Cannot find COM port on 3 different laptops for Metro board

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superqd
 
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Joined: Wed Feb 24, 2016 11:51 am

Cannot find COM port on 3 different laptops for Metro board

Post by superqd »

I have a few Metro boards that I used to build some stuff a few years ago with my kids. I was wanting to do more of this recently, but when I plugged my boards in, they do not show up as COM ports in Arduino IDE.

I have 3 laptops I've tried, one with Windows 11, and two with Windows 10. On one of them, I've removed different windows updates and tried after each uninstall to get COM ports to show up to no avail. I also tried resetting Windows to factory settings, and recovering to earlier version of Windows. No dice.

I've gone into Device Manager and gone through and added Legacy Hardware, chosen lots of different combinations of COM ports drivers and none have worked. They always show up with the little yellow triangle saying the device is not functioning. Well, only ONE showed up that said it was functioning properly, and that was Electronic Team's Virtual Serial Port 9. But when trying to send a compiled sketch in Arduino IDE to the COM port used by Electronic Team driver, it can never find it.

I tried installing the FTDI chip drivers as a USB to serial converter, and they never show up in windows. I plugged in the Metro, and it still didn't show up (FTDI manual said the driver should show up in device manager when plugging in a cable).

I also tried installing the latest drivers from Adafruit that I could find (from 2020), but that did nothing.

Do the Metro boards just not work anymore in Windows? Do I have to buy new boards? Are there drivers somewhere that will support this? When I install the latest 2.x version of Arduino IDE, it says it's installing all sorts of drivers, but nothing works, no COM ports can be found.

I've tried using several different of my Metro boards (all the Uno clones) to 3 different laptops, but none work. I am losing my mind at this point and have spent many hours trying to get these to work again (worked fine years ago on one of the laptops when I first got the Metro boards, but I am assuming Window f'd things up which is why I uninstalled all the updates).

I would appreciate any guidance...

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blnkjns
 
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Re: Cannot find COM port on 3 different laptops for Metro board

Post by blnkjns »

What exact board are we talking about and what serial chip do they actually have? Picture?
Recent ones run on a 16U2, older ones on a FTDI, and clones often on Chinese chips like CH340.

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Franklin97355
 
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Re: Cannot find COM port on 3 different laptops for Metro board

Post by Franklin97355 »

Make sure you have a working data USB cable and not just a charging cable. As binkjns said pictures would help.

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superqd
 
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Re: Cannot find COM port on 3 different laptops for Metro board

Post by superqd »

I appreciate the responses. Here are pics. I think I am using the cable that came with it, but I will try and double check (i.e., look for another cable and see if there is one). I'm not sure how to tell which version this is. All of my metros (I think I have 3) were purchased around the same time several years ago (6?)

Image

Image

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superqd
 
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Re: Cannot find COM port on 3 different laptops for Metro board

Post by superqd »

The comment about the cable was the KEY. JEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZ.

I feel dumb, but I haven't tinkered with this in several years and just forgot which cable was which. I had a long white cable that I thought was for an Apple product, so I ignored it, but that cable was apparently a programming cable. I plugged that in, and Windows made the "ding" sound like it recognized a device. The COM port then showed up just fine in Device Manager and Arduino IDE.

THANK YOU !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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