Issues uploading FPGA rbf file

Hi,

I plan to play with the FPGA GW project to add some processing on the digital signals, but I’m first trying to get familiar with the existing project and simply upload the rbf file to the FPGA… and I’m struggling to get it to work correctly. I’m new to FPGA so I might be missing something very basic.

The test being performed: upload different rbf files to the FPGA (the own from automatic updates, the one from github and a third one generated locally using Altera Lite 16.1 and the github GW master project) and check that the loopback test works fine.

I’m running LimeSuite GUI 17.01.1-PhotosSDR-2017.02.04-vc1 on a Windows 10 machine.

If I use the “Modules\Programming” automatic update, the following files are downloaded to the “%appdata%\LimeSuite\images\17.01” directory:
LimeSDR-USB_HW_1.3_r3.0.img
LimeSDR-USB_HW_1.4_r2.6.rbf

Doing the automatic update in LimeSuite, I get the following HW\GW\FW version:
LimeSDR-USB FW:3 HW:4 Protocol:1 GW:2 GW_rev:6 Ref Clk: 30.72 MHz

I’ve tried to upload 3 different rbf files to the FPGA:

  1. The one from the automatic updates
  2. The rbf output file from Github “master”: https://github.com/myriadrf/LimeSDR-USB_GW/blob/master/output_files/LimeSDR-USB_lms7_trx_HW_1.4.rbf
  3. A third rbf file generated using Altera Lite 16.1 and the github master GW project

In order to make sure I’m uploading the rbf file that I want (and not an automatically downloaded one), I’m simply replacing the
%appdata%\LimeSuite\images\17.01\LimeSDR-USB_HW_1.4_r2.6.rbf” with the rbf file that I want (the one from github or the one generated locally using Altera Lite 16.1) and then using the “Modules\Programming” automatic update.

If I use the rbf file from the automatic updates the loopback test (https://wiki.myriadrf.org/LimeSDR-USB_Quick_Test) works fine. If I use the one from github or the one generated locally using Altera Lite, I get unexpected outputs in FFT view (screenshots below).

Any clues on what could be causing this issue? Am I missing something? How is the “official” rbf file from the “automatic updates” generated? I just want to be sure the rbf files generted with Altera Lite are ok before start playing with the GW project.

Thanks

FFT viewer results using rbf file from github:

FFT viewer results using rbf file generated locally using Altera:

Finally managed to generate the rbf and have the test successful using altera lite 15.1 and rev. 2.7 of the gateware project.