While tinkering with my board, I pushed too many amps through it with the programmer hooked up. I replaced everything, but hadn't thought about the programmer. I've double checked all my connections and I'm mostly sure I've got everything hooked up correctly, but I keep getting an error communicating with the programmer. I'm continuing to troubleshoot, but I'd like to know for sure that the programmer isn't the problem. Is there anyway to know for sure the programmer is okay?

Just realized that the new chip doesn't have the bootloader for the programmer. Put the old chip back in to see if it was really fried and was able to program it with no problem. So the old chip is good AND my programmer works. Good news all around.

Can I get the compatible bootloader on the new chip? It's an ATMega328P. In the future should I need a new microcontroller, is it possible to order just it without the breadboard from here?

Thanks in advance

sp

Not sure about the 328P, but if it is feature compatible with the 128 with just extra memory and bootloader support, you should be able to. You will need to change the parameters in the make file for the bootloader. I just order the 168's and load the nerdkits bootloader using a DAPA programmer, and get the extra LCD's from Nerdkits directly.