and firmware are both stored in flash and both programmed over USB.