ATtiny dev board USB driver problems

Other Hardware 3rd Party Boards
1

Hello all. I'm a complete ATtiny noob so bear with me here. I recently picked up ATtiny85 and development board clones (photo of board) off AliExpress and am completely unable to get my computer (Windows 10 x64, v2004) to recognize the dev board.

First off, when I plugged it into my PC via micro USB (powered USB 2.0 hub and desktop USB 3.0 port), a red LED turns on (no blinking) and device manager shows it as "Unknown USB Device (Device Descriptor Request Failed)." Here are the driver packages that I've tried installing and the results of each, however nothing has worked so far:

  • Digistump driver package: all four drivers show as "Ready to use" immediately after running installer, board still not recognized
  • Micronucleus 2.04 + Zadig 2.1.2: tried all three drivers, each one said "The driver installation failed" and "Resource already exists"
  • usbtinyisp_libusb_1.2.6.0: installer_x64.exe just doesn't run, even when running as admin

Am I doing something wrong or is it a faulty dev board? Any guidance is more than welcome. Thanks in advance!

EDIT: I don't have an Uno or capacitor on hand so I can't program using that method at the moment.

2

majhi:
EDIT: I don't have an Uno or capacitor on hand so I can't program using that method at the moment.

Look this over. You will need to come up with ISP Programmer of some sort in order to set fuse bits and load whatever bootloader you decide you want. A 10pinto 6pinconverter fits just right on the 6 leads needed for setup. I have several of these boards and usually just upload to the chip using a USBasp.

This should get you started.

3

kprims:
Look this over. You will need to come up with ISP Programmer of some sort in order to set fuse bits and load whatever bootloader you decide you want. A 10pinto 6pinconverter fits just right on the 6 leads needed for setup. I have several of these boards and usually just upload to the chip using a USBasp.

This should get you started.
GitHub - SpenceKonde/ATTinyCore: Arduino core for ATtiny 1634, 828, x313, x4, x41, x5, x61, x7 and x8

Thanks a bunch for the lead! I'll give it a read when I have time tomorrow. If I'm understanding correctly, a USBasp can be used instead of an Uno and cap? Or will I run into driver issues again?

4

Thanks a bunch for the lead! I'll give it a read when I have time tomorrow. If I'm understanding correctly, a USBasp can be used instead of an Uno and cap? Or will I run into driver issues again?

Yes, a USBasp can be used in place of an Uno.

I'm assuming you are using Windows.

5

kprims:
Yes, a USBasp can be used in place of an Uno.

I'm assuming you are using Windows.

USBasp driver for Windows 10 - Working solution | QuadMeUp

Thanks, I just ordered one. It should arrive in a few weeks so I may have further questions once it does.

6

kprims:
Yes, a USBasp can be used in place of an Uno.

I'm assuming you are using Windows.

USBasp driver for Windows 10 - Working solution | QuadMeUp

Okay, thanks for your patience (I hope you actually were patient, haha). I received the USBasp today and wired it up. That driver solution you linked worked and device manager recognizes it now. However the programming aspect has me stumped (again, I'm a total noob). The ATTinyCore page on GitHub has been helpful, however only to a certain extent.

Since it was a chip fresh from China, I burned the bootloader as the GitHub page said. Okay done, no problem, burned successfully. However now when I try to program the chip, I get different errors, depending on if I try to program it with board "No bootloader" or Optiboot.

For what it's worth, here are my settings in the Arduino IDE:

The errors associated with each board are as follows:

No bootloader:

avrdude: set SCK frequency to 187500 Hz
avrdude: error: program enable: target doesn't answer. 1 
avrdude: initialization failed, rc=-1
         Double check connections and try again, or use -F to override
         this check.


avrdude done.  Thank you.

the selected serial port 
 does not exist or your board is not connected

Optiboot:

Using Port                    : COM1
         Using Programmer              : arduino
         Overriding Baud Rate          : 19200
         Setting bit clk period        : 5.0
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 1 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x99
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 2 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x99

(this continues through attempt 10)

7

I burned the bootloader as the GitHub page said. Okay done, no problem, burned successfully.

Which just sets the fuses.

Do you remember what Clock you had selected? This is what I am using, Clock:"8 MHz internal. No bootloader.

Leave the USBasp hooked up like you had it when you originally burned the bootloader, using internal clock.

Then select the sketch you want to load and just hit the upload button.

This is the way i have been using the development board. I haven't bothered with a bootloader .

8

kprims:
Which just sets the fuses.

Do you remember what Clock you had selected? This is what I am using, Clock:"8 MHz internal. No bootloader.

Leave the USBasp hooked up like you had it when you originally burned the bootloader, using internal clock.

Then select the sketch you want to load and just hit the upload button.

This is the way i have been using the development board. I haven't bothered with a bootloader .

I left the clock on the default (8 MHz internal), but it still says that the selected serial port does not exist or the board is not connected. The IDE doesn't give me any other port option except for COM1

9

Bad chip. Threw another one onto the USBasp and it uploads fine. Thanks for everything, you've been an immense help! You definitely get karma from me.

10

Thanks and good luck!