Unable to upgrade/downgrade firmware on Mach X

[flintstones]

Hi,

We are having issues trying to program a PIC16F628. Whenever I attempt to erase the chip I get an error "Chip not detected, ID=3FFF".


The chips were successfully loaded on another Computer/Mach X with older firmware 1.28.

We are trying to downgrade the firmware from 1.42 to 1.28. When I try to load the firmware in through the interface there are no firmware options to be selected.


How do I go about getting older firmware versions? Does the firmware need to be in a specific folder?

TIA.

[Ttelmah]

What 'interface' is this?.
The best place to start is CCSLOAD.
Select the diagnostics tab.
Then on the machine with the old firmware, select
Update Firmware.
If the firmware was updated on that machine, it should show the firmware.
If you then select to change directory, it'll open showing the directory
where is has found this firmware.
Copy this into a drive you can transfer to the machine with the problem.
Then select Update Firmware here, and Change Directory, walk down the
tree here till it is pointing to where this firmware now is.
If you don't actually have the firmware on the old machine, hopefully you
have managed to find it somewhere?.
Same method applies.
Put it on a removable drive and open the folder where it is in the change
directory selection.

Firmware normally exists in the directory where CCSLOAD was installed.
If you have installed multiple versions, the newer overwrites the older.

[flintstones]

Thanks Ttelmah.

In the PICC folder (where CCSLoad is installed) I can see there are multiple *.fw files. One of them being "machx-images-firmware-01-41.fw" which I presume is the firmware for the Mach X?

So the firmware does exist on the computer I cannot select it from the drop down in the Firmware Upgrade dialog window.

[Ttelmah]

So do the change directory option, and select that directory.
However that looks like V41. You need V28....
What is in the directory on the old machine where the programmer with
the working firmware came from?. Have you got old backups that
may have a V28 version?.

Realistically, talk to CCS. Explain that V28 works, and that V42 doesn't
for this chip. They should either be able to supply V28, or more probably
will update the firmware to fix the problem.

[flintstones]

Yes, we will call CCS regarding this, however us being in Australia and they're in Milwaukee means a midnight phone call. I was hoping that someone on the forums might be able to help us in the meantime.

FWIW I took a short video of the problem.


I have uninstall/re-install of CCSLOAD, reloading drivers, running compatibility mode for Win7, running as Administrator and running from C:/Users/Public folder but still have the same result.

Thanks for your help anyway.

[Ttelmah]

OK. Message me directly, and give your email address. I'll send you the 1.28
firmware file.
I just went and looked through through my compiler directories, and
compilers 5.061 to 5.073, had this firmware version.