NRF52DK - can't run demo

[sundar]

Hello,

I just received an NRF52DK today. I was able to run the demo (LED blink/Switch and NFC) which comes factory installed. But copying the hex files from demo (proximity, heart rate) fails. The flashing seems to happen as per the instructions, the JLink drive closes and reopens after flashing but the demo doesn't work as expected. I tried restting the board, turning off and then on, pressing all the switches and nothing seems to help.

For instance, in the proximity demo, the LED1 is not glowing as per the instruction. Pressing Switch 1 (short or long) doesn't help. I have tried this in a Mac, Linux/Ubuntu and Windows 10 machines but nothing helps. I also tried re-flashing with the default firmware (the one that has the NFC and LED/Switch demo) but fails too.

Here are some details of the board: Interface MCU version: PCA10040 V1.1.1 2016.38 682600795

Any help is much appreciated. Thanks.

[Jørgen Holmefjord]

Hi, did you flash the Softdevice before flashing the proximity/heart rate demo? Can you try erasing the board and then try flashing softdevice and application again?

[sundar]

Thanks, it works after erasing the board and re-flashing the softdevice and the application. It is worth mentioning this in the NRF52DK getting started page if this issue is common. Thanks again!

[Scott]

I am suffering the same miserable out-of-the-box experience here with 2 brand new nrf52-dk boards: PCA10040 V1.1.1 2016 37 682770908 & 682488524

Please help me at least get something that should be so basic working, as this is only the tip of the iceberg (attempting to download and debug from the example IAR projects doesn't work either, but that is of course a separate thread).

Note that the JLINK removable drive enumerates, I drag and drop a sample .hex, progress show incrementing to 100%, drive momentarily disappears and then reappears, but nothing - no BLE advertisements, no LEDs, etc.

Plugging in the dev board enumerates this COM port on Windows10 Pro: JLink CDC UART Port

[Scott]

I found the issue: windows10 pro account type.

I use a windows 10 pro standard account for myself and this is where I have worked and developed, using all kinds of tools, compilers, ide's, and so forth. As usual, I installed all of the new Nordic stuff from this account, entering the Admin password when necessary. And below you see the problems encountered - bizarrely, things enumerated and pretended to work with no errors or warnings or issues with device manager, etc. Actually, it was worse than bizarre ... crazy making, really.

I wish I could attach screen shots where you can clearly see that for the standard account, the nRF52-DK enumerates just fine and pretends to act ok (including the drag and drop of a precompiled hex, but no action), yet nRFgo studio never sees it (I did not know what to look for in nRFgo studio, so I didn't notice what was missing).