MSP-FET430UIF, IAR Kickstart: "Failed to initialize device"

I suppose if the moles are subtle enough for us not to notice them, they are not a problem...

The only thing I have noticed from you is against gcc and open source tools, although perhaps "bias" is too strong (anyone who disagrees with me is clearly biased :-)

Fair enough. Then again others are religiously biased in favour most of which are open source users or suppliers who are equally biased :-) Lets drop that one here before we go OT on an open source V commercial tools debate (again :-)

I am having the same failure to start problem.

The devices worked fine last summer on this computer but now Window reports "Cannot start this hardware" Code 10 and I get the yello exclamation mark by the driver.

Windows XP is up-to-date with all the downloaded "fixes".

I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling the entire IAR package (fro the CD as before).

It is frustrating that it all worked a few months ago.

No joy.

.. BUT ...

I installed the whole thing (from the CD) on a W2K machine here and i works fine. So there isn't a problem with the FETs.

I didn't know until I read this thread that it wouldn't work with W2 machines. Ironic that I have it working on W2K, but not on XP.

So any more suggestions on fixing the XP problem. I have removed all othe USB devices (other than internal ones) and it doesn't help.

I even uninstalled and re-installed the USB hub controller drivers as tha was suggested in an XP support group for hard drives that suffer th "cannot start" symptom.

TIA, Peter

They don't even have to. Most of the technical newsgroups are copied into all kinds of web based forums, usually multiple times.

Chuck: Open your own post and then click on View -> Message Source, in Mozilla. That's what a spambot reads. I just did and that's where I saw that you are using Mozilla :-)

The reply-to pops up right at the top so the spambot doesn't even have to crawl the message. They can stop after the 5th line.

I just wish their feedback to the bosses would materialize a bit better. For example, when National botched their web site there were tons of complaints on s.e.d. From some real high-rollers that are responsible for a lot of semiconductor purchases. Did they fix it? Nope :-(

Look around on your CD. It's been too long ago but AFAIR there were two releases on there and only the older one worked on the XP machine in the lab.

Very simple. Remove XP. Install Linux.

In America that's done with a Smith&Wesson :-)

However, they don't, as evidenced by my relative freedom from spammers. Of course there has to means to access it, otherwise the mailers couldn't.

Apparently a British owned company...

It is fascinating to see who actually owns what. Often you find a company that is part of the history and heritage is owned by some one foreign. It is the same in the UK . The Business world is global with little soul.

The Ironic thing about Smith and Wesson being owned by a British company is of course that it is illegal to own any of their products in the UK :-(

Thanks to those that offered suggestions.

The problem turned out to be a conflict with another driver that had bee installed months ago and wasn't being used any more, but it prevented th TI driver from functioning apparently.

In my case it was the N8VB vCOM Virtual Serial Ports Driver, which makes sense once the problem has been resolved. It neve bothered other serial devices, but I guess XP doesn't like 2 multipor drivers at the same time. Disabled the N8VB driver and XP's wizard poppe up to re-install the MSP-430UIF that was failing to start.

Anyway, for those who google here in the future, don't give up hope. Loo for the driver conflicts, try the older and newer versions, and eventuall it will work on XP and W2K.

Peter

We were able to solve the problem only after the FET devices were sent to TI in Texas and reprogrammed.

I strongly suggest contacting them.

It seems that there are many generations of devices out there. In our case, we bought it recently, but it was still dated 2004.

Marius Hancu

No nothing like that. Its a pure and simple Driver conflict and a very common one for the TI USB device. Uninstall some other virtual serial or USB drivers and look for driver conflict. It will be resolved

I ran into the same problem on a the same IAR version running on Vista. I turned out to be pretty simple. The USB dongle - when plugged in creates vertual COM port (COM17: in my case). Another program (Palm HotSynch) wa opening that port every time I rebooted - thinking it was a bluetoot virtual COM port. Once I corrected the other progra, all was well.

To help, after plugging in the USB device, open the project options in IA and look in the "FET Debugger" settings under "Debugger". The Connectio field should say "Texas Instruments USB-IF". To the right of that is Field that says "Automatic". Click on the "..." button to the right, an it should list a COM port as well as "Automatic". In my case with the US device plugged in, It showed "COM17 (Aready in use)" - that's how I ne that something else hijacked it. If it doesn't list a virtual com port you may have a driver issue.

Cheers, Steve