Cobra II NET boot time increase after MAC address set

NETMF & Gadgeteer
1

Cobra II net normally starts up within 5 seconds but this change to about 30 seconds after changing the default MAC address of the ENCJ28 to a custom address (using FezConfig). Subsequent startups remain about 30 second. I am wondering if this is expected behavior

2

I bet the boot loader flag got accidentally set and never cleared. Use mfdeplpy to clear it and let me know if it worked.

3

Clear the boot loader flag did the trick, although starting FezConfig just to check if the MAC address was still the same seems to set the flag again. I guess a clear flag call needs to be added to FezConfig.

4

Please provide exact steps to repro. This is not happening our end

5

Tested with 2 Cobra’s II NET and 1 Cobra II Classic. 4.2.11.1 firmware
All show same behavior
Device connected to USB and DC Power adapter
Cobra II Classic has en external ENC28 attached to JP1 (SPI1)
Cobra II NET is patched so that ENC28 is also connected to SPI1

Waited about 5 Seconds till app is running.

  • Start FezConfig
  • Select Network Configuration
  • Select tab ENC28
  • Click button 'Load ENC28 Ethernet Config"
  • Close FezConfig
  • Hard Reset Cobra II
    STARTUP is now ABOUT 30 seconds
  • start MfDeploy
  • Select USB
  • Ping
  • Select from Menu. Plug-In -> Debug-> ClearBootLoader Flag
  • Within MfDeploy wait for message “Clear BootLoader Flag Complete” to appear
  • Close MfDeploy
  • Hard Reset Cobra II
    STARTUP is now about 5 Seconds
6

The scenario is, if a user wants to config something, they need to wait for the device enters TinyBooter mode, then continue wait the device reset back to TinyCLR mode. And when they save something, they will aslo so have to wait the device enters TinyBooter again, save it and reset back to TinyCLR again. So this way let user wait for a long time to Load and save.

So FEZ Config now is, once enter to TinyBooter mode, user can change and save it, don’t need to wait too much. After done configuration, user can click reset TinyCLR on the advance menu.

7

@ Dat - Without making any changes to the config and just want to look up a setting it seems to be important to end with “click reset TinyCLR on the advance menu”