I bought a couple of boards with the intent of learning IOT.
Both boards have a problem with the COM ports on this WIN7 SP1 OpsSys.
Specifically; Using the plain Pi PICO board, If I hold the button down and plug it into a USB port, the temporary hard drive appears as J:\ in this desktop. At this point, with the board plugged in, there is NO board entry in the Device Manager.
If I do not drag anything into it, and instead I open Arduino, I can create a sketch, and upload it to the board. This is repeatable in this exact order. However, in order to modify the sketch, I must again disconnect the cable and do the button hold routine again. As soon as the first sketch is uploaded, the Pi board shows up in Device Manager without a driver. Nothing I've been able to find will change that. I'm quite certain that the COM port setup is the problem.
In addition, I can not get any printout into the monitor. The serial monitor opens but will not display anything.
After the first load, Arduino shows; rp2040lod 1.0.1 - compiled with go1.15.8
"Loading into flash: 100% The blink sketch works.
If I load the same sketch without change again, I get an error message and it does not upload. If I add Serial.begin(9600); and a text print ??? line to the program, nothing ever appears on the monitor regardless of baud settings.
Everything seems to point at a PORT problem, but I have no clue as to where to look next.
Thanks, Rich
If I remember right windows needs a driver for the COM ports. I don´t know if they added them in the newer installations but maybe you have a problem because of missing drivers.
Maybe It does not print anything on the serial console because the controller already printing the output before the serial console is ready. Did you try a delay before you print your message?
Please read "Windows 7 Driver Notes" from Arduino Pico Documentation
Zadig LibUSB.
Thanks, got it. Works fine on WIN7 SP1.
I still have to reboot the board before each upload, but I can live with that.
Pico Serial Com had to be changed to Com3 as Com1 was dedicated to another hardware.
b707, I remember that aircraft. That's a long time ago.
Please mark thread as solved
IOT boards need to have communications port setup on WIN7 in order to run.
Go to https://zadig.akeo.ie/
Download and load the zadig-2.7 program. (May be newer version) Be Careful which link you click on, there are several other link boxes on that page. Go down far enough to find the actual Zadig-2.7 link.
The program does not stay resident on your computer and won't be in your programs list. It will disappear after you close it, so copy it from your "download" location and place it where you can find it if needed later.
Open the Zadig program. You will be presented with a box.
Plug in your USB board. In my case it was a Raspberry Pi Pico.
Select "OPTIONS" at the top. Check boxes "List all devices" as shown.
Then click "Devices" and your boards should appear in the long box.
Select the one that you are trying to install. Mine was Raspberry Pi Pico (Interface 0)
Then select USB Serial (CDC) in the box that the green arrow points to.
The needed details should be populated into the remaining boxes.
Click on INSTALL / UPGRADE DRIVER. Be patient. It seems like nothing is happening, It could take a minute to finish.
Once complete, you can confirm in DEVICE MANAGER that your board now has a driver installed.
Look in PORTS (COM & LPT). DEVICE DRIVER, PORT, Properties, Advanced where you can change the port parameters.
Remove the USB cable from the card and hold the boot/reset button while plugging it back in.
Open Arduino IDE and select your card and port from the tools menu.
A simple Arduino program like this should test the communications connection.
void setup() {
Serial.begin(9600);
}
void loop() {
Serial.println("Hello World");
}
Compile and load this sketch.
You can watch the serial output by clicking on "Serial monitor" in the upper right hand corner of the Arduino IDE.
In my case, I have to do the "USB cable out/button hold/cable in" routine before uploading a sketch every time.
If you find a solution to that, please message me. Thanks.
You may also need to install a VIRTUAL Comm bridge, but try this driver first and see if you can get Arduino to talk to it through the serial Monitor.
If not, search SILICON LABS
Their CP210x USB to UART Bridge Virtual COM Port (VCP) drivers may be required for device operation as a Virtual COM Port to facilitate host communication. In my case I installed the WIN 64 bit CP2102 Driver.
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