Okay, I've gone over every single connection multiple times and it's not any shorting, but it has to be because that's the only answer.
The only other thing I can think of is that the program on there is wrong or the bootloader is bad. The LED on pin 13 never lights up when I plug it in and the TX and rx pins both light up, but then there is no transmission during the upload process, the RX led just blinks 3 or 4 times (it changes).
Also, if I plug in another power source, the computer won't detect the arduino, although I have done this before for serial monitoring.
This makes absolutely no sense anymore and it's starting to bother me.
My other arduino nano works perfectly fine.

I've gone over all of the connections and nothing is shorted. I'll try a different cable or something.

I've had this error before and it was because the rx pin was accidentally shorted to ground.
I've checked it this time and it's not that, and when plugged in the microcontroller gets very hot.
The only reason I'm trying to do this is because the program that's on there seems to have stopped working (it was working fine before, I just didn't use it for a while and now this).
Any help?

Alright, thanks guys it's starting to make sense now. I should be able to get it working.

The I2C, I've read the tutorials and I fail to grasp the concept, what's the second wire for?
Also, I need to write two values to the pots, it's a twin pot IC, so how do I send it two values, would I just write the two values right in? Ie wire.Write(255255)

Exactly as Arrch said, you need an edge trigger, google edge triggering arduino or edge triggering c++. It's a pretty easy thing to do.

It's not being read from an analog sensor, it's going to be generated in the arduino by a series of button presses, then mapped to be in an eight bit range.

I'm building an audio control system with an Arduino and some other bits and pieces. One of the things I need to do is get a value between 0 and 255, convert it to binary, and write that through an I2C port to a digital pot. I can control the chip select part and everything leading up to getting the variable, but I don't know how to work with I2C.
I'm using the TPL0102 (datasheet: http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/tpl0102-100.pdf) and I need to write the vale to the memory (volatile is fine, but I'd prefer non- volatile) of the digi pot.
Can anyone help me with this?

Thanks, I'll keep a low pass filter in mind next time I order stuff.
In the meantime, I'm going to try it with just the PWM, and see what happens, then try with a capacitor inline, and see if that smooths it out.
If neither of those work I'll just go with pots and read the values off of the pots and display the mapped values.
Thanks for the help guys.

What do you mean by filtering out the PWM?

I could do it with a digipot, but I'd prefer to keep external component count at a minimum, I thought this would have been possible within the arduino.

I'm making an audio control system (with LCD display) to use with a LM1036, using the arduino and a set of pushbuttons to adjust the volume, bass, and treble inputs on the 1036, instead of the recommended pots biased off of the on board zener voltage. Since analogwrite is a PWM function, I'm assuming it won't work to control the IC. In that case, what would be the correct function to use, or is this even possible?

Thanks retro. I found a tutorial on PPM so I'll learn how to do that and get this up and running.

Lefty, the transmitter is going to go on the boat, to transmit data (temperatures, battery voltage etc) to a land based receiver. An arduino (hooked up to the receiver) will control an LCD or 7 seg displays to show the read data in the boat. The rest of the transmitter is missing, all that I have left is the module, does that mean I'll be generating a PPM signal to send to it?

Alright, the module is out of here:
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__9042__Hobby_King_2_4Ghz_6Ch_Tx_Rx_V2_Mode_2_.html
I don't have a link to the actual module, because it's part of an entire system, I was just wondering if it was possible (specific module aside) to send signals without complicated encoding.
Is there something wrong with not posting frequently?