Colibri VF50 / Iris - No ethernet link

I have just started a new design based on a Colibri VF50 using an Iris carrier board for the initial prototyping.
I have a 3rd party 7" resistive touch screen up and running, USB Keyboard, Mouse, Storage is good, but I cannot get a link on the ethernet port of the Iris board (LEDs on both the Iris and the switch are off).

After boot of the CE6 OS the ‘No-Link’ icon next the clock is shown and after approximately 1 minut, the link icon changes to ‘Link-Up’ - This happens whether the network cable is connected or not.
It appears that the change on the status icon happens when the DHCP process times out and assigns an internal IP address (169.254.x.x).

I have tested with multiple VF50 modules in 2 different Iris carrier board with 2 different ethernet switches using multiple network cables (that does work with other equipment).

Have I missed a configuration in the CE6 OS or is something else wrong ?

Regards

Søren

Hi,

This is the issue we have also seen in network stack. We currently do not have any working fix or workaround for this.

You can only identify this by checking the IP and if its 169.254.x.x then link is invalid.

Sorry for the issue but at the moment we do not have any fix.

Hi Luka

Thank you very much for you answer.
Do you know if this is a WEC6 related issue ? We plan to replace the WEC6 with Linux any way but if this is a hardware related issue that will not get us far.

Regards

Søren

So far we identified this as WinCE issue.

Hi Luka

Having investigated it bit more I have found that if I disconnect the display module connected via x3 and replace it with VGA monitor on the DVI connector the network is up and running right away.

I have meassured the 5v0 and 3v3 supply on the Iris board to check if the display was to heavy a load, but there is no drop in supply voltage.

Do you have a display connected to x3 when you experience the network problem ?

Regards

Søren

I did a quick test and didn’t observe similar issue.

I connected USB, SD Card, screen to X3 and UART.
Do you have same connections?

I’m using the USB Host for both keyboard, mouse and storage, but I have no SD card or UART connected at this time.

Next step is disconnecting display lines one-by-one to see which one might be causing the issue.

Perhaps the display is causing an undesired strapping on one of the CPU pins at power up which leads to a mis-configured ethernet I/O pin.

Ok please let me know what you find out.

Hi Luka

After some analyzing I hav come the conclusion that the reset output from the Iris carrier board to the display could be that root of the problem as the ethernet chip one VF50 module probably share this signal with the reset of the system.
I tried to boot the Iris/VF50 system without the display and the network came up as it should after which I hot plugged the display (I know this is not a good idea but the situation called for it) and the network shut down (no LEDs no connection).
I have now removed the reset connection to the display and the network is up and so is the display.

I guess I need to implement a buffer for the reset signal to the display.

Søren

Hi Luka

After some analyzing I hav come the conclusion that the reset output from the Iris carrier board to the display could be that root of the problem as the ethernet chip one VF50 module probably share this signal with the reset of the system.
I tried to boot the Iris/VF50 system without the display and the network came up as it should after which I hot plugged the display (I know this is not a good idea but the situation called for it) and the network shut down (no LEDs no connection).
I have now removed the reset connection to the display and the network is up and so is the display.

I guess I need to implement a buffer for the reset signal to the display.

Søren