Ch341 not detected on iot redboard

I have a new IoT redboard that is not detected by Windows 10. The ch341 drivers are installed and work with other ch340/ch341 boards. Some of the leds light up but not the tx/rx. I’m misssing something or is the board just bad.

Is the COM-port showing up in Windows? if not did you try different cables ? Some are power only…

cable works fine with a Sparkfun blackboard. also uses ch341.

Sounds like a bad ch340 on your new board.
https://www.sparkfun.com/returns

I had come to the same conclusion until I plugged it into another workstation, where it worked. It seems that the CH340/1 market has been flooded with fake chips. These chip work with the original driver but if you update your drivers using an update utility, it is replaced with an updated driver that can tell the difference between real and fake. It will not work with the fake chips.
So you are somewhat correct but the chip is not bad only fake.

I don’t see much evidence of our supplier providing fake CH340 chips. Id consider this highly improbable. I read that the driver update that started this was in April 2023. We should have been seeing several posts(possibly 100+) if our chips were not authentic.

I would be more than happy to take your device back for additional testing if you like.

I’m sure you’re right, although there are several articles on the web warning about updating the driver from the Windows Update store. Since this does not happen during normal updates, you may be over estimating the number. I can tell you that swapping the CH340 chip with one from a working UNO solved the problem but not the issue.

We will keep an eye on this issue and take action if required.

If you would still like to setup up a return just fill out our form and we can go from there:

https://www.sparkfun.com/returns

Cheers for now.