I’m using the USB AVR programmer, and have been for about a year. It has never given problems, but lately I have been bugged with a ton of issues.
When trying to verify fuse bits in Atmel studio, I receive an error message. I was able to read and program fuse bits with avrdude (in xubuntu), up until it kept on saying “programmer not responding”. It has been working perfectly for the last 3-4 weeks, until today. In a different circuit with a Atmega1284P MCU, I keep getting the message “timeout communicating with programmer”.
Also, when trying to add the STK500 tool in Atmel Studio 6, I can add the tool, but in the device programming window I repeatedly get the message “could not connect stk500 on com5”.
I finally managed to get it working with atmel studio, however I’m still having a problem with fuse bits. I program 0xFF, 0xD6, 0x05 for L/H/E fuses, then when I read back, the extended fuse reads 0xFD.
In linux with avrdude, I read back the correct values (the ones listed here), but can’t get serial coms to work AT ALL. I uploaded the exact same code that I wrote for another Atmega328, which works perfectly, but doesn’t send any correct values when I upload it to the new Atmega328.
You shouldn’t care about the difference between 0x05 and 0xFD because the upper 5 bits of the extended fuse byte on the ATmega328 are not used. Different pieces of software will show you different values for those bits. Here is a snippet from the datasheet:
If you continue to have trouble using the programmer or the serial coms on the ATmega328P, I would need more information to help you effectively. Please see our Support page for ideas of what to write. In particular, one of the things that would be useful would be a screenshot of the Pololu USB AVR Programmer Configuration Utility showing all your settings. Also, you might want to just get an LED to blink before implementing serial.
