Connection problems with TMDXRM48HDK or TMDXRM48USB boards

Do you have in your PC an XDS560 PCI card? If yes, the driver for this card are not installed.

I do not have a XDS560 PCI card installed, so why do I get this error message, when I do not have this card installed? Before installation of the HDK I never noticed this message....

The demo software uses a COM port to communicate with the board.

This COM port is a virtual serial port over USB.

When you plug your TMDXRM48USB board on your PC, Windows should detect this COM port.
In Computer Management, can you check and see under Ports (COM & LPT) if this virtual port is correctly detected?
You should see something like "USB Serial Port (COMxx)

If this is the case, the board is able to communicate with the application running on the PC.

If it's not the case, try to re-install the driver for this COM Port (Right Click and Update driver).

I see this port, depending on the board connected (we have 3x HDK and 1x USB boards)  it becomes COM4, COM6, etc

When I try to update the driver anyway, it reports that the latest driver is already present.

However with all boards I experienced similar problems: sometimes the demo software reports that the communication with the board has been lost....

Martin

Martin,

I've forwarded your question to our Demo Software Expert.

He should be helping you shortly.

Regards,

Jean-Marc

This problem sometimes happens due to COM port system security settings when running the demo software on Windows 7 PCs; to solve the problem run the demo application (Hercules Safety MCU Demos.exe) in 'Windows XP SP3' compatibility mode (click here for more info).  However; from the 'computer management' picture included in the original post it looks like the PC may be running Windows XP or 2000. 

If that is the case, I believe that the virtual COM port driver may not be installed properly on your system.  If this is the case the blue SCIRX and SCITX LEDs (TMDXRM48USB: located on the right side of the board near the USB connector;  TMDXRM48HDK: located on the left side of the board just to the right of the 20 pin ARM JTAG connector) will not blink at all when running any of the demos. 

USB STICK LEDs:                                                                               HDK LEDs:

If this is the case, the first thing to try is uninstalling the virtual COM port from your system and then reinstalling it.  To do this follow these steps:

1) Download the CDM Uninstaller application from this link. (CDMUninstaller_v1.4.zip)

2) Open the CDMUninstaller_v1.4.zip file, extract the 'CDMuninstaller GUI.exe' file and run the application. (Make sure that the USB Stick or HDK is plugged into the PC.)

3) In the CDM Uninstaller application enter the Vendor ID value '0403' and Product ID value 'A6D0'; then click the 'Add' button, then click the 'Remove Devices' button. 

4) After the CDM Uninstaller finishes uninstalling the COM port, unplug the USB Stick or HDK, then replug it into the PC's USB port.  The PC should automatically reinstall the driver.

5) Run the demo software again and see if this fixes the problem.

Another thing to try would be do download the Hercules Demo Board Information Utility and run it to see what it returns in the 'Board Communications Port' field. 

I ran the program on 4x RM48 cards (3xHDK and 1xUSB):

All reported: "Board Detected: Not Assigned" and "Board Revision: 0"

The "Board Communications Port" was reported as: ASRL4::INSTR (USB), ASRL6::INSTR (HDK), ASRL8::INSTR (HDK), ASRL10::INSTR (HDK)
I tried plugging in an out some of the boards, once I succeeded in getting a COM4 on the USB card and COM6 on a HDK card.....

Martin

Thank you for the information.  The 'Board Detected and Revision' results you received are expected.  The fact that the software returned 'ASRLxxx and COMx' indicates that the demo software driver is able to detect that a demo board is installed and is able to determine a communication port number. 

Can you confirm that you are having problems with the demo software on a PC running Windows XP?  Can you also check if either the SCITX or SCIRX LEDs blink when the demo software is run.  This problem is very much like one we have seen on Windows 7 PCs that have security settings configured to block access to COM ports.  Your PC may also be running some security software that is blocking access to these ports; could you also try temporally disabling any firewall/antivirus/security software that is running on your PC? 

I am running Windows XP SP3. The problems occur when I run the 'Hercules Safety MCU Demos' program. The leds you mention blink when there is communication. I do not have privilegs to disable antivirus software (Symantec Endpoint Protection) due to corporate settings, no firewall is currently active,

Additional info: I now downloaded/flashed a simple self made program on one of the boards which uses serial communication. When I use 'Termite' to communicate to the board, I do not experience communication problems (the serial communictaion in this case is only 9600 baud and involves just sending/receiving simple strings).

Martin

 I checked the capabilities of Symantec Endpoint Protection and found out that it is capable of blocking data transfers to/from USB and COM ports.  Unfortunately it looks like the Symantec software is blocking the serial data to/from the demo software, but is allowing transfers to/from the Termite terminal program.  Without privileges to change the security settings on your PC I do not know how to get the demos to work.  The demo software needs to be able to communicate with the Hercules MCU via the virtual COM port on the development board; otherwise it will display the 'connection has been lost' error that you reported.  Is there another PC that you could use to run the demo software that does not require the Symantec protection software to be running?       

Unfortunately all our computers are required to run Symantec Endpoint Protection....

Martin