UART on the programmer side is not working (MSP430G2553 Launchpad)

Karim El-Rayes

Other Parts Discussed in Thread: MSP430G2553

Hi,

The UART on the MSP430G2553 Launchpad stopped out of the sudden, apparently, the problem isn't from the MCU because I tested the UART on-chip and it's working fine, the issue is with the UART in the programmer side, it doesn't communicate anymore with the MCU. Any clue why this would happen?

Note: all jumpers are in the right place, the board used to work normally till recently, still the programmer works and I can upload any code to the MCU without any issues, only the communication using the UART of the programmer is down.

Cheers.

over 7 years ago

0 Dennis Eichmann over 7 years ago

Guru 74080 points

Do you use a baudrate higher than 9600?

0 Karim El-Rayes over 7 years ago in reply to Dennis Eichmann

Intellectual 730 points

Yes, I tried 9600 and higher, nothing works.

0 Dennis Eichmann over 7 years ago in reply to Karim El-Rayes

Guru 74080 points

OK, 9600 should work, higher not - the LaunchPad's hardware limits the baudrate to 9600. If you connect the jumpers on the LaunchPad in a way that the emulator side receives it's own message, does it appear on the PC screen? This connection might not be done by one of the jumpers itself. You may use some tweezers or a jumper cable because the pins are not next to each other.

0 Karim El-Rayes over 7 years ago in reply to Dennis Eichmann

Intellectual 730 points

You mean an echo test?, I did it and nothing at all (at 9600 baudrate).

The LP appears in the device manager as usual, but something is wrong in the communication (UART communication I mean), though it still programs the MCU. Any ideas?, is there a way to reflash the emulator?.

0 Karim El-Rayes over 7 years ago

Intellectual 730 points

An update to the issue:

I tested the MSP430G2 USB-Serial on a different computer running an older OS (Win 7) and apparently it's working fine, so the problem is in current OS I'm using (Windows 8.1). I tried uninstalling/reinstalling the USB drivers but without any luck.....and it seems the problem isn't hardware related at all cause I tested two MSP430 LP boards and both have the same issue with Windows 8.1.

The question now is: did anyone see something like that before? (MSP430G2 LP USB-Serial problem with Windows 8.1 where you can't communicate with the MCU UART over the USB-Serial chip on-board, note that the on-board programmer works fine).

Cheers.

0 Carl Michal over 7 years ago in reply to Karim El-Rayes

Prodigy 110 points

The thing that's really painful about this is that it works fine on Linux & Mac on newer or older computers, just not in Windows.

0 Karim El-Rayes over 7 years ago in reply to Carl Michal

Intellectual 730 points

Fully agree, and I can't switch to a different OS since all the tools I'm using work and configured on the current one. Some posts online recommended to use an older version of the LP USB drivers but that never worked with me, till TI provides us with a newer version of the drivers we will be waiting.

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UART on the programmer side is not working (MSP430G2553 Launchpad)