4 new uC, one fails blink test

Development Tools IDE 1.x
1

I picked up 4 new ATmega328 chips so I'd have spares to play with should I fry one or need one permanent in a future project. I used the tutorial blink scratch to test all 4 chips, 3 of them works fine. The 4th one never responded and I get error no sync on my computer. The 4th ship only has 1 LED steady lit the whole time: power LED. Rx LED flashes when my computer tries to communicate with the chip, and no other LED came on. No Tx LED either.

I know it's not my uno board, I put the other chips back in and loaded different sketch, it came through without any error. Did I get a bum chip? Maybe one missing bootloader? I've already contacted the vendor but I thought I'd check with you experts on this issue before I send the chip out for replacement.

2

It could be a bad IC, but I figure "no bootloader".
A guy earlier this week thought his was biffed, too, but it was missing the bootloader.
I'm not sure if it was supposed to be or not, but it came right once he bootloaded it.

3

Guess I'll wait for reply from vendor as I don't have anything to burn bootloader according to this page: http://arduino.cc/en/Hacking/Bootloader?from=Main.Bootloader

4

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