I just got my first arduino today, it is the mega 2560, it was a kit that came pre-loaded to to do random things on a 128x64 lcd display. I wanted to do something else though so i took everything off and made a 12 LED dimmer thing. After selecting the board and serial port from the tools menu in the programming software and verifying the code i uploaded it, everything seemed to be going okay 'till i got an error message:
avrdude: stk500v2_command () : unknown stus 0xc8
avrdude: initialization failed, rc=-1
Double check connections and try again, or use -F to
overide
This check.
avrdude: stk500v2_command () : unknown status 0x01
avrdude: stk500v2_disable () : failed to leave programming mode
I get that message no matter what code i try to use. i tried uploading it with the board unplugged and got the same message so it seems like it thinks theres a bad connection but the power comes on when it's plugged in.