ArduinoMega2560 no longer picking up com port

Using Arduino IDE 1.x
1

Hi Guys,

this has been bugging me for longer than it should have, I have an Arduino Mega and for some reason it is no longer being picked up by the computer, the green power led comes on and the Blink LED is a solid colour when plugged in, no blinks, and every now and then the light will turn off.

It's not a computer problem I don't think as I have a second Arduino Mega for my University project and that works fine and is picked up fine by the PC. I have tried running a bootloader program (via Nick Gammon's tutorial) using the working Arduino however I am constantly met with errors and either I'm doing something wrong or theres an issue staring me in the face I'm unsure of.

My project hand in for university is late this week and don't have time to order a new Arduino so am hoping something isn't horribly wrong that requires a new one or anything of that ilk.

If anyone has any advice or has been met with this problem before please can you advise, thank you

2

One test that you can do is the loopback test. This will tell you if the usb-to-ttl is still functioning correctly. If the board uses a ch340 chip, this test might not be conclusive if it fails.

If the test fails
1)
You can use the second arduino to program the code via icsp (like you did with the bootloader).
2)
You will have lost the serial port for comms with the pc, though. You can work around that if needed.

FYI, if I order a component locally, it's usually delivered the next day. Comes at a cost, thougj.