We are working on a small MSP430F149 project and are having a heap of grief
>getting the basic hardware going.
>
>We continually get inconsistent results when attempting to connect and
>download to the msp430. Initially the JTAG will not connect but this problem
>appeared
>to rectify itself. It then had trouble writing to memory at address 0x1100 -
>the start of the program flash. Reseating the msp430 in the ZIF socket
>seemed to fix this problem. We initially tried restarting the debug proxy
>and the debugger and cygwin without success.
>
>We finally managed to download to the device about 3 times. When the code
>ran it always stopped at the reset vector. We though it may be some problem
>with the RTOS and the timers. The watchdog is switched off.
>
>We then tried one of the examples supplied with mspgcc LED flashing code. We
>built the code without any problems but when we attempted to download the
>memory write error reappeared. We tried re-seating the micro in the ZIF
>socket etc without success.
>
>We are using the a homebrew JTAG programmer and a TI development board
>pwered by 2 x D cells and driving this via the mspgcc-20041112.exe software.
>
>So many questions!!
>Where do we start debugging the system?
>Could the problem be timing related? Is the PC we are using too slow/fast?
>How can we check if everything is okay with the software setup/hardware
>setup?
>
>Any suggestions would be most appreciated.
>
>Thanks
>rob
We never program the MSP430's when the supply voltage is less than 3 volts, preferably 3.3V. An LM317 regulator with an output set to 3.3V works well.
You say that you're using a homebrew JTAG programmer. Where did you get the circuit diagram? Olimex has a circuit (and cheap kit) that works well.