Hey, all. About 2-3 years ago, I bought an Arduino Uno. About a year or so I had to purchase a second for a class to show parallel computing. These have been a god-send, and I've spent hours toying with them and having a great time. But something odd happened the other day.
I was connecting them to a stepper driver, and one of the boards just stopped being recognized by my computer. Then all the LEDs on the board turned on. [Rx, TX, L, On]. I unplugged the board and plugged in my second board. My computer made the recognition sound. I put it down on my wooden desk and it again made the sound as if I unplugged something. This time the On and L lights were on. I replaced the chips, but the same issue is happening.
Can I get insight? I'm sure these boards are ruined. I already purchased another board. I was just wondering if it was something I might've done? Or even better if I could fix it.
Hi, welcome to the forum.
What's the stepper driver? Any chance its feeding >6V back to the boards and frying something?
CrossRoads:
Hi, welcome to the forum.
What's the stepper driver? Any chance its feeding >6V back to the boards and frying something?
It was a Big Easy driver. I don't think it was, however it might be possible. I only had the ground, step and direction from arduino to the driver.
The thing is, I didn't even plug it in with my second board. It was just plugged into the computer when it died.
Very odd. I've never had one go bad from just being plugged in. Killed several prominis with a loose 12V wire, and one 328P on a Duemilanove from driving an NPN with no gate resistor (and it took a while).
CrossRoads:
Very odd. I've never had one go bad from just being plugged in. Killed several prominis with a loose 12V wire, and one 328P on a Duemilanove from driving an NPN with no gate resistor (and it took a while).
Yeah. It was strange. I mean, there might have been a resistor or something under it that might've shorted out something.
It's the 2014 bug. All the plain will fall and the computer will go puke. 
Got details on your stepper drivers? What kind? does it still work?
I put it down on my wooden desk and it again made the sound as if I unplugged something. This time the On and L lights were on. I replaced the chips, but the same issue is happening.
Have you try to change your USB wire?
Next thing to try is power up your board from USB2Serial and cross Rx/Tx between your Arduino and USB2Serial, and try to load a code Holding reset button way. So you will know what part of your board is fried.