EPIC, Code programming error at 0000

[shorton]

Thanks again guys for the time to help.

Steve:

Yep, the 628A is all I have ever bought. Never owned a 628"plain". I have a couple tubes full. I got out my reading glasses and looked to be *sure* Digikey didn't mess up, they did not.

re the ini fix thing, yes I tried that too just to be thorough, but other than selecting the chip, and having some MRU files listed, all was identical. It was a clean software install.

Darrel:

Can't use the on-board socket, chip is too long.

FWIW, the laptop dosen't have a printer built at all.

The desktop printer's port is a TCP/IP printer. The printer is brand new, installed last week. It does not even have a parallel port. Was odd to me too that it might be the culprit, but HP is not on my good guys list when it comes to loading bloatware on my PC.

OK, here's some fun.... I decided I'd try to figure out what was wrong with the desktop. I had some barcodes to print today (via LPT1) so figured it would be a good test to see of LPT1 was even functional (on the desktop). I disconnected my EPIC programmer fromthe cable and connected it to the parallel cable end already hanging off the bar code printer (2 25-pin cables now). Printed some labels, worked fine. A little while later, I unhook the cable and connect it back into the programmer on the desktop, poof, programs like it always did. Does it every time now. Something about printing through the prarllel port seems to have unhosed it. Before, it would not even read a chip, much less program it. A read erroneously said the chip was blank (it wasn't). Not so much as a reboot has happened since it wasn't working. ???

So I figure maybe a cold solder joint as Steve suggested or a hardware issue that has cleared. Reconnect the laptop, same behavior, programs spoatically, although it was taking fewer tries this time. Back to desktop, works OK still.

Oh well. As long as the desktop works. I'll ask Charles next week.

CHeers, Scott

[Darrel Taylor]

Can't use the on-board socket, chip is too long.

If the chip is too long, then you don't have 16F628A's

The 628A is 18-pins, and the epic on-board socket is 18-pins.

_

[shorton]

DOH! You are right, I thought it was too small, I was wrong. It fits it fine. I bet I thought it was too small when I ordered the ZIF last year. Should have looked closer.

Anyway, thanks, I'll try the laptop with the on-board socket.

[shorton]

Now that I know it fits I tried the 628A in the on board socket. Same result. Took 40 attempts to get the laptop to program it. Hooked it back to the desktop, programmed 3 times in a row. Strange.

[skimask]

Now that I know it fits I tried the 628A in the on board socket. Same result. Took 40 attempts to get the laptop to program it. Hooked it back to the desktop, programmed 3 times in a row. Strange.

Had problems with mine awhile back, like 3 or 4 years ago...
Do you have any 'Temperature monitoring' or 'CPU monitoring' software running in the background?

My problem was (and it took me almost a year to figure this out) every time one of these programs would try to do an update (i.e. read a CPU temp, read a fan speed, etc), it would kick out my programmer software and dump somehow. And it was really sporadic since my 'monitoring software' would only do a read every minute, so I suppose I would get errors about 50% of the time because it usually takes less than a minute to program a PIC.

One day, for some reason, I decide to change my update rate to something like every 10 seconds. (Important point that I missed for about a year: Most of the time, it takes far less than a minute to program a PIC, but it almost always takes more than 10 seconds to program one). After I made that change, nothing worked, for about a month.

After awhile, again for some unknown reason, I decided to shut off all my monitoring programs (I haven't made the connection between the 2 events yet), everything started working great. It just didn't add up.

About 2 weeks after that, my girlfriend used my laptop and shut it off instead of putting it in standby like I always do.
Well, the reboot put the 'monitoring software' back into the '10 seconds between reads' mode and neither of my programmers worked again.
Now I made the connection... Every time the laptop's 'monitoring software' would read the CPUs temp or Fan speeds or whatever, it would cause my Warp13a OR my EPIC to error out at the exact moment that it was trying to do the read.

Funny thing is, this has only happened on my laptops, never on my desktops.
I don't know why, I don't care. I just run a clean system now without a crapload of stuff running in the tray.

[shorton]

Thanks for the suggestion. I don't have any monitoring software going. I've scoured the startup stuff via "hijackthis" and made sure I don't have anything running in the background that's not regular core windows junk.

Programming with the laptop fails instantly over and over until, oftern after about 30-40 tries it will "hit" and go on and program. It reads sucessfully every time, never fails. And it erases every time, too (set to erase before program), also never fails. Only the write fails and it appears to do so the instant it gets going. I guess 0000 is the first plae it tries and that is thus the error message.

Melabs told me a timing change to make in the 628A file. Haven't had time to try it yet.