I recently bought an Arduino Uno R3 and followed this Arduino guide (http://arduino.cc/en/Guide/Windows) for installing the IDE and to upload the LED blink sketch. However, i always get "avrdude: stk500_getsync(): not in sync: resp=0x00".
During uploading of the sketch, only the RX LED blinks, never for the TX LED. The L LED (beside 13) just remains on always. I have read many online forums on this issue and done the following but to no avail:
-Changing USB cable
-Changing USB ports
-Reinstalling driver
-Restarting my laptop
-My board setting is at "Arduino Uno"
-My serial port number is correct when checked in Device Manager
Could it be a problem with my bootloader? Also, whenever i plug the board to my laptop, the ON LED and the L LED stays on permanently, even when I press the reset button. (Should this be the case?)
test 1: Run the "loopback test" to see if the board's USB serial converter is functioning. There is a sticky posting around here somewhere. If that fails then there is not much to can do about it other then get a new board.
test2: If the loopback test is good then you have either a bad 328P chip or it needs a new bootloader burned into the chip. To do a burn bootloader one needs either a IDE supported hardware programmer or another arduino board runnning the arduinoISP sketch which then becomes a 'hardware programmer'. Probably easiest solution if the test1 passes is to just buy a $5 replacement 328p chip that already has the proper Uno bootloader burned into it.