Trouble Installing Mega Driver

Hello,
Is there a tutorial anywhere preferably a members home made tutorial and not one from Arduino's site that has specific instructions on installing arduino software that will program the Mega 2560? I heard there is an ongoing problem (or there was) getting the mega driver to work. I have my laptop running 32 bit vista and an acer aspire one running windows 7 starter and I can't get either one to work with arduino. Both computers have a conflict with the mouse port wanting to use the same com port as the mega driver.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks In Advance
jessey

Have you tried the 1.0.5 installer for Windows?
http://arduino.googlecode.com/files/arduino-1.0.5-windows.exe

This will install the drivers for you. Just plug in your Arduino after the installation and it will show up as a COM port.

Thanks Louis,

I'll give it a try.

jessey

Hi Louis,
It installed ok but when I try to compile a sketch it shows a bunch of timeout error messages? It is really frustrating to say the least. When I try and use my mouse on occasions it's dead and I have to unplug and plug it back in to get it to work again. Any ideas on what to try now? If I follow the instructions on arduino.cc to reinstall the driver then I run into a brick wall. The wall being that the instructions ask you to navigate to and select the driver file named "arduino.inf" but there are no .inf files located in the "Drivers" folder, at least not that I can see. That's why I was asking for other solutions other than the ones offered on arduino.cc to fix the problem.
Thanks
jessey

I included the contents of the driver's folder in a picture. Do I have to unzip the old_arduino_drivers?

You can't have anything attached to the Arduino Mega's serial ports, when trying to upload anything to it from your PC.

Hi RudiAhlers,

I actually gave up for a while then after receiving your post it got me back at it. I have a LCD Shield plugged into my mega board which I think uses the serial ports? I can't see there being a problem with that, when the drivers are being installed the LCD board is unplugged.. I am trying to program a "LiquidCrystal LCD shield" but can't get it to complete the program. When I try to run a program to compile, I get quite a few time-out messages. I did as Louis Davis suggested in an earlier post and tried the 1.0.5 installer for Window but with no success. I am open to any suggestions anyone may have. I am getting pretty anxious to get back into programming.

Any suggestions that anyone can offer to get the mega driver installed properly will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks jessey

I'm also having a lot of difficulty working with the Mega 2560, and assume it's due to it's hardware serial ports (although I haven't concluded this hypothesis yet).

In my case, I often need to switch between the 2 USB ports on my laptop, so Windows will detect it again.
And, from time to time I need to completely uninstall the drivers from Windows, and reinstall it.

I don't have an UNO to compare with but did work on one a week ago and didn't have these problems.
My NANO V3 also works flawlessly.

Try another USB port, and / or USB cable. Some USB cables are lower standard / quality and could interfere.
Also see which other devices are using COM ports in Windows and try disconnect / disable, or even uninstall the drivers to see if anything is causing a conflict of sorts.

Interestingly, I could have a GPS connected to Serial1 (i.e. RX1 / TX1) while uploading skeches and it doesn't give me any problems, but every now and again, the Arduino IDE (1.0.5 in my case) doesn't see COM12 (in my case) even though Windows' Device Manager shows it as connected to COM12. Then I have to move the cable to the other USB port, if that doesn't work uninstall the driver and re-install it.

If anyone has some insight into this problem, it would help to share your findings / knowledge?

Hello Again RudiAhlers,

Sorry to hear about the hassles your having with the mega drivers but it is good to hear that I am not the only one. I heard from another guy that uses arduino say that there is an issue with the mega - it would be nice to hear from others to see if there is a solution to this problem.

When you reinstall your driver - how do you do that? Do you UN-install it first or just update the driver?

I just updated the mega driver (without UN-installing it) and tried programming a blink program and it worked, so I changed the delay and programmed it again and it worked. For the next program I tried unplugging the lcd shield before trying to program it's code and it worked. For the next program I left the lcd shield plugged into the mega board and tried to re-program it and it failed. It printed below in the box "Serial port "COM8" already in use. Try quitting any programs that may be using it." I tried again after unplugging the lcd shield and this time it didn't show COM8 as a selectable port - there was only COM3 there which I think is my mouse port and it failed so I updated the driver again and now it's working fine weather I program it with the LCD Shield in or out of the mega board.

It just doesn't make any sense at all, no rhythm or rime.

It seems to be working but sadly it's pretty pathetic compared to the other platforms out there.

It would be nice if there was a solution for this problem...

Thanks jessey

jessey:
Hello Again RudiAhlers,

Sorry to hear about the hassles your having with the mega drivers but it is good to hear that I am not the only one. I heard from another guy that uses arduino say that there is an issue with the mega - it would be nice to hear from others to see if there is a solution to this problem.

When you reinstall your driver - how do you do that? Do you UN-install it first or just update the driver?

I just updated the mega driver (without UN-installing it) and tried programming a blink program and it worked, so I changed the delay and programmed it again and it worked. For the next program I tried unplugging the lcd shield before trying to program it's code and it worked. For the next program I left the lcd shield plugged into the mega board and tried to re-program it and it failed. It printed below in the box "Serial port "COM8" already in use. Try quitting any programs that may be using it." I tried again after unplugging the lcd shield and this time it didn't show COM8 as a selectable port - there was only COM3 there which I think is my mouse port and it failed so I updated the driver again and now it's working fine weather I program it with the LCD Shield in or out of the mega board.

It just doesn't make any sense at all, no rhythm or rime.

It seems to be working but sadly it's pretty pathetic compared to the other platforms out there.

It would be nice if there was a solution for this problem...

Thanks jessey

Hi Jessey,

There are many posts on the internet from different people who have similar problems with the MEGA.

I uninstall the drivers in Windows' Device Manager, and disconnect / re-connect the Arduino via USB so it auto-detects and install it again.

I don't have the LCD shield you're using so I can't use it, but I guess it connects directly to Serial0 (i.e. TX0 -> 1 and RX1 ->0), which is why the sketch won't upload. Serial0 is also "shared" with the USB port.

The problem, as I see it, is that Windows doesn't know that the COM port has been released. Hence, if you move the USB cable to another USB port, it would re-initialize.

The simpe rule of thumb is not to have a shield on when you upload a sketch.