I am trying to program an Atmega328 with a sketch. The atmega comes preloaded with the arduino bootloader.
my current setup is this:
avrdude: stk500_getsync(): not in sync: resp=0x00
How can I figure what is the problem? When I used my FTDI board, I was getting a "protocol error". I found references to this on google but no solutions that made sense
There are two bootloaders commonly found on m328 chips, and you need to match your "board" setting to the bootloader, rather than to the hardware of your board. Try "Uno" for the optiboot bootloader, and "Duemilanove w 328" for the older atmegaboot bootloader...
Tried those both, and even stuck a fresh chip into it so I know there isn't a problem with that.
Tried connecting the arduino rx to the chips tx and vice versa, also failed.
Same thing, out of sync 
Is there anything else that could be up?