iMPACT Cannot Find Cable

[cboggs2]

I have been struggling to get iMPACT to find my Platform USB II (model DLC10). I am able to see that the device driver has installed in device manager so I am unsure as to why it's not connecting. I have tried various versions of lab tools (14.7, 14.6, 14.5) with no luck and while troubleshooting I am noticing that impact64 will not open at all (I see a brief command prompt) impact32 does load but gives me this error (I am attaching the log file). My end goal is to load firmware (a *.mcs file) on an end product we make that has a Spartan 6 FPGA chip. I am running Windows 10 but, I have also tried on a Windows 7 32 bit PC with no luck either. If there is an easier way to load firmware please advise, the original developer has left on medical leave and while I do have some experience with this software I am at a total loss as to why the system fails to recognize hardware that is installed or why the 64 bit version fails to load.

*My platform cable does turn on (I have an amber light) and it does turn green when our board is powered on. This board along with this platform cable works on an old Windows XP computer (running 14.6) so the cable and board are known good. The reason I need another PC is I have to get this working so that our vendor can load the code at their facility and test the board.

[panantra]

Hi @cboggs2 :

Xilinx ISE 14.7 and IMPACT 14.7 Lab tools are not officially supported for Windows 10.

So, to make it work on Windows 10 platform (for Spartan 6), you need to use the workaround as follows:

For ISE 14.7 64-bit: 

Step 1:  Navigate to the following ISE install directory: <install_path>\Xilinx\14.7\ISE_DS\ISE\lib\nt64\

Step 2: Rename the file "libPortability.dll" to "libPortability.dll.orig".

Step 3: Make a Copy of the "libPortabilityNOSH.dll" file to the same folder, and rename it to "libPortability.dll". 

Step 4: Copy libPortabilityNOSH.dll again, and navigate to <install_path>\ LabTools\common\lib\nt64 and paste at this location.

Step 5: In <install_path>\ LabTools\common\lib\nt64, find libPortability.dll file and rename libPortability.dll to libPortability.dll.orig

Finally, rename libPortabilityNOSH.dll to libPortability.dll

You can refer https://www.xilinx.com/support/answers/62380.html for more information.

Thanks,

Priyanka

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[cboggs2]

iMPACT 64-bit still will not load. All I see is a blank command prompt then it closes. iMPACT 32-bit still works but, I still receive the 'unable to find the cable' message. Looking into another post I saw changind some resgistry values may help:

Version:1.0 StartHTML:000000212 EndHTML:000158896 StartFragment:000158493 EndFragment:000158830 StartSelection:000158493 EndSelection:000158830 SourceURL:https://www.xilinx.com/support/answers/30184.html AR# 30184: iMPACT - "WARNING:iMPACT:923 - Cannot find cable, check cable setup" / "Cable connection failed"

3. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\mlnxfltr entry. Double-click Start and set the value to 4 to disable the service.
4. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MultiLINX entry. Double-click Start and set the value to 4 to disable the service. But I do not see these values in my registry (is this because its Windows 10?). original post: https://www.xilinx.com/support/answers/30184.html In the mean time I am going to see if I can find a Windows 7 PC that I can get this to work on but, last time I tried I receied the same result.

[andresb]

Hi cboggs2,

If you're using Spartan-6 FPGAs, I'd advice that you use ISE Design Suite for Windows 10:

https://www.xilinx.com/support/download/index.html/content/xilinx/en/downloadNav/design-tools.html

It runs on a Virtual Machine and it's worked very well for me, including cable drivers.

Let me know if you have questions.

Thanks,

Andres

[cboggs2]

OK. That program does load for me. How do you flash a *.mcs file to your end device using ISE Design Suite? I tried searching for information in the help file but, it talks about using iMPACT. 

[andresb]

Hi cboggs2,

iMPACT is part of ISE Design Suite.

Hopefully, your Virtual Machine looks similar to this:

Thanks,
Andres

[cboggs2]

I didn't realize that it was a full VM. I downloaded and installed the standalone application because the setup executable in Windows 10 doesn't do anything on my computer. I double checked and made sure that we did not have another instance of oracle installed and we do not. I've also now realized that we have another chip that needs similar capablilities but, its part of the XC9500XL family will this VM work with that chip as well?

I noticed that this VM is running Linux under the hood. Do you have a Live version of this disto (with all the software pre-installed) that I could download? I may be able to have our vendor set aside a special PC for the sole purpose of programing our boards.

[bpatil]

Hello @cboggs2

You can install Windows 7 supported version of  Xilinx ISE 14.7 provided at this link  Full DVD Single File Download Image (TAR/GZIP - 7.78 GB) on windows 10.

After installing you can use workaround provided at https://www.xilinx.com/suppor t/answers/62380.html for Xilinx ISE 14.7 to make it work on Windows 10 platform.

This way you can use Windows 7 supported version of Xilinx ISE14.7 on windows 10 platform without any issue.

[dmriker]

I had the same issue trying to run 14.7 under WIn10. There is a Xilinx Lab version available as a free download from Xilinx that sets up a Virtual Machine (VM) and then allows 14.7 to run on a Win10 machine. It all installs as a single package. I was not able to get the other 64bit version to work, it only works with Win7 and earlier. The published workarounds didn't fly for me. The VM version is working fine, I use the Impact tool to program.

[bpatil]

Hello @dmrike

Reply provided by  @panantra in same thread can help you to run impact tool in Windows 10 machine.

Install Impact lab tools then follow procedure suggeted in reply.