Trouble getting Arduino running

Using Arduino IDE 1.x
1

Hello! First time here, and already in trouble (Yikes)

Just got my first Arduino board, but i cannot get it working. Im trying this on a Windows 7 64 bit machine. Heres what i have tried

First i plugged in the Arduino board to the PC with a usb cable. This gives me a steady light from the L and ON LEDs.

Windows began installing some drivers automaticly. When done i checked the device manager and noticed the device was recognized as "USB-SERIAL CH340 (COM10)"

Then i installed the Arduino software and started it. Selected Files->Examples->01.Basics->Blink.
Checked Tools->Board->Arduino UNO and Tools->Port->COM10.

If i then pressed Verify along with Upload i get the following error after a long period of time:

Problem uploading to board. See http://www.arduino.cc/en/Guide/Troubleshooting#upload for suggestions.
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 10 of 10: not in sync: resp=0xc1

I've also tried to replace the driver by following the guide here at point 4: http://www.arduino.cc/en/Guide/Windows
However windows insists that the driver it has found is the best suited.

What am i doing wrong?

2

Some Arduino clones use the CH340 USB-Chip instead of the FTDI chip.

Apparently your Windows installation already had/found the right driver (normally it doesn't). But if you still want to try to reinstall/update the driver you need this one:

(Yes, it's mostly chinese :smiley: - but you just need to download the CH341SER.zip or .exe file)

Just to make sure it's not a driver problem.

3

onuno:
Some Arduino clones use the CH340 USB-Chip instead of the FTDI chip.

Apparently your Windows installation already had/found the right driver (normally it doesn't). But if you still want to try to reinstall/update the driver you need this one:
http://www.wch.cn/index.php?s=/page-search_content-keyword-CH341SER.html

(Yes, it's mostly chinese :smiley: - but you just need to download the CH341SER.zip or .exe file)

Just to make sure it's not a driver problem.

How can i make sure there is no problem with the drivers ? My device manager shows what you can see in the screenshot so i think it should be okay.. However even after i reinstalled the driver you linked me to, it seems that its still not working correctly

devman.png
devman.png796×581 80 KB

4

I don't think the driver causes the problem.

This issue looks similar:
http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=316799.0

My only idea would be to try an older software release, like 1.6.1, because 1.6.3 didn't works for me either (because of a different error though):

5

G

onuno:
I don't think the driver causes the problem.

This issue looks similar:
Arduino Uno R3 stk500_recv() and stk500_getsync() - IDE 1.x - Arduino Forum

My only idea would be to try an older software release, like 1.6.1, because 1.6.3 didn't works for me either (because of a different error though):

http://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/OldSoftwareReleases

Good suggestion. I tried it and after i uninstalled version 1.6.3, i installed your suggested version 1.6.1, but unfortunately it did not work.

Could my board be faulty ?

Im beginning to think more and more that the board is faulty. I just tried it on another Win7 machine and a Win10 machine all with the same problem..

EDIT: Also should i be able to use the reset button ? It does nothing at all .. I would think that i would at least be able to see the LEDs flash or something ?

EDIT2: Did a loopback test but nothing is working.. The lights ON and L are always lit continously when the USB cable is plugged in. TX light never even blinks or anything.