Arduino Uno 'unknown device' Win7 under USB ports.

Development Tools IDE 1.x
1

Hi all,

I'm sure this is quite a well explored problem, but i've scoured the internet for solutions and found none which works for me. I'm using Windows 7 Ultimate.

I bought my first Arduino recently and plugged it to my computer's USB. After a brief 'USB device not recognised' message, I found it listed as an 'unknown device' under the USB controllers heading in the Device Manager. Note this, it is not listed under 'Other Devices' or 'Ports (COM and LPT)' but under the USB controllers. Here only the majority of the solutions available have become irrelevant because they assume that the board is listed in either of the previous two categories.
Naturally, I still tried to install the drivers (yes, i pointed to the 'drivers' folder and not the 'FTDI USB drivers' folder and yes, I even tried manually pointing to the 'Arduino Uno.inf', 'Arduino Uno REV3.inf' files when this failed) and it would tell me that no compatible drivers were found in that folder.

I went to the store and asked for a replacement. The guy was quite surprised, he said that arduinos rarely come with defects. Anyway, he changed my board and gave me a brand new one. I brought it home and wearily plugged it in. Guess what, problem still persists.

I've been breaking my head far too long over this instead of working on my project. Oh and i tried the two boards on various other computers and this thing hasn't changed.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! I'm seriously looking forward to working with the board.

Thanks

2

What is the Hardware ID for the unknown device?

Go to Device Manager
Right Click unknown device
Select Properties
Select Details tab
Change Property to Hardware Ids
What is displayed under Value?

3

Thanks for your reply!

It says, USB\UNKNOWN

4

What PC are you connecting to?
Does it have USB 3.0 ports?

Windows is not able to enumerate the Arduino and will not be able to install any drivers until it can enumerate and get the device ID.

5

I'm connecting to an AMD quad core PC.

Considering that it's almost 4 years old, it does not have usb 3.0 methinks.

So how do I get it to enumerate the arduino?

Thanks a lot btw for the prompt response!

6

I have seen this type of problem a few times and it has generally been either a bad/low quality USB cable or a USB 3.0 problem.

Since you don't have USB 3.0 ports, I would suggest trying a different USB cable.

There have been numerous reports on this forum that have been fixed with different USB cables.

7

Hey thanks a lot! It works just fine. Now i can finally get started off.

8

Hi.. I hope this would solve above problem..
http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm
I just downloaded Virtual COM port driver and extracted it..after that i connected my arduino uno...now it went from UNKNOWN USB to COMPORT!!! i dont know how it worked

9

Hi guys,
I had the same problem. I tried replacing the USB cable, but nothing happened. Please give me a solution.