Dead Arduinos

Development Tools IDE 1.x
1

I have 4 boards, 2 Unos, a Nano and a Mega 2560 that have suddenly lost USB comms. With the Unos and Mega the ports are (suddenly) grayed out. The Nano shows connected but fails to receive uploads, giving the message that there is a communication problem. When I do an lsusb the Nano shows up in the listing of connected devices but the other three do not. The Mega is brand new and has only been used once to test it with the blink upload.

I have an ancient Duemilanove with an FTDI chip and it works, no problem. I believe the trouble boards are all Chinese clones. The adapter that show up in lsusb is QinHeng Electronics HL-340 USB-Serial adapter.

I am running (the same) 1.6.12 in Linux Ubuntu Mint 17.3 that I have run for months. I have all the protocols in place such as dial up and groups, etc. Bear in mind that all these boards were working fine just hours ago.

Either I'm missing something very obvious but obscure to me or the comms chips ( I think these are all U82's) are not reliable. I am doing nothing unusual that should crater the chips unless they are ultra sensitive to plugging and unplugging which would render them useless.

Can anyone shed light before I crap-can these boards. I am reluctant to buy any more if this is a weak spot suddenly built into the boards.

2

Regardless of OS if all of a sudden you have so many failures it is highly unlikely to be the Arduinos.

Start at the computer and work outward checking the hardware at each stage...USB ports on the computer, cables, hubs, etc etc...

Eliminate the obvious before reaching a conclusion.

3

Ballscrewbob:
Start at the computer and work outward checking the hardware at each stage...USB ports on the computer, cables, hubs, etc etc...

Eliminate the obvious before reaching a conclusion.

That's the correct way. I have also bought many Chinese clone boards, but all of them work excellent and very stable. In my opinion the quality of these Chinese board is good enough, they are cheap because of massive production. The issue might be caused by poor quality accessories (cables, hubs etc.)

Good luck