COM port connectivity issues. " NON GENUINE DEVICE FOUND!".

About 2 weeks ago I hooked up to my RepRap Mendel and it worked fine. I then unhooked my laptop and connected a different laptop that did not have a COM port hooked up and the Mendel would not connect. I rehooked up my laptop and COM6 that had been used to hook up my laptop to the Mendel was gone. Since then despite whatever I do (reload drivers, delete all COM ports other than 2 and 3, and a lot more), I cannot connect any laptop (tried 3) to the Mendel. I always get the message " NON GENUINE DEVICE FOUND!". I'm starting to think that there may be a problem with the Mendel but I don't know where to start (troubleshooting).

I need to demo it at my son's boy scout meeting on Mon Nov 30th so I would appreciate any help you can offer.

Thanks.

Most likely a driver issue.
If Windows loads the default drivers it might mess up things.
So install the recommended drivers for your board.
Also make sure the com port settings in the firmware, the print software AND Windows are the same.

I've heard of cloned FTDI chips. They get killed by the FTDI driver software to fight piracy.

Do you have a FTDI chip on your controller?
-Olaf

I agree with Olaf. Some versions of ftdi drivers overwrite the Product id which renders it inopperable. Luckily there's software to write the correct product id and make it work with older drivers.

First of all locate ftdi driver 2.10.0 or lower on internet, uninstall the current drivers and install the older version.
See
https://ljck.org/unbrick_ftdi

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/26/2015 05:23PM by imqqmi.

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Kind regards
Imqqmi

NFAN CoreXY printer:
[reprap.org]

Try a Linux bootable flash drive. If that solves the issue, it's Windows.

Quote
o_lampe
They get killed by the FTDI driver software to fight piracy.

That has to be illegal. They are within their rights to refuse to operate with the cloned device, but it has to be a step beyond to sabotage the hardware such that it is inoperable with the original driver. I'll be looking to buy non FTDI chips because of such objectionable behaviour.

The FTDI driver topic is quite old now and one of the best suggestion I found so far is to simply install an older version of the driver.
Of course that won't help once the fuse bits of a clone are already shot into pieces.
AFAIK they also got into trouble because this damaging of parts can also affect important devices and not just toys and hobby electronics.
And with no way of knowing for the manufacturer to say the ordered FTDI chips are genuine...

Maybe some of this can help :
http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=274387.0
http://hackaday.com/2015/02/08/unbricking-a-counterfeit-ftdi-chip/
Don't say I wouldn't be nice once a year - and not even xmas yet