nRFgo Studio and nRF52840 programming

[vard]

Hi Everyone,

I just purchased an nRF52840 PDK and I am trying to program it via nRFgo. I erased the flash, selected the latest s140_nrf52840_5.0.0-3.alpha_softdevice.hex and using the soft device tab I try to program it on the PDK. I get this "The flash is not erased" message which is strange because I just erased the flash and the flash erase operation was confirmed:

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

[Joakim Jakobsen]

Hi vard!

Do you have the latest version of the nRF5x-Command-Line-Tools installed? If you don't, you should try updating and trying again.

If that doesn't work, try using nrfjprog to flash the softdevice to your board.

Let me know if none of the above helps, and we will try to find another solution for you.
Best regards,
Joakim.

[vard]

Thank you kindly for your reply Joakim,

I already have the nRF5x-Command-Line-Tools installed.

It looks like I can program from nrfjprog:

C:\Users\varde>nrfjprog -f NRF52 --program c:\nRF\s140_nrf52840_5.0.0-3.alpha_softdevice.hex --chiperase Parsing hex file. Erasing user available code and UICR flash areas. Applying system reset. Checking that the area to write is not protected. Programing device.

But then when I go back to nRFgo and click on Verify for the exact same soft device file I just programmed I get a "Verification failed" message. Next, if I select the Program Application tab and try to program a simple application like Blinky, with no hooks on the softdevice, I get : "This hex file has data in the SoftDevice region..." which not true, because the blinky app is done only at peripheral level. And yes, I can program blinky from the command line tool and it seems to work fine.

A few more details:

• I can drop files in the JLINK drive and they seem to be programming just fine.
• With IAR, if I use a peripheral example from the nRF5_SDK_14.0.0_3bcc1f7, it programs and works OK, but whenever I try to program any examples with softdevice, they compile, link, load into the board but they don't run right and the debugger is crashing.

Same situation using VSGDB: examples compile, link, they look like they are programming, but don't run and the debugger is crashing.

From what I can tell, I either have a defective board or there is a problem with the JLINK driver. I am using JLink_V616a, Windows10 x64, nRF52840 PDK. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

[vard]

Also, I cannot upgrade the JLINK firmware:

New firmware: J-Link OB-SAM3U128-V2-NordicSemi compiled Jul 24 2017 17:30:12 Current firmware: J-Link OB-SAM3U128-V2-NordicSemi compiled Feb 12 2016 12:15:53 Starting bootloader... Waiting for emulator to detach... OK after 182ms. Waiting for emulator to attach... Timeout. ERROR: Communication timeout. Emulator did not re-enumerate. ERROR: Firmware update failed.

Tried in boot mode too, it looks it is programming it, but it is not.

Thanks!