*SOLVED* Generic Nano's won't load bootloader or sketch

Development Tools IDE 1.x
1

I usually use megas or uno's, but I needed something smaller, so I ordered a pack of 3 generic Nano's from Amazon.

So far, 2 of the 3 won't take a sketch or bootloader.

They plug into my PC fine (Win7Pro, 64bit), and come up on COM24 as a USB serial. Great.

They are blinking, seem to have a bootloader burned already, but still. At least I know they get power.

I can pull board info, get VID and PID.

I place command to burn bootloader, the RX LED blinks lightly once or twice and then it sits there. Same when trying to load a sketch.

I've tried hitting the reset button just before programming, nothing.

Tried another USB cable, nothing.

Did I get a pack of duds?

Error:

Arduino: 1.8.3 (Windows 7), Board: "Arduino Nano, ATmega328P"

avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 1 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x82
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 2 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x82
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 3 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x82
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 4 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x82
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 5 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x82
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 6 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x82
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 7 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x82
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 8 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x82
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 9 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x82
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 10 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x82
Error while burning bootloader.

2

Just in case somebody searches this in the future, apparently these clones require a special driver to work.

After downloading the driver from this link: http://www.wch.cn/download/CH341SER_EXE.html (Its Chinese, but just use translate and find the big blue download button) and installing, I was able to get it to work.

Oh, the other trick, under processor selection, you want to use the "old bootloader" edition.

That is all.

3

A useful alternative is to replace the factory bootloader.
I'm using an alternate boards package named MiniCore.
MiniCore comes with the Optiboot bootloader.
Also MiniCore provides several useful extra features and options compared to the original Nano.