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SK-TDA4VM: Minicom/Ethernet on TDA4VM acting weird

Tim Simerly
Genius 9755 points
Part Number: SK-TDA4VM
Other Parts Discussed in Thread: TDA4VM

Dear Support:

I received my TDA4VM and downloaded the .img file to the SD card and it boots up ok, but when trying to connect with my minicom on my Linux PC, I see this on the output:

which isn't expected.  Does this make any sense and to you know what may be wrong here?

Also sometimes, with my Ethernet cable plugged into the connector on-board, sometimes it gets a valid IP address and sometimes it doesn't.  About 30% of the time, it does not get an IP address.  Do you know what may be the problem here?

Thanks,
Tim

  • 0
    TI__Genius 9755 points

    Dear Support:

    For some reason, what is displayed on the HDMI output at the top right corner on the status of the Ethernet connection is not always accurate.  If I just disregard that it tells me it can't connect and just use the IP address that it was using before, it works ok.  Just confusing that it tells me there is no Ethernet connection when if fact it is.  No problem, will just disregard that what is displayed on the monitor output is not accurate.

    However I can't get anything meaningful from the serial output port on minicom.  Please let me know your thoughts as to what may be the problem.  With that not working, I can't boot up through NFS and do anything from the console.  Please advise.

    Thanks,
    Tim

  • 0 in reply to Tim Simerly
    TI__Genius 9755 points

    Dear Support:

    So in addition to seeing this problem with the minicom output making no sense from burning the .img file to the SD card and running.  I am also seeing this from formatting the SD card on Linux from the Linux filesystem and running.  So what is it about these builds that is causing the minicom output to be unintelligible such that I can't run from NFS? Please advise.

    Thanks,
    Tim

  • 0 in reply to Tim Simerly
    TI__Genius 9755 points

    Dear Support:

    Also when using my Windows PC and Device Manager and connected to my USB port with my TDA4VM EVM, I see this:

    which doesn't show up normally under Ports as a normal serial port does on a Windows PC.  Can you advise as to what is unique about the USB port on the TDA4VM EVM that is causing it to not output normal data on minicom and not show up as a normal serial port with Device Manager on a Windows PC?

    Thanks,
    Tim

  • 0 in reply to Tim Simerly
    TI__Genius 9755 points

    Dear Support:

    Ok, a tadbit surprised this was a Silicon Labs UART to USB bridge device instead of FTDI used on the TDA4VM EVM - yikes! Figured out I needed to get the Silicon Labs driver for this to work.  Got it from this site:

    https://www.silabs.com/developers/usb-to-uart-bridge-vcp-drivers?tab=downloads

    and Device Manager works now so that I see 4 UART port like below:

    So when I use TeraTerm to see the resulting output from the UART port, I get this:

    which is consistent with what I am seeing from minicom with my Linux PC.  So please explain what is going on here?

    Thanks,
    Tim

  • +1 in reply to Tim Simerly
    TI__Mastermind 25950 points

    Hi Tim,

    Can you confirm that the drivers documented in our SDK did not work: https://software-dl.ti.com/jacinto7/esd/processor-sdk-linux-sk-tda4vm/08_04_00/exports/docs/getting_started.html#power-on-and-boot. If so, we will get the link updated in the next release.

    Can you also confirm you are connected to ttyUSB2 as documented in the same SDK documentation? This would be the third COM port that opens up, and different from TDA4VM EVM where you would usually connect to the first COM port that opens up. In the shared screenshot, this should be COM39.

    Regards,

    Takuma

  • 0 in reply to Takuma Fujiwara
    TI__Genius 9755 points

    Hey Takuma:

    Ok, thanks - that makes sense now.  Originally I didn't realize that this is a multi-UART to USB bridge device.  Normally I use /dev/ttyUSB0 for my serial port when I connect a device to it.   And it works such that I see an output as indicated above, but the output I was getting (just numbers) made no sense.  However this is only the 1st UART port on this CP2108 device that is on-board and I need to connect to /dev/ttyUSB2 instead in order to get the normal output from the Linux bring-up process.

    Once I got the CP2108 drivers installed such that I could see this was providing 4 UART ports and not just 1, then this makes sense now.  I just connected to the first UART port using TeraTerm, but instead needed to connect to the 3rd port "COM39" from my reference above, in order to get the right output.  One thing is confusing though, from the documentation link you provide on "power-on-and-boot", for a Windows computer, it recommends installing drivers from an FTDI site, namely "https://ftdichip.com/drivers/" yet this is a Silicon Labs part that is on-board (CP2108) and so I used the drivers from the Silicon Labs site, namely "https://www.silabs.com/developers/usb-to-uart-bridge-vcp-drivers?tab=downloads".  Isn't this the correct site to use to get the correct drivers for the CP2108 or will the the FTDI drivers work as well?

    Anyways, not a big deal - with your points and recommendation, it is working now.  Would help in the documentation that something is mentioned there that there is multi UART to USB bridge that is on the TDA4VM EVM so that if one gets an output from the EVM and it makes no sense, that you just need to choose the right UART port to get a valid output from the serial port - I wasn't expecting that, but now it all makes sense.

    Thanks for your help.

    Tim