Microchip Technology, PICKit 5 Programmer PG164150: "Device Not Recognized" Recovery?

Embedded Development Boards, Kits, Programmers
,
1

Microchip Technology offers a huge catalog of semiconductor products, among which is the PG164150 PICKit 5 programmer. Sometimes folks will obtain one of these kits and have issues with their PC not recognizing the device and contact us to seek a replacement for a damaged board. While this can be caused by defects, it’s often much easier to solve than replacing the entire kit.

Microchip Technologies PICKit 5 programming kit PG164150
Microchip Technologies PICKit 5 programming kit PG164150640×640 53.9 KB

Per Microchip’s article base on working with the PICkit 5, you can follow the following steps to reinstall the device’s drivers and often resolve this issue:

  1. Unplug the PICkit 5 from your PC.
  2. Restart your computer (this releases any frozen Windows USB handles).
  3. Plug the PICkit 5 back in.
  4. Open your Device Manager. Look for it under Universal Serial Bus devices (where it might say MPLAB PICkit 5 or MPLAB ICD 5). [1]
  5. Right-click on it and select Uninstall Device. [1]
  6. Crucial: In the pop-up checkbox that asks to “Attempt to remove the driver for this device,” make sure it is checked/enabled, then click Uninstall. [1]
  7. Unplug the USB cable, wait 5 seconds, and plug it back in. Windows will re-enumerate the device and apply a fresh copy of the standard WinUSB driver.

If this doesn’t resolve the problem, you should try using a different USB cable to ensure the cable isn’t causing the issue rather than the board or software. if the cable has been ruled out and so have driver conflicts, two other likely culprits are an outdated version of the IDE older than the board can support, or potentially corrupted firmware. Please ensure you’re using the latest version of MPLab if possible; this device needs a minim of version 6.10 or later. If you suspect corrupted firmware, you can take the following steps to repair the issue.

  1. Disconnect the PICkit 5 from the USB cable.
  2. Press and hold down the logo button on the top of the PICkit 5.
  3. While still holding the button, plug the USB cable back into the device.
  4. Continue holding the button until the LEDs begin to blink, indicating it has entered recovery mode.
  5. Launch MPLAB X IDE and navigate to Debug > Hardware Tool Emergency Boot Firmware Recovery.
  6. Follow the on-screen prompts to re-flash the stable factory firmware onto your device.
1 Like