Arduino Nano - Upload Issues

Well,

For some time I have been having issues with my cheap eBay sourced Chinese Arduino Nano boards. These are not genuine and are completely ripped off by the Chinese - really we should all be supporting the genuine Arduino hardware.

Anyhow, when connecting to try and upload to these boards I keep seeing:


Using Port                    : COM4
Using Programmer              : arduino
Overriding Baud Rate          : 115200


avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 1 of 10: not in sync: resp=0xf6
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 2 of 10: not in sync: resp=0xf6
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 3 of 10: not in sync: resp=0xf6
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 4 of 10: not in sync: resp=0xf6
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 5 of 10: not in sync: resp=0xf6
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 6 of 10: not in sync: resp=0xf6
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 7 of 10: not in sync: resp=0xf6
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 8 of 10: not in sync: resp=0xf6
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 9 of 10: not in sync: resp=0xf6
avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding
avrdude: stk500_getsync() attempt 10 of 10: not in sync: resp=0xf6

avrdude done.  Thank you.


Now, I had always assumed this was something to do with the driver or other compatibility issue; possibly related to the FTIGate.

BUT NO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Arduino has recently changed to using a different bootloader on their official Nano boards that communicates at 115200 baud rather than the previous 57600 baud.

Support for these new boards was added in Arduino AVR Boards 1.6.21. The new Nano board definition is not compatible with old Nanos and likely most 3rd party Nanos.

Backwards compatibility is provided via the Tools > Processor > ATmega328P (Old Bootloader) menu selection.

And BINGO.

Here is our lovely Pepper doing what cats do best: