Arduino showing "unknown Device"

[calibur010011]

Hi All,

I hope everyone's memorial day weekend is going well. I have been working on a project and all of a sudden lost all ability to communicate with the arduino via usb with a windows 7 ultimate 64-bit OS. I also tried it on another windows 7 PC with 32-bit and had no luck (even booted to ubuntu linux 32-bit and had no luck there, but my knowledge is very limited there.) I actually went out and bought a 3rd arduino to try from radioshack with no luck in desperation to finish my project. One of the arduinos does absolutely nothing (in terms of connecting) and the other 2 come up "Unknown Device." The first 2 arduinos I had were able to write code to them and then they started working some of the time and then nothing. One characteristic of the problem is the code I got on to an arduino works and the LCD now does not reach full brightness anymore. It is dim when usb powered, but when powered via the minty boost using a lipoly battery (6600mah 3.7v) all is ok (powering wise) none of them allow for code to be transferred. Only the power light and L blinks when resetting.

I tried to reload the drivers when it would actually react to something when plugged in and give me unknown devices in the USB area and not in the port area in device manager. When trying to update the unknown driver it says that it thinks it has the most up to date software. When going to the "have disk" area and manually choosing it it is saying there is an incompatibility and wont install it. When right clicking manually to install the driver from the ini file it refuses saying it does not support manual installation. I have an R2, Rev3 and original UNO. The two original uno's were purchased through adafruit. One as a gift as part of a kit and one on my own. I can provide the kit purchase email through email if necessary. I also looked at the USB data log file as specified on one of the posts on the forum and it lists it as an Unknown device not at an Arduino uno as it first did when these initially worked. Sorry for the long post, just wanted to be as detailed as possible. Thank you for any and all help. I am just short of redoing operating systems at this point! I haven't installed any new software to cause this either to think what may have happened causing this. Also I swapped cables and other usb devices work in the same usb ports.

[adafruit_support_rick]

Are the arduinos p;lugged into a USB hub or monitor? There have been issues with those sorts of connections. If so, try it with the arduino plugged directly into a computer USB port.

[calibur010011]

Hello,

Thanks for the response. I actually added one to a hub to see if I'd get a different response, but no luck. By default I have been plugging it right in to the computes main USB ports. I'm reformatting a laptop out of desperation, but with my main PC I can't do that. :-/

[adafruit_support_bill]

What drivers are you trying to install? Uninstall any existing driver and manually install by navigating to the "drivers" folder of the main Arduino folder. There should be drivers for the UNO there. DO NOT select the FTDI drivers folder inside the top-level drivers folder. It will not work for UNOs.

[calibur010011]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. Yeah I made sure to avoid those drivers. When it originally worked the arduino uno drivers were selected. Sorry if that wasn't clear in my original post. I reformatted that laptop I spoke of and the newest radioshack board worked (REV3.) So I was able to get the project off the ground and completed. However those original two I spoke of exhibit the same characteristics on the newly formatted laptop. One does absolutely nothing, but power on and the other stays at Unknown device and refuses otherwise. I hope there is a solution. Is there a way to fix the USB portion of the arduinos? It's my understanding its handles by a separate processor until the leonardo changed that. No event closely to the disabling of the arduinos or loss of function rather has occurred that I can recall. Thanks

[adafruit_support_bill]

The UNOs have an Atmega 8U2 (or 16U2 on later models) processor for the USB/Serial function. These processors have their own ICSP programming connectors, and some have been able to resurrect unresponsive UNOs by re-uploading the firmware. See here for details: http://arduino.cc/en/Hacking/DFUProgramming8U2

[calibur010011]

Hi,

Sorry for the delay in a response and thank you for yours. Is it just me or do I need to be able to have the arduinos recognized to actually perform what is suggested in those links? Thanks

[adafruit_support_bill]

do I need to be able to have the arduinos recognized

No. But you need to have an ISP programmer such as the USBTinyISP.

[calibur010011]

Oh I didn't see that requirement. I noticed on the page http://www.adafruit.com/products/46 it banned a blank pcb. Does it come with the parts? It's not as obvious. Appears to show a case and a blank pcb. Is it safe to assume with "all parts necessary"? Thanks

[adafruit]

Oh I didn't see that requirement. I noticed on the page http://www.adafruit.com/products/46 it banned a blank pcb. Does it come with the parts? It's not as obvious. Appears to show a case and a blank pcb. Is it safe to assume with "all parts necessary"? Thanks

correct! it comes with all the parts needed (here's what it comes with):
http://www.ladyada.net/make/usbtinyisp/parts-v10.html

cheers,
adafruit support, phil

[calibur010011]

An arduino uno costs 21$ on amazon. Now a question of time and money. Thanks for the help. Wish I knew someone who could look at them. All the best. Ill update if I ever fix them

[adafruit]

There is no real Arduino UNO for $21 - those are clones that do not necessarily work correctly and will cause you more problems. We suggest purchasing only a genuine UNO which comes with support from the Arduino IDE and project

[calibur010011]

Hi, oh well that's a disappointment. It seemed legit from the reviews but I guess things could be faked. Losing two genuine Arduinos isn't encouraging though. I'll def keep that in mind for the future. Thanks