Why SystemInit or startup_nrf51.s could not be reached

[Luis Alberto]

I'm working with a custom hardware board made by hand which works properly, but since we make a batch with a pick and place machine, something seems to be wrong with the board. We are using the same PCB board and components. The behaviour of the bad boards is that they are not able to reach the SystemInit from a simple blink project (with no soft device) in which the good one does. I set a break point in the arm_startup_nrf51.s first instructions but it does not stops there, instead it is stopped somewhere else, the callstack is says 0xFFFFFFFE. Also I've notice that the erase process (Full erase) takes longer in the board that works. I just can think that is a hardware issue, but I have meassure the voltage supply, crystal and everything seems to be the same as the working board.

Any guess or test to know what could be wrong? Thanks.

[Håkon Alseth]

Hi,

This sounds strange. The blinky example does not rely on any external sources, such as crystals, so if everything is soldered properly, then it should debug.

1. Are you able to read a known address using nrfjprog? Try opening cmd and call this: nrfjprog --memrd 0x10000000 --n 256

And post the output.

2. Have you checked the current consumption of the faulty device when blinky is loaded?

3. What voltage are you powering the device with?

4. Which debugger are you using?

Best regards Håkon