For faster delivery I bought the Nanos from ebay instead of cheaper AliExpress. Regret it as neither work with any of the methods I've tried. Before I return and request refund I'm wondering if anyone else here has used this product?
Aliexpress sometimes give not money back and you can do nothing. that Nanos comes in one week, instead of 2 month. Ebay is good.
Contact the dealer who sold it you and ask for a refund. They will give you back your money.
If not contact eBay or payapal and make a claim. You will get a refund.
How would anyone know ?
One of the benefits of buying off sites like ebay and ali, is you mostly have no idea what the parts you are buying actually are.
The description might well be generic and who knows what might be delivered.
The 'seller' might not know what parts it is that they are selling.
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That is not a benefit -- that is a consequence.
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I have a few and they are all fine. They came either from ebay or amazon.
Check the cable - a lot are power only and you need a data cable.
I find these apps invaluable when testing devices connected via usb:
USBDeView View any installed/connected USB device on your system shows all usb devices
USBLogView USBLogView - Records the details of any USB device that is plugged or unplugged into your system shows the changes in usb devices
USBTreeView USB Device Tree Viewer shows all the usb devices - with a LOPT of detail - as a connection tree.
All these are portable apps - dont need installing.
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Thanks, I’ll explore those tools.
That’s my intention, as I said.
Perhaps by looking at the information I provided, such as the Item Number?
It sounds like you are using windoze and do not have the CH340 driver installed.
Yes, I’m using Win 10, but drivers are installed and other Nanos using them successfully.
Nano has become a generic term. What bootloader have you selected? Try another Nano in the menu.
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In the last 3 days, I saw at least 2 people having problems with a "Nano" that has ATMega168 chip replacing the traditional 328P. The very ad you posted seems to have at least one of those. At this point I agree with
Before moving forward applying trial and error method, I would try to identify exactly what is the one that you have in hands.
I tried all three options:
- 328P
- Old bootloader
- 168
How can you trust a seller that
- states "Nano" and "ATmega328P/ATmega168P" in once sentence; there has never been an official Nano with a 168P (so it's not supported with the AVR board package).
- does not know if their board has the CH340G or FT232?
The design of the board is odd as the serial-to-usb converter is at the top (but I have seen it before here on the forum).
It looks like the board uses a micro-usb connector; I might see that wrong but if so, make sure that you're using a data/sync cable and not a charge-only cable.
Check what the serial-to-usb converter actually is.
Check what the processor on the board actually is.
PS
We don't know what you tried 
I think my post #14 covered the obvious options. I used those first with the USB cable and then with a Uno as programmer via ISP.
That and the other points you raise are interesting and relevant until I abandon all hope of a fix. But my question was whether anyone else was using this specific clone. Only one so far.
After the usual upload failed I did then do that. Magnification needed but at least able to eliminate 168.
Anyone have a definitive method of establishing whether the device has 'Old bootloader' - apart from trial and error?
Press and release the reset button. A single flash of the L-LED indicates "old bootloader", a couple of quick flashes indicates "new bootloader" (optiboot).
And it's indeed the voltage regulator.
What is the other chip at the bottom of the board?
Yes, you have to show a complete picture of the underside. I have some which look exactly like yours from the top side so I expect to see a CH340G USB/UART chip. The amount of flux residue is, however, surprising.
Usually, new Nanos (and many other boards) have a blink sketch loaded to demonstrate some basic functionality. Does yours blink regularly?
Also, you haven't said exactly at what point it fails. Is it recognised as a USB device by your PC and, if so, what output do you see in the IDE which indicates a failure.
Thanks, that's going to be handy. Something I've looked for but not found before.
The clone's inbuilt sketch is a brief (guess 100 ms) blink at about 7 Hz. But that gap of around 1.3 s is enough to get the single flash indicator if I'm quick. (Confirms Old Bootloader as already established by trial & error.)