Board fails quick test. How should I proceed?

General Discussion
1

I bought the LimeSDR mini a couple of months ago, but have been playing with my HackRF. I finally got around to trying LimeSDR mini with Windows 7. I have performed the following:

Loaded recommended FTDI drivers.
Plugged in LimeSDR mini. Got windows USB connecting sound.
Ran the firmware updater, it was successful.

I then ran the quick self test with following result: [serial number partially obscured]

[ TESTING STARTED ]
->Start time: Sun Aug 2 09:45:46 2020

->Device: LimeSDR Mini, media=USB 3, module=FT601, serial=1D53AC143BXXXX, index=0
Serial Number: 1D53AC143BXXXX

[ Clock Network Test ]
->REF clock test
Test results: 64585; 12246; 25443 - PASSED
->VCTCXO test
Results : 6711016 (min); 6711180 (max) - PASSED
->Clock Network Test PASSED

[ FPGA EEPROM Test ]
->Read EEPROM
->Read data: 13 07 0F 13 07 0F 02
->FPGA EEPROM Test PASSED

[ LMS7002M Test ]
->Perform Registers Test
->External Reset line test
Reg 0x20: Write value 0xFFFD, Read value 0xFFFD
Reg 0x20: value after reset 0x0FFFF
->LMS7002M Test PASSED

[ RF Loopback Test ]
->Configure LMS
->Run Tests (TX_2 -> LNA_W):
CH0 (SXR=1000.0MHz, SXT=1005.0MHz): Result:(-13.1 dBFS, 5.00 MHz) - PASSED
->Run Tests (TX_1 -> LNA_H):
Failed to read samples: No samples received
CH0 (SXR=2100.0MHz, SXT=2105.0MHz): Result:(-14.0 dBFS, 5.00 MHz) - FAILED
->RF Loopback Test FAILED

=> Board tests FAILED <=

Elapsed time: 5.52 seconds

How should I proceed?

Thank you.

2

Presumably this is using the Pothos SDR installer? There is a new version of Lime Suite, which has an important update for LimeSDR Mini, and this has not been integrated into a new Pothos build yet.

You can download the latest LimeSuiteGUI, LimeQuickTest and DLL via:

If you could run the test again and be sure that nothing is connected to the RF ports and also that the board is cold (pass/fail is set according to these base parameters).

3

Thank you for the quick response. I downloaded the linked release v20.07.1 files.
Does your response imply that I should re-flash the mini with files from that release (how?) or is it merely an update to the suite and the test?

In any case I ran the quick test first thing this morning within seconds of plugging in the mini with nothing attached to the antenna ports. The loopback test failed again with “Failed to read samples: No samples received”. It should at least be receiving samples, should it not?

[ RF Loopback Test ]
->Configure LMS
->Run Tests (TX_2 -> LNA_W):
CH0 (SXR=1000.0MHz, SXT=1005.0MHz): Result:(-12.7 dBFS, 5.00 MHz) - PASSED
->Run Tests (TX_1 -> LNA_H):
Failed to read samples: No samples received
CH0 (SXR=2100.0MHz, SXT=2105.0MHz): Result:(-14.0 dBFS, 5.00 MHz) - FAILED
->RF Loopback Test FAILED

=> Board tests FAILED <=

I very much appreciate your help.

4

Right, that doesn’t look good.

@Zack I’d be grateful if you could take a look and advise whether anything else should be tried or if we need to arrange an RMA.

5

Doesn’t sound OK, let us go for RMA.