MiSTer FPGA Forum

I'm running into a very frustrating issue with my MiSTer and I'm hoping that someone can confirm that the issue is what I think it is, and that I did not accidentally damage something.

I bought a fully loaded pre-configured MiSTer setup a while a while ago and later added a BlisSTer board to it. I don't recall where I got the PSU for it, but it is 5v/2A. This all worked perfectly fine until I decided to make some changes yesterday. I added a 2TB external hard drive (not externally powered) and switched the primary SD card from a 512 gb to a 32gb card (since all the games would now live on the hard drive). As part of setting the new SD card up I updated everything to the latest version via the scripts.

Now, when I turn on the the MiSTer, the red power LED is constantly blinking and I need to re-plug any input peripherals several times before they will work properly. If I don't do this they either don't respond or sporadically spam inputs. If I can get the input peripherals working, everything seems to work okay - cores load, games play, etc. I am assuming that this is is due to the PSU not being able to fully power the MiSTer setup along with the hard drive, controllers, keyboard, etc.

The part that confuses me is that this behavior persists even if the external hard drive is not plugged in. Is it possible I damaged something by trying to draw too much power?

Just to rule out any other issues I've also tried using a different SD card, manually rolling back to an older version, checking all connections, etc, but nothing seems to work. I've ordered a Triad 4A power supply from Zerohimself, which i'm hoping will resolve the issue, but wanted to check and see if anyone has run into something similar and how they solved it.

Thank you, appreciate any help!

if it is a mechanical hard drive, they have a higher power draw than ssd hdd, I had issues with the 2 amp provided with the de10 nano, as soon as I upgraded to a 4 amp power supply it all worked fine, i am thinking it will be your power supply is under powered.

5V/2A is enough for the DE-10 nano alone, I think this is what Terrasic provides with the board, but if you add an USB switch, a IO board, a RAM module etc... then 2A is very short, your PSU may overheat and you will shorter its lifetime significantly (adding an external HDD may have damaged your PSU permanently I think) so it is recommanded to get at least a 3A for the MiSTer.

A 5V/4A PSU is a safe bet though!

Keep in mind that the DE-10 nano is a development board, so it's quite fragile compared to consumer boards, so I recommand that you stop using your current PSU to avoid any issue with the main board.

The latest linux has meant you need to update the firmware on the blister. if you dont you get starnge inputs. Try this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VK39W--vClc

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I've already ordered the new PSU which should hopefully be here at some point next week. In the meantime, it sounds like the BlisSTer firmware update is what is actually causing the issue. The updater script isn't doing anything for me even after re-downloading it from github - it just exits back out to the script menu after a second. Is there a way to manually update it somehow? I've tried searching for a way but everyone links back to the video posted above.

Just to be clear; flashing the blisSTer only concerns the two LLAPI chips/HDMI style ports.

The latest firmware (v3.0.27-4) dates back from July and as such, has nothing to do with the recent linux updates and normal use of the board as a standard usb hub. I don't know how this rumor has started, as I own a blisSTer myself and everything has been behaving fine. I have of course flashed the firmware as soon as the update became available, the normal way (detailed in that video).

Now, there is a way to do it externally using the antiquated flash tool on a PC, but I wouldn't bother as it's too cumbersome, or even risky.

Anyway, here's an invite to the official bliss-box discord, where you can be guided as to how to flash the board externally step-by-step.

Its not a rumour. Its helped a number of people on the Main Mister Discord. It would seem alot of people never have updated the firmware on their blisters and the latests changes appear to be causing some issues.

Its even been stickied on the discord as it was coming up so frequently

lamarax wrote: ↑Sat Sep 11, 2021 7:23 pm Just to be clear; flashing the blisSTer only concerns the two LLAPI chips/HDMI style ports.

The latest firmware (v3.0.27-4) dates back from July and as such, has nothing to do with the recent linux updates and normal use of the board as a standard usb hub. I don't know how this rumor has started, as I own a blisSTer myself and everything has been behaving fine. I have of course flashed the firmware as soon as the update became available, the normal way (detailed in that video).

It's not a 'rumor'. An older version of the firmware has some issue with the newer MiSTer linux kernel. The kernel fails to send a certain type of request and it just keeps trying over and over; the kernel usb thread ends up using a ton of CPU and causing the MiSTer to effectively become useless. There's still a component of those ports that shows up as a usb device, and I guess something made the kernel angry. I didn't debug any more than realizing it was the blisster board that was the issue and updating it.

The USB hub part of it worked fine, but the other issue effectively makes it useless when occurring.

It is indeed an issue that effects folks that have never updated their BlisSTer firmware.

But it's not like the firmware update was released specifically to address this issue, as it was posted back in July. It's just that recent firmwares aren't susceptible to whatever glitches were introduced with the new linux update. So of folks have updated firmware in the recent months, they may not have noticed a problem at all

Okay, for anyone that runs into the same problem I can confirm that updating BlisSTer fixes it. The new Linux update definitely breaks the base USB hub functionality and not just the LLAPI ports. I did end up having to SSH into the MiSTer and run the script manually with help from a user on the Discord channel, but everything is now resolved.

Thank you everyone!