Windows 10 USB3 connection intermittent to Lime USB

I seem to have an issue with the USB3 connection to both my PCs with different results. On my desktop (4GHz 64Bit Quad core) I can install the drivers, run up the self test loopback as per the Wiki but it just runs for a few minutes before freezing requiring a power off reset on the Lime board.

The same Lime board plugged in to my laptop (1.6GHz 64bit 2 core) installs the drivers then immediately appears to lose contact with the board and the “Myriad RF Lime SDRUSB” USB controller disappears in Device manager. Then it immediately reinstalls the board only to lose it again immediately, leaving it looping and never settling down. The Device manager screen shows this clearly.
I’m using the supplied (twin) USB lead and this happens with and without external power to the lime board.

Anyone else seen this behaviour?

Help! the board is unusable in this condition.

John Worsnop

@johncw

I have seen similar behaviour with a dodgy USB3 cable. It might be worth trying another high quality USB3 cable if you can get your hands on one. It seems that the LimeSDR is very fussy (as I assume many high bandwidth devices would be) when it comes to the quality of the USB cable used. The supplied cable that I got works fine but that doesn’t mean you didn’t receive a faulty one.

Kindest regards,
Brendan Jenkins,
VK3WWB.

Using the supplied USB cable.
The board I have doesn’t have a USB plug on it but an odd dual mini USB of a type that I’ve never seen before

John

It is a micro USB 3.0 connector. Same as what is on most modern external 2.5" USB3 HDD’s etc etc. Could still be that the cable is faulty. It is worth trying another if you can…If you get one with only 1 USB A Male connectors on it, make sure you use external power also.

You can also try plugging your LimeSDR into USB 2.0 to see if you have the same issues…This won’t prove a cable fault as USB2 does not use the extra differential pairs of wires that are used for SuperSpeed USB3. It will at least prove that your LimeSDR is working ok. Let us know how you go.

Kindest regards,
Brendan Jenkins,
VK3WWB.

Just as a final throw of the dice just now I connected the Lime board to a USB2 port on my desktop. Seems to be working flawlessly now…!
Did the same with my laptop and that’s working as well. Clearly a USB 3.0 issue somewhere.
I just noticed that I have a more updated version of Lime Suite on my Laptop and it’s prompting me to upgrade the FPGA version on the board.
I guess I should do that and get the latest lime suite for my Desktop and see what happens ?
Making progress!

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Latest FX3 Firmware (V4) and Altera Gateware (V2.12) do seem to fix some USB3 issues I have noticed so it is well worth the upgrade to see if it helps with your problem. If that does not work, then based on your LimeSDR working fine on USB2 but not on USB3, I suspect that you DO have a USB cable problem. I have seen the same thing happen and when the cable was eventually changed, all worked well on USB3. Give it a try if you can and let us know how it goes.

Kindest regards,
Brendan Jenkins,
VK3WWB.

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Just got a replacement USB3 cable and all is now well with the LimeSDR on a USB3 port now - both machines.
Seems the supplied one must be faulty.
Onwards and upwards!
Thanks for the help

John

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John, I’m glad to hear your LimeSDR is working properly on USB3 now. Enjoy.

Kindest regards,
Brendan Jenkins,
VK3WWB.

I had very similar issues recently, with the LimeSDR failing regularly and requiring several power cycles to reset. I found that the limeutil --update command was actually pulling in a version of FX3 firmware (the USB controller chip) that was for the 1.3 hardware revision, not the 1.4 that I have. Flashing the latest (as of 4DEC) firmware for both the FX3 and the FPGA seemed to get rid of this problem entirely. Previous to that, I replaced USB cables and provided it with an external power supply without any apparent benefit.

There appears to be an issue with the driver that causes instability. Unfortunately the most recent version of the application software seems to want to push this faulty firmware in. If you fix it by hand, it seems to start working normally.

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Just double-checked the code and the latest LimeSuite (v17.12.0) is pulling correct versions (FW 4, GW 2.12). Previous LimeSuite release (v17.10.0) is pulling version FW 3 and GW 2.11 that are also matching.
You should not try to run FW 3 with GW 2.12+ as transition between FW 3 and FW 4 (also GW 2.11 -> GW 2.12) makes changes to interface between FX3 and FPGA.
The change was made to address repeating failures to communicate with FPGA on some boards (usually seen as GW mismatch warnings because of failure to read version info from FPGA). So if you having this problem moving to FW 4 + GW 2.12 might help.