Frequently Asked Questions

WARP Hardware

How do I format CompactFlash cards for use with the SystemACE controller?

The SystemACE controller can only use CompactFlash cards formatted as FAT12 or FAT16 drives. Starting with XP, Windows will only format drives as FAT32 or NTFS. Instead, you can use an open-source command line tool, mkdosfs, to format cards.

1. Download mkdosfs.zip. You can read more about mkdosfs and download the source from the author's ​site.
2. Unzip the program, open a Windows command prompt and change to the mkdosfs directory.
3. Mount your CompactFlash card and look for the drive letter Windows assigns it in My Computer.
4. Run the following command, replacing "X" with the drive letter of your CompactFlash card:

      mkdosfs -v -F 16 X:
   

I'm trying to run an ethernet demo. I get no response when I attempt to ping the board, despite everything else working, generating and downloading properly…

This is most likely due to the clock speed your bus is running at. If you've included the ethernet core in your project and you review the hardware generation log -- you might notice an inconveniently small block of text telling you that the bus must run at a speed greater than 65mHz for ethernet transfers to work.

I'm attempting to run Xilkernel and/or LWIP. Despite having all of the necessary libraries added into my C-Code, the compiler still gives me errors for undefined functions that are Xilkernel/LWIP-based.

The problem may be more general and not just limited to Xilkernel or LWIP, but rather any libraries you've included in the software platform settings menu. The common problem is that the library paths have not been added to the compiler configuration menu. The fix is as follows:

1. Go to Applications Tab -> Expand Project View -> Right-click on "Compiler Options" and click "Set Compiler Options..."
2. Go to "Paths" Tab and then in the "Libraries to Link against(-l)" box, make sure that you add in:

      xilkernel lwip4
   

or that this phrase already exists. It's really just the names for each of these special libraries to be included separated by spaces.

I'm not getting any serial port interaction.

There are several problems that could cause this:

1. The wire shorting the pins over the serial port on the WARP main board has become loose/disconnected
2. Incorrect cable type (this is most common): Standard serial cables DO NOT work with the WARP serial interface. A little DB9 (Null Modem) type serial cable is required. The quick fix for this is to open a standard serial cable and flip and resolder the rx/tx pin mapping -- pins 2 & 3. In a normal serial cable, pin 2 maps to pin 2 and the same for pin 3. These must be remapped so 2 maps to 3 and 3 maps to 2.
3. A system with a different hardware configuration has been redownloaded to WARP. In rare cases, the FPGA can lock up if a new system has been downloaded that has a different hardware configuration. The solution to this is to simply turn on and off the system power, allowing ample time for the capacitors on the board to drain.