Electronic – ArduinoISP fails with Atmega368, 168 – Device signature = 0x000000

So, apparantly this is a common error, which many people have fixed many different ways, none of which have worked for me.

I have two different Arduinos – an NG and an Uno, with an Atmega168 and 328 respectively. Both of these have the bootloader burnt onto them. I'm looking to burn the Arduino bootloader onto another 2 Atmega328 chips I purchased (from Digikey).

So, I set up the connections as given on the Arduino site, using the NG's 168 to program the new 328 that I put onto the Uno. It doesn't work, and running avrdude -C "path\to\avrdude.conf" -p atmega328p -b19200 -P COM5 -c avrisp -v -v -v returns

avrdude: Version 5.11, compiled on Sep  2 2011 at 19:38:36
         Copyright (c) 2000-2005 Brian Dean, http://www.bdmicro.com/
         Copyright (c) 2007-2009 Joerg Wunsch

         System wide configuration file is "I:\Users\Collin\Documents\Arduino IDE\hardware\tools\avr
\etc\avrdude.conf"

         Using Port                    : COM5
         Using Programmer              : avrisp
         Overriding Baud Rate          : 19200
         AVR Part                      : ATMEGA328P
         Chip Erase delay              : 9000 us
         PAGEL                         : PD7
         BS2                           : PC2
         RESET disposition             : dedicated
         RETRY pulse                   : SCK
         serial program mode           : yes
         parallel program mode         : yes
         Timeout                       : 200
         StabDelay                     : 100
         CmdexeDelay                   : 25
         SyncLoops                     : 32
         ByteDelay                     : 0
         PollIndex                     : 3
         PollValue                     : 0x53
         Memory Detail                 :

                                  Block Poll               Page                       Polled
           Memory Type Mode Delay Size  Indx Paged  Size   Size #Pages MinW  MaxW   ReadBack
           ----------- ---- ----- ----- ---- ------ ------ ---- ------ ----- ----- ---------
           eeprom        65    20     4    0 no       1024    4      0  3600  3600 0xff 0xff
                                  Block Poll               Page                       Polled
           Memory Type Mode Delay Size  Indx Paged  Size   Size #Pages MinW  MaxW   ReadBack
           ----------- ---- ----- ----- ---- ------ ------ ---- ------ ----- ----- ---------
           flash         65     6   128    0 yes     32768  128    256  4500  4500 0xff 0xff
                                  Block Poll               Page                       Polled
           Memory Type Mode Delay Size  Indx Paged  Size   Size #Pages MinW  MaxW   ReadBack
           ----------- ---- ----- ----- ---- ------ ------ ---- ------ ----- ----- ---------
           lfuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  4500  4500 0x00 0x00
                                  Block Poll               Page                       Polled
           Memory Type Mode Delay Size  Indx Paged  Size   Size #Pages MinW  MaxW   ReadBack
           ----------- ---- ----- ----- ---- ------ ------ ---- ------ ----- ----- ---------
           hfuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  4500  4500 0x00 0x00
                                  Block Poll               Page                       Polled
           Memory Type Mode Delay Size  Indx Paged  Size   Size #Pages MinW  MaxW   ReadBack
           ----------- ---- ----- ----- ---- ------ ------ ---- ------ ----- ----- ---------
           efuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  4500  4500 0x00 0x00
                                  Block Poll               Page                       Polled
           Memory Type Mode Delay Size  Indx Paged  Size   Size #Pages MinW  MaxW   ReadBack
           ----------- ---- ----- ----- ---- ------ ------ ---- ------ ----- ----- ---------
           lock           0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  4500  4500 0x00 0x00
                                  Block Poll               Page                       Polled
           Memory Type Mode Delay Size  Indx Paged  Size   Size #Pages MinW  MaxW   ReadBack
           ----------- ---- ----- ----- ---- ------ ------ ---- ------ ----- ----- ---------
           calibration    0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0     0     0 0x00 0x00
                                  Block Poll               Page                       Polled
           Memory Type Mode Delay Size  Indx Paged  Size   Size #Pages MinW  MaxW   ReadBack
           ----------- ---- ----- ----- ---- ------ ------ ---- ------ ----- ----- ---------
           signature      0     0     0    0 no          3    0      0     0     0 0x00 0x00

         Programmer Type : STK500
         Description     : Atmel AVR ISP
         Hardware Version: 2
         Firmware Version: 1.16
         Vtarget         : 0.0 V
         Varef           : 0.0 V
         Oscillator      : Off
         SCK period      : 0.1 us

avrdude: AVR device initialized and ready to accept instructions

Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.05s

avrdude: Device signature = 0x000000
avrdude: Yikes!  Invalid device signature.
         Double check connections and try again, or use -F to override
         this check.


avrdude done.  Thank you.

Here's everything I've done. Each step resulted in the same error when running the aforementioned command.

• Thinking maybe it was an issue programming using the NG or the 168, I rearrange things so that I'm using the Uno – with a 328 – to program a 328 in the NG.
• I then try every permutation of board and chip.
• Thinking that maybe I had bricked one chip with all the shuffling, I tried a different (new) 328.
• Thinking maybe both had arrived DOA, I tried with my known-good 168 chip.
• Tried it with the known-good 328 ship.
• Thinking that I had just wasted an hour when one of the wires I was using was intermittent, but they all tested good, and swapping them out with others made no difference.
• Thinking maybe there was something wrong with one of my boards, I dropped a fresh 328 onto a breadboard and set it up as instructed, using the Uno+328 to program.
• Tried the same with the NG and 168 as ISP.
• Tried different programmer settings (-c arduino, avrisp, stk500)
• Tried various settings of -B ### with avrdude
• Tried lots of the above on a Mac and a PC
• Tried using an external 5V source
• Tried adafruit's fork of ArduinoISP
• Tried optiloader loaded onto either board – got non-descriptive error 0x0
• When programming with the Uno, pulled the reset pin high (165 ohms)
• When programming with the Uno, attached a 100uF capacitor between ground and reset

I know at least some connection is being made between the two chips as, when programming with the Uno against the NG, if I don't hold the Digital 10/Reset pin to pin 1 of the target chip, I get a stk500_disable(): protocol error, expect=0x14, resp=0x51 error. And yes, at the end of this both original chips are still working fine, so I don't think I've messed either up them up despite all of this.

Here's a picture of one of my setups – yes, the yellow wire is indeed to reset, not 3v3. Lower NG board is supposed to be programming the chip in the upper Uno.