Genuine Arduino Nano - Can't find drivers

Development Tools IDE 1.x
1

Hello!

I just got an Arduino Nano today. This is my first Arduino or any programmable board. It is a genuine board bought from Arduino.

I have the Arduino IDE 1.8.19 installed on Windows 11 and updated the boards in board manager. When I plug the Nano into my system it installs as "USB Serial Port (COM3)" using a generic Windows driver and the manufacturer is FTDI. I tried to update the drivers from the Arduino\Drivers folder, however there are no drivers for the Nano. There are drivers for everything else, but nothing for the Nano. Picking any of the other Arduino drivers crashes Windows immediately with a BSOD.

I also tried to use the Arduino Cloud and installed the Arduino Agent, but that doesn't seem to provide any better drivers.

Are the nano drivers supposed to come with the Arduino IDE 1.8.19? If not, how do I get the device to be properly recognized in Windows 11?

Thank you for reading this and any help you can provide,

David

2

Yes. Arduino provides the drivers for their boards.

If that is under the Ports (COM & LPT) section in device manager, there is no problem and you should be able to upload sketches.

If you expected your board to be identified as a Nano, that is not the case; the FTDI chip is a generic chip (same as CH340 used in lots of clones).

3

If your board is an official Arduino board, the steps below should help resolve the issue:

  1. uninstall the IDE and then install the latest version.
  2. install the board’s package core, https://www.arduino.cc/en/Guide/Cores
  3. Use a good quality data USB cable to connect the board to the computer without anything connected or wired to the board. Do not use USB 3.0 port or USB hub.
    If your board is still not detected, install FTDI driver following https://support.arduino.cc/hc/en-us/articles/4411305694610-Install-or-update-FTDI-drivers
  4. Make sure you select the board and the port it is connected to before uploading a sketch.
  5. If 1-4 above fails to solve it, double tap the reset button fast and check the status of the onboard "L" LED. If the onboard LED fade in and out slowly (pulsating), upload an example sketch (Blink LED) from the IDE to the board.
4

Unfortunately and confusingly, there are quite a few Arduino models called "Nano" these days. What do you have, exactly? Please post a link.

5

Hello!

Thank you for responded. It is indeed genuine, bought from the Arduino store on Amazon.

I uninstalled, deleted the folders, redownloaded and reinstalled
I made sure the board package was updated
I have used two different cables a previous known good and a new one purchased with the nano
I installed the FTDI driver.
It has no errors in Device Manager
I connected the board, verified it was set for the Nano and Com3
I tried both the (old bootloader) and the ATMega328P.
I used the basic blink sketch and get the sync error

avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 10 of 10: not in sync: resp=0xb2

I tried to double tap the reset button but the green light always stays green. The receive light blinks momentarily when it first gets power, but the green light is immediately on and never turns off until power is removed. I tried holding down the reset, double tap, triple tap.

Once again, I really appreciate the help.

David

6

Hello, thank you!

I have realized just how many there are! I believe mine is the Classic Nano.
Here is an image of it.

image
image642×1438 119 KB

7

Yes, looks like a classic Nano 3 to me.

Did you try other USB sockets on your PC/laptop? Sometimes different USB sockets are connected to different USB controllers on the motherboard, and some may work better than others.

8

Try a different USB cable, use only a good quality data cable. The steps I provided above should resolve the issue with a good cable. If your board is new and has not been damaged, do a complete unistall of the IDE (https://support.arduino.cc/hc/en-us/articles/360021325733-How-to-do-a-complete-uninstall-of-the-Arduino-IDE) and reintall it following https://support.arduino.cc/hc/en-us/articles/360019833020-How-to-install-the-Arduino-IDE. Then follow steps 2-5 suggested earlier.

9

On Windows, Microsoft offers some user-downloadable tools:

image
image1560×1107 235 KB

On my Win-11, I have an icon to this script:

echo off
IMHERE = cd
CD C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Debuggers\x64\
start usbview.exe
cd IMHERE
IMHERE=""
exit
10

The board is new, but considering the reset button doesn't seem to work as you indicated it feels like something is wrong with it.

I did have an Uno R3 on order as well, that arrived a few minutes ago and is working immediately out of the box. Identified as an Uno and took the sketch no problem.

Thank you for your help, I didn't even realize there was a reset button and all the steps gave me a very valuable crash course on the drivers and config side.

11

I don't know how the return policy works. Just in case, you can contact Arduino via https://www.arduino.cc/en/contact-us/ if you have questions regarding that.

12

Use your Uno R3 to burn a bootloader to it, see Burn Bootloader | Troubleshooting Guide For Arduino . If that fails to resolve the issue, contact our Technical Support via https://www.arduino.cc/en/contact-us/

13

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