nRF52832 DK Programmer / USB?

[Andreas Schurz]

Hi,

I got a brand new nRF52832 DK today and wanted to program it but the USB is not recognized at all therefore the nRF Programmer shows no programming option.

I connected the board, switched it on while pressing the reset button. Programming LED is blinking and if I press Buttons 1 - 4 the relating LED shows up.

"nrfjprog --ids" is not showing anything at all.

Other devices such as "nRF52840 Dongle" and "Thingy:53" are working fine on the same PC.

Could you tell me what to do in order to fix this behaviour?

Many thanks in advance.

Regards, Andreas

[Turbo J]

Is that one of the older kits? These should pop up an USB mass storage drive when you hold down "reset" while plugging USB in. Then you need to copy the "interface MCU firmware" for your DK variant - see DK downloads page.

Note that this procedure does not apply to 3.x.x DK versions that use NRF53xx for the debug IF MCU. That is why its no longer documented in the DK stuff, but see infocenter.

[Andreas Schurz]

There is no Mass Storage popup. It lights up LED 1 and the programming LED starts blinking.

Edited:

My fault. Bootloader comes up in that case!

[Vidar Berg]

When the programmer LED (the LED next to the interface MCU) is blinking and the USB is not enumerating, it usually indicates a problem with data communication. This issue can also occur if you connect a charging-only cable to a DK in a working setup. 

When do you expect to receive the J-Link probe? It would be interesting to know if you experience the same problem with it.

[Andreas Schurz]

The J-Link will be there next week hopefully. I used various USB-Cabels such as my Jabra-Cable which works fine as data cable with my Jabra. So this should not be the problem. Those cables work also with older mobile phones on the same PC. I am confused because there is no USB-Detection at all.

One Step further: I have managed to get the bootloader. For some reasons I have not seen this before. This actually is available right after switching on and holding the Reset-Button. It vanishes after some time...

So it might make sense to flash the bootloader again...

[Vidar Berg]

Thanks for the additional information. The LED will blink more rapidly when there is a communication issue. Please try to drag&drop the J-link binary to the BOOTLOADER drive as Turbo suggested. The binary can be downloaded at https://www.nordicsemi.com/Products/Development-hardware/nRF52-DK/Download?lang=en#infotabs. 

[Andreas Schurz]

I guess this was the issue - for some reason the bootloader was messed up.

Looks now like this

nRF Programmer is now also able to detect the device.

So I guess the issue is solved.

To sum the solution up:

1. Need to install Segger JLink Drivers > V7.94e and select "Install legacy USB Driver for J-Link" and uninstall the old one

2. Reboot

3. Switch DK-Board on and hold Reset-Switch

4. Immediately check for the Bootloader-Drive

5. Drag and Drop https://nsscprodmedia.blob.core.windows.net/prod/software-and-other-downloads/dev-kits/nrf5x-dk-files/j-link-ob-sam3u128-v2-nordicsemi-170724.bin to the bootloader drive

6. Switch DK board off and on

7. Check that COM-Port can be seen in device manager

8. Check availability in nRF Programmer

[Vidar Berg]

Thanks for the update. I'm glad to hear that it worked. Normally, it should never be neccessary to enter bootloader mode on the DK.