spartan 3e starter kit win 10

[midast]

Hi.

I have a Spartan 3e starter kit which I bought a few years ago.

I cant get it to work with windows 10. I have installed the latest ISE webpack (from 2014). but the drivers does not seem to be compatible with windows 10.

I saw that this board is still on digilent home page so there must be a way to make this work (http://store.digilentinc.com/spartan-3e-starter-board-limited-time/)

Does any one have this board running on windows 10?

 

Thanks

/John

[mskreen]

Hi John,

 

So assuming that you downloaded ISE 14.7 it looks like there are some workarounds to installing and running ISE on a windows 10 machine:

- AR# 62380

- Guide: Getting Xilinx ISE to work with Windows 8 / Windows 10 (64-bit)

In order to be of more help could you please provide some more detail into how you know that the drivers aren't working properly, and if you are able to create a project where exactly you are experiencing your issues? Any additional information would be helpful.

 

Respectfully,

Mikel

[midast]

Hi Michael.

The ISE WebPack was installed successfully. I can create the project. But unable to program the board since the board is not found.

In Windows Device Manager the board is marked as an  unkonown device. It seems that the drivers that comes with ISE WebPack are not supported by Windows 10

In Xilinx homepage the board is discontinued http://www.xilinx.com/products/boards-and-kits/hw-spar3e-sk-us-g.html

Thanks

/John

[mskreen]

John,

 

How are you trying to connect to your device in Impact? This board is old enough that it doesn't have a Digilent programmer so I believe you will need to select the "Platform Cable USB/II" communication method instead of the "Digilent USB JTAG Cable" in the Cable Communication Setup.

Unfortunately I don't have a Spartan 3E kit in front of me to test this out on.

 

Mikel

[midast]

Thanks for the reply Mikel

However the problem occurs as soon as I plug in the USB cable into the computer. Unable to install USB device. In order for the programmer to work, the board must be recognized by the operative system. I guess it has to do with the driver.

But if this is not a general problem then it must be something with my computer. Maybe a conflict or something ...

Thanks

 

/John

 

[mskreen]

John,

 

Have you tried any methods of installing/reinstalling/purging drivers? If so, what have you done? I managed to get my hands on a Spartan-3E kit and didn't have any problems with my computer loading the drivers (win 8.1). I found another Xilinx tutorial that might be helpful:

-AR #41442

Let me know of your results. I would suggest just trying all the cable driver re-installation methods that you can find. The board/software is so old that you never know what might work.

 

Mikel

[Gra]

Hi John and Mikel,

 

I had an identical problem a few years ago, turned out that if you plugged the cable into the PC before you installed ISE (or Webpack) it did something strange with the cable driver.

 

I had to uninstall ISE, re-boot the PC and start again (with the cable unplugged).. That did the trick.

I may also have had to remove a random driver that windows installed for the cable before I re-installed ISE too.

 

Definitely wasn't on Widows 10 (possibly XP, maybe 7).

Did you plug the cable in before installing the software?

 

Anyhow, as I said it wasn’t on Win10 but I thought your problem sounded so similar that it was worth mentioning this.

 

Gra

[mskreen]

Thanks for the input Gra. John have you had any luck getting your computer to recognize the board?

 

Mikel

[midast]

Hi Mikel and Gra.

Thanks for your answers.

The device was not connected during software installation.

I am currently on leave. Will be back in 3 weeks.

However if the support team can answer if the current driver should work. or if there is an update..

I guess I have to buy a new board ...

Thanks

 

/John

[midast]

I saw this in a forum

http://www.eevblog.com/forum/microcontrollers/guide-getting-xilinx-ise-to-work-with-windows-8-64-bit/

I guess that this board is not supported in Windows 10? Or is it ISE WebPack?

Will another software work?

I can see that spartan 3e still can be bought... So there must be some development tools that works under windows 10?

 

[mskreen]

Yeah that was one of the links I originally presented to you... Reading the links that I provided would have made it very clear that the Spartan-3E kit is an older package that is not officially supported by Xilinx on newer operating systems (8 - 10) but there are workarounds to getting your software to work on them. Since this board does not have a Digilent programmer (it has a Xilinx programmer) you cannot use our Adept software and therefore must use Xilnx's Impact software (latest version 14.7). 

Yes the Spartan-3E kit can still be bought on Digilent's online store. This is because there is still a want for this board and still works on older operating systems such as Windows 7. Since the board has a Xilinx programmer, that means that Xilinx is responsible for supporting programming methods for this board not Digilent.

 

Mikel