Arduino Nano works only one time and then the computer does not recognize it

I don't have any way to test components...

Think I have nothing to loose, I started playing with the reset button. Guess what! If I keep the reset button pressed while connecting the USB cable, suddenly windows will recognize it as a USB serial port.
Any ideas?

Maybe some sort of timing issue? Although I have no idea why it would behave differently at the first connection. When you say you 'tried it on another computer - same results' do you mean that on the other computer it worked as normal on the first connection? This would suggest that something is changing on the host when you make the first connection. What OS and what USB drivers are you using?

Before I discovered that holding the reset button down while plugging in the USB cable fixes the problem:

On another computer it never worked i.e., the only time it worked was the FIRST connection ever, regardless of the computer its connected to.

I need another solution. The device will be in an enclosure with no access to the reset button.

That suggests some sort of hardware damage then, during that initial connect/disconnect

It may be a design fault or bad component choice that you can't do anything about. The only thing I can think of that you may be able to influence, is the order in which the USB pins make contact. Which should be defined by the USB standard, but if hypothetically you had an out-of-spec Chinese copy of a USB port it may be connecting/disconnecting in the wrong order.

If there was something like that going on, you might be able to avoid the problem (with new Nanos that have not already been 'blown') by disconnecting from the PC end, where you are presumably using a known good host port and cable. No reason at all to think this is at all likely, but it's the only thing I can think of that you have any chance to influence, so you have nothing to lose by trying.

szangvil:
I need another solution. The device will be in an enclosure with no access to the reset button.

If you really had to you could run a switch to the reset and gnd pins and place the switch so its accessible from outside the enclosure.

Is it also a chinese ftdi? The reason i ask is because it sounds to me like a driver problem. Ive had tons of weird usb related problems like this in the past. Sometimes the pc wouldnt recognize the device even after rebooting a dozen times and then suddenly everything would work.

Hello,
I bought a Nano from Littlebird electronics and another through ebay. The first one I have uploaded to it many of times and had some trouble with data corruption so I bought the other one to ensure that it was not the chips fault. To my discovery it was my software that was causing the issue. Any way my point is that I have had 1 nano which I have uploaded maybe 50 times and another also 50 times now as I keep swapping and changing. Now I can not connect to either of them because my windows 7 keeps telling me that the device has not installed correctly. I have pointed windows to the Arduino drivers and still no solution. This has been happening for a while on some of my usb ports but if I changed to a different port it would install correctly. Now all of my ports (4 of them) will not install the correct drivers. What is going on here it seems like a common problem but do not see any solutions. Why has this suddenly happened, is it windows update that has caused this?

Have you tried deleting the old/failed/brokendevices via Hardware manager, and uninstalling the driver? It would prompt to reinstall via PnP when you reconnect the Arduino.

Ok, here is the thing:

I have 20 of them. Some are labeled "Funduino" and some "Arduino".
After I reboot my computer, all of the sudden ALL of them work the first time I connect them. If I disconnect and re-connect, about 10 will not be recognized by windows.
The thing is, if one is not recognized by my computer and I connect it to another, it still will not recognized...

Anyway, I am baffled...

I was pointed by Robert that the FT232R requires the TEST pin to be connected to GND. I tried to do that on one of the Arduinos that was "acting up" (i.e., first connection is successful but successive connections fail). That seems to make a successful connection every time.
This is not a workable solution for me since they are all soldered to my PCB and I don't have a the tools to remove them.

If this is the solution, why are the Arduino Nano schematics and design not updated?

szangvil:
Ok, here is the thing:

I have 20 of them. Some are labeled "Funduino" and some "Arduino".
After I reboot my computer, all of the sudden ALL of them work the first time I connect them. If I disconnect and re-connect, about 10 will not be recognized by windows.
The thing is, if one is not recognized by my computer and I connect it to another, it still will not recognized...

Anyway, I am baffled...

I was pointed by Robert that the Atmega328 requires the TEST pin to be connected to GND. I tried to do that on one of the Arduinos that was "acting up" (i.e., first connection is successful but successive connections fail). That seems to make a successful connection every time.
This is not a workable solution for me since they are all soldered to my PCB and I don't have a the tools to remove them.

If this is the solution, why are the Arduino Nano schematics and design not updated?

Where is this 'TEST' pin you speak of? I don't see it on the nano version 3.0 schematic drawing? Got a link?

Lefty

Im sorry, my mistake. It's on the FT232R chip. Pin 26.
I'v edited my previous post with this change.

szangvil:
Im sorry, my mistake. It's on the FT232R chip. Pin 26.
I'v edited my previous post with this change.

That surely must be a mistake on the Nano's V3 schematic as the classic arduino Duemilanove uses the FTDI chip and shows pin 26 being grounded.

And from the FTDI datasheet, it says this about pin 26:

26 TEST Input
Puts the device into IC test mode. Must be tied to GND for normal
operation, otherwise the device will appear to fail.

Lefty

I did see this solution (pin grounding) on another post Arduino Forum but in my case I have I programmed my nano repeatedly for months and now all of a sudden I am getting this error on 2 different Nanos, using multiple different cables. If it was something wrong with the nano circuitry then why has it worked for so long?
I can get it working again by uninstalling the driver and plugging the device back in which I had to do on each usb port, but sometimes it will still not recognize and I have to go through the uninstall process again. Will keep you posted if I find anything.

Typhoon, I had about 80 Nanos over the past few months. In last batch of 20, some "act funny" and seem to be recognized by Windows randomly while others are fine.
As I said before, I "sacrificed" on Nano and did the TEST-GND blob bridge and that fixed the random behavior - windows recognized it all the time after plugging in and out tens of times (repeatedly).

Update:

Plugin the first time works on all 20pcs. If I plug in and out very fast (a few seconds in between), about 10 will not be recognized.
If I plug in and out with a delay of over 2 minutes, they all work... beats me.

Ok you convinced me :slight_smile: I will wire Test to GND, its going to be like performing heart surgery on those SMD pins.

I was "afraid" to do it as well, but solder flows to the right place all on its own, so don't worry :slight_smile:

Another happy user which has fixed his Nano just a while ago. It should be written about the problem in capital letters on the official Arduino Nano page, and the schematics/boards updated.

I know this topic is really old, but I was having the same issue today with chinese nanos, and just got it solved by installing the original FTDI drivers manually like in this video, now it recognize the nanos perfectly every time i plug it.