bradman76:
Solved. After more searching I found this thread: Arduino Mega 2560 is not recognized by Windows - IDE 1.x - Arduino Forum . Turns out for the ebay knockoffs you need to install an additional driver for it to work properly. Thanks for the suggestions.
You knew the board used the CH340 chip and you didn't install the driver for it? ? ?
That's what is known as operator error!
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