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I have an Arduino Uno clone (photo attached) that stopped responding or accepting uploads.
I would get an error in the Arduino IDE "programmer is not responding".
Tried numerous troubleshooting tips, press reset button, unplug board, and so on and it still would not work.
I tried reburning the bootloader using an USBASP using file optiboot_atmega328i.hex, which I was told is the default Uno bootloader,
but the board would still not work.
I then tried the bootloader optiboot_atmega328-Mini.hex and the board started working again.
If I burn the optiboot_atmega328.hex again the board becomes unresponsive again.
Is the optiboot_atmega328-Mini.hex the correct bootloader for this board?
With the mini bootloader, If I try Get Board Info it responds with the following:
VID: 1A86
PID: 7523
I do not have any experience actually reloading the bootloader, but did find this article that may be useful: Sparkfun - Installing an arduino bootloader.
In this article the Arduino ISP ino is used to flash an Arduino with another Arduino.
This sketch appears to come with a menu option to select the correct and official bootloader for your Arduino Uno.
Hope this helps.
p.s. I assume that the Uno close runs the exact same bootloader as an original Uno (which is very likely).
I thought the same thing. The board is marketed as a clone of the Uno so it should have the same bootloader as the Uno.
Which may be true for some boards. But this board would not run if I flashed it with the Uno bootloader.
It would only work if I used the mini bootloader.
Whether this is normal or due to a problem with the board I can't tell
Hmm, it could be that the clone is actually not a "Uno" - in the end these boards just have an Atmel microcontroller, and they can name it anything they want I suppose ...
Does it work with the other bootloader? If yes, then I'd leave it that way 😉
@hansI agree. It appears to work properly with the mini bootloader. I do not have any modules connected to it but the blink sketch works fine.
I have a spare display that I am going to connect to it and see if the Adafruit display test example works.
Either way, I am going to retire this board to experimenting only just in case.
