Arduino based RedBoard wont accept programs and overheats

I have a RedBoard that all of a sudden has stopped accepting programs.

It gives the following error after attempting to load the arduino sketch from arduino IDE:

avrdude: stk500_recv(): programmer is not responding.

Also the board overheated which I had never experience before while uploading a sketch.

For some reason its stuck on COM port 8 even though other working red boards attached to the same cable on the same port show COM port 5.

After some online research it seemed like i needed to reflash the bootloader to get it operating again.

So i followed your instructions on using a working redboard to install a bootloader from:

https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/in … loader/all

that failed.

any help you can give me would be appreciated.

An stk500 error usually means that the computer can’t see the board (not a microcontroller issue). Can you check your device manager to see if it recognizes it as a USB device?

That being said, the board overheating usually means there is a short or something funky is going on with the power. This could also be a short in the USB cable or USB slot. Hopefully, you haven’t fried a chip… but you could try a different USB cable and USB slot to connect to the computer. If the board isn’t recognized, the UART-to-seiral chip (or another component) is probably fried.