On-board ST-Link on STM32F3Discovery probably damaged. Is there a way to recover ?

[TTrua.1]

Hello ST community,

I think I have damaged the on-board st-link part of the STM32F3Discovery I bought last week. I think I might have slipped and shorted two nearby pins while probing with my multimeter.

When connecting to the 'ST-LINK' usb port, the PWR led lights up but the COM LED stays off. The demo on the LED compass no longer runs either. And the dmesg command from my linux computer reports the following:

[88572.809238] usb 1-6: new full-speed USB device number 58 using xhci_hcd
 
[88572.935836] usb 1-6: device descriptor read/64, error -71
 
[88573.169284] usb 1-6: device descriptor read/64, error -71
 
[88573.275981] usb usb1-port6: attempt power cycle

However, when connecting the other usb port, labelled as 'USB USER', the COM LED lights up and the demo starts running after a short while. So I think there's still hope to use this board after all.

I have two questions:

* Is there something I can try to 'reset' the on-board ST-Link so I can upload programs to the board ?

* Since the rest of the board appears to be working, is it worth a try to use an external ST-Link ? I've seen people do this with similar boards (eg. https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/182763/how-to-use-an-external-st-link-v2-with-the-stm32f4-discovery-board)

[TDK · Accepted solution]

If your computer doesn't detect the ST-Link chip, it's probably dead.

Yes, you can still use an external programmer for the board. You'd need to sever the connection to the on-board ST-Link. I believe it's just two jumpers, but the user manual would have the details.

[TTrua.1]

Thanks for your reply. I bought a mini ST-Link, connected its GND, the 3.3V, SWDIO to PA13 and SWCLK to PA14 and now the board seems to work again. Wonderful.