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MSP-EXP430F5529 (experimenter board) doesn't work out of the box - due to no W7 driver

Other Parts Discussed in Thread: MSP430F5529, MSP430USBDEVPACK

My own design using the MSP430F5529 is aground because Wiindows 7 refuses to load a driver for the virtual com port.
Message is repeatedly: driver not available.  Using hdwwiz doesn't help.  Strange thing is that once upon a time it did work.
There was a virtual COM port driver, I used example 5 and sent data into Hyper-terminal and the sun was rising.
Then I made some firmware revisions which resulted in it not working.  Retreating to the known good version didn't help.
So, suspecting W7 blacklisted the device, I move to a second relatively virgin W7 computer.  No CDC driver available again.

So, I plopped down my $200 for the experimenter's board.  Surely, Mr. Feynman, this has to shine light on the problem!!!
No joy.  Out of the box, TI's marvel doesn't work for all the same reasons my custom 5529 design doesn't work,
namely:     "Virtual COM Port (CDC) doesn't have a driver".

I find it hard, but not impossible, to think that TI shipped something that doesn't work.
Can anyone steer me straight?

DK




  • Don't know if this will be of any help to you at all, but try this is you haven't already.

    http://www.ti.com/tool/msp430usbdevpack

  • Hi, I got this board a few months back and seem to recall that I had a similar problem. I believe that I searched the TI website for the latest firm,ware for the board and downloaded that and re-flashed the board, and this cured the problem.

  • Thanks - but the developer's pack is where the problem began.
    ON a side note, there are al manner od hackers offering "virtual com port driver"
    who knows which are legitimate and which are Trojans with viri.  And - do any of the 100's
    on the web necessarily work with TI's development package?  TI should deliver.

  • Dennis Kodimer said:
    ON a side note, there are al manner od hackers offering "virtual com port driver"

    Most likely, those won't work with the MSP even if virus free.
    Use the drivers that are available from the part manufacturer and you're on the safe side.

    However...

    You say that once it worked, but now it doesn't. So something has changed. Maybe something you don't consider related. What software did you install since? Maybe you updated the compiler form 4.x to 5.x version (this resulted in a change of the FET drivers)

    And yes, it is possible that Windows has 'blacklisted' your device. Or rather, it has for some reason once tried to load a wrong driver and now doesn't even consider loadign the right one anymore.
    Sometimes it suddenly works if you just change the USB port.

    The Windows driver management is a mystery.

  • One thing that I found was that whilst XP will ask you for the driver, Windows 7 just shrugs its shoulders and fails to mount the device, you need to grab it by the nose and show it the appropriate driver.

  • So, Alex' suggestion was the finale.  I re-registered the USB, deleted exisitng drivers, reloaded the driver and it started working.  Microsoft certainly has a knack for making things obscure and difficult in the name of ease-of-use.  I hate using regedit - one error and blammo.  Thanks - end thread.

  • I completely agree. In an attempt to make things (mostly) work for dummies, Microsoft has made it next to impossible to really administrate the system if you have the knowledge (or at least would be able to gain and use the knowledge - if it were available)

    Many years ago, I have been asked for the difference between Windows and Linux. My answer was: depending on your skills, you can make Linux work with 0% to 100% performance, while with Windows you’ll get 75% to 80%. Today, I’d change this to 50% to 100% for Linux and 80% to 85% for Windows. Both with a small chance of 0% :)

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