Can't upload to arduino pro mini

Hello. I bought an arduino pro mini 328 5v and a FTDI to program it. I programmed it many times, and the blink sketch worked fine. But after soldering some pins to it, when I tried to send the code again to it I get an error:
Problem uploading to board...
avrdude: stk500_getsync(): not in sync: resp=0x00
avrdude: stk500_disable(): protocol error, expect=0x14, resp=0x51

I see that the read and green leds of the arduino flashes. On the FTDI, the TX led blinks 3 times. When the program is trying to send the code, the green led turns off, and when the program gets error he turns on.

Somebody knows how to solve?

Do you have pins soldered to the Rx & Tx lines (D0, D1) and are they connected to anything? A lot of times reprogramming fails due to electrical interference from your circuit on those 2 pins, which the FTDI adapter is trying to use also.

The pins are soldered, but nothing is connected to them.

When I connect the board to power, the atmel chip gets hot. In the beggining, I got a smoke from this chip. Now no more. I believe that the soldering paste I used are doing some wrong connections in the chip, but already cleanned it so many times.

I don't know why is the green led on, when I used the board and uploaded a blink sketch, times ago, it never gets on...

I would thank SO MUCH if somebody can help me. That's the only arduino I have and I can't buy another at this moment.
(I had a problem like this, months ago, with my arduino duemilanove, gets a smoke at the beggining, when, I believe, the soldering paste gets evaporated completely, it started working again, but after a few days of natural cleanning.)

Thanks!

when I try to upload a sketch, the green led turns off.

This green led turns on and off many times, but when I try to upload, it turns off and returns when the sketch fails.

? :-[

The lats sketch I remember I uploaded was a blink sketch on the pin 2, cuz it's near the GND pin. Before soldering, I tested it and the led started blining. Now this don't happens

When you did the LED on pin 2 & Gnd, did you have a resistor in series with the LED also?
The only time the chip gets smoking hot is when an output is overstressed - like with an LED direct from pin 2 to GND. That can break the chip.
Or if you had power/gnd swapped, that would damage it as well.

In my duemilanove I had this problem with the vcc and gnd.

But on the pro mini, I used the LED with no resistors and it worked. But now, I even tried to upload with nothing connected to board. Nothin happens

A standard LED with no resistor will overstress the output and kill the chip.

Now you can experiment with removing a surface mount part, installing another, and programming it using your duemilanove as a programmer. I need to do same for one of mine, had a loose wire flop around and killed the chip. Haven't purchased a replacement part yet.

Thank you so much by the help, but look, thats a vid I made before soldering the pins, with a LED and no resistors: Sparkfun arduino pro mini blink - YouTube

I tested this sketch so many times, I remember that leave it on by a minutes...

When this same uploading problem happened to my duemilanove, I quitted it, and weeks after, tried to upload to it and worked at the first try.
The soldering paste, when heated by the soldering iron, makes a noise. This same noise happened when I saw a smoke, don't know if this smoke comes from the soldering paste gettin hot.

I'm from Brazil and can't pay another $30 shipping for just a arduino pro mini board. And about changing the atmel... I'm not a hero, can't sold that.

:cry:

I am stumped then. Maybe it needs to rest overnight.
When I was driving a transistor without a current limit resister (so basically driving an LED to ground as well) it also worked for a while. Then it just died with no warning and was very warm when it did. I ended up having to put a new part in my Duemilanove.

Hi!

I've been investigating about this and it seems a lot of people are having this problem... including myself.

Were you able to solve it?

If you were, how did you solve it?

thanks

No I didn't. I'm leaving this alone for a few weeks to see what happens, the same way that I did to my duemilanove.

Hope this works.. :frowning:

If you find a solution, please tell me! Thanks!

hi!

Just found a solution, though I'm not sure if we are having exactly the same problem...

I conected my arduino mini pro following this example:

because I have a usb adapter.

Because it's a arduino mini pro AtMega328 5v and has already included a reset button you don't need to connect the the reset pin (according to the sketch is the orange wire).

That was my first mistake.

When you upload the board don't select arduino duemilanove Atmega 328 (i'm using the 0018 software version).

Hope it helps!

take care!

don't select arduino duemilanove? What I'm gonna select?

My arduino isn't the mini, it is the pro mini, it's another type :frowning:

Sorry my mistake. Try select arduino duemilanove AtMega 328

Tried and nothing happened.

And here's a video of what happens: Arduino pro mini uploading problem - YouTube

You have a wire of Rx or Tx, can't tell which - remove that.
Any part of your circuit on RxTx can and likely will interfere with programming.

Sorry, didn't understand... :-[

The FTDI adapter talks to the ATMega chip over the Rx & Tx lines - I can see that you have a wire on one of those going to something else in your circuit. Pull out that wire while you are programming - better yet, pull the promini out of the breadboard to program it.