I’m using a clone Arduino Nano with the CH340 USB-to-serial chip. It was working perfectly yesterday, but today I can’t upload any code to it. The onboard "L" LED (connected to pin 13) keeps blinking steadily, and every upload attempt gives me this error:
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 1 of 10: not in sync: resp=0x85
Here’s what I’ve tried so far:
Swapping USB cables
Trying different USB ports
Restarting the Arduino IDE and my PC
Re-selecting the correct board and COM port in the IDE
The Nano is still detected and appears in the port list, but uploads always fail with the same error.
Does this mean the bootloader might be corrupted? Or is there anything else I can try to bring it back to life?
One common cause is that you selected the wrong option under tools → processor.
Questions
Which operating system?
Which version of the IDE?
What was the project that you were working on? Anything with motors and/or incorrect wiring might have killed the 328P.
When you press and release the reset button, do you get a couple of quick flashes, a single flash or nothing. If the latter, the boot loader is malfunctioning or the 328P is damaged. For the former you can try to revive the board by burning the boot loader using another Arduino or programmer.
Please post a photo of the chip on the bottom of your Nano. There are plenty of boards with reject/fake CH340 serial-to-usb converters and if you're using Windows a driver update might have been the cause of the problem.
Why did you mark your post as the solution? The blinking LED is "factory loaded." The fact that you have not uploaded another sketch does not mean the Arduino is broken. Follow the advice above, and verify your USB cable is DATA and not just POWER.
