Greg-G

Hey all, I've got a few newbie questions that I am unable to figure out on my own. I'm hoping someone smarter than I am can help. I've had the N+ for a little over 48 hours. Over that time, I've... 1) Upgraded the firmware to 4.2 RC5 (After breaking it once, downgrading and then re-upgrading. Note to self: Read ALL the directions.) 2) Deployed a few programs to it successfully and then a couple of them unsuccessfully. 3) Have tested out a couple of old arduino shields sitting around. 4) Written some code and verified that the changes on the screen ACTUALLY affect the hardware. 5) Verified connectivity via network and just generally have the feeling like all the hardware is working as intended. 6) Had less than the normal amount of sleep and more than the normal amount of caffeine. My questions/problems are 1) I've had 3 BSOD crashes of my PC only while unplugging the Netduino from the USB port. Not EVERY time, just 3 of the many times. This machine never crashes. Seriously, for a windows box its surprisingly stable. To the point that I had no record of the last BS in the event logs. I use Visual Studio pretty regularly. I have a Netduino GO that I've been using and playing with for the past month (since Makers Faire) and it doesn't have any of the same problems. I do ARM and Arduino dev on the same computer and have never had problems. My theory now is that it may the the SAM-BA USB drivers which had to be uninstalled / re installed a couple of times before they worked during the firmware upgrade to 4.2. Anyone else having issues? Or, could there by something wrong with the USB drivers for the netduino causing item #2 below? 2) Deploying to the device takes FOREVER and sometimes doesn't complete. I mean minutes and minutes. I think this is me not doing something right but for the life of me, the repeat-ability of the problem is just not there and in looking for the "how to deploy" process I've come up with nothing. Sometimes I hit "deploy" and it just works, then, 30 seconds later it will hang and timeout during deploy. Then, I'll unplug the device from USB, reconnect it, still won't deploy. Try a few more times and then it deploys just fine. What is the right process to deploy to the Netduino once the N+ already has a program in it? Power cycle first? Press the button during power cycle, then deploy? I have specifically tried restarting the computer, restarting VS2010, properly "ejecting" the N+ device using device manager thinking it might be a USB issue. Nothing done on the computer consistently fixes or recreates the problem. Again, I have a N GO and arduino/android devices that I program to all the time and they work just fine. What is different about the N+ from the GO and the way it deploys that would cause it to take so much longer or not complete? Different USB drivers? Corrupted device profile in VS? (OMG, How would I even fix that? HELP!!) It fails deployment 3 out of 4 times. If I unplug the netduino + walk away for 5 minutes (usually in frustration), plug the thing in and then IMMEDIATELY deploy (after the happy beep but before my app starts to run) it works every time. During deployment, if it's going to timeout, I get *2* lines in the build output that say "------ Deploy started: Project: BlahBlahBlah, Configuration: Debug Any CPU ------" and then a "waiting for device" in the lower left hand corner of VS 3) Using MFDeploy, I'm having trouble setting the IP address. I go into the connectivity options window, type in the correct IP address, netmask, etc and TURN DHCP OFF by unchecking the box. I click "apply" and then close the MFDeploy app. I then power cycle the N+ (unplug, replug) and then go back into MFdeploy and the IP address I typed is there but greyed out and the DHCP box is now checked. I've done this a hundred times (ok, 8 times) and it continues to do it. I've verified the IP address in my DHCP server as well as by connecting to the N+ via Ethernet and my app is working, just not with the address I supplied. I finally gave up and put a DHCP reservation in my server for the device so it stays where I can find it but I'd rather fix it permanently and correctly. Thanks, - Greg P.S. This is my first post. With it, I'd like to thank everyone on the N, N+ and N GO dev teams and everyone who supports the forums. You guys are awesome. I've been a follower on the forums since the N+ was announced over a year ago. Meeting and chatting with the Secret Labs folks at MF was one of the highlights for me.