I Think I Got Fake ESP 32 - RNT Lab

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Q&A Forum › Category: ESP32 › I think i got fake ESP 32 0 Vote Up Vote Down Diogo Santiago asked 5 years ago

Hello all!

I bought 2 eps32 but the serial chip is a CH9102x not the normal CP2102… I tried many things but cannot put it to work… and read in some place that 2 or 3 GPIO’s swap places with the original one… Anyone know more about it because im new and this is demotivating… Too many “China” chip variations…

Question Tags: Fake 8 Answers 0 Vote Up Vote Down Best Answer Sara Santos Staff answered 4 years ago

I just want to share a solution sent by one of our readers regarding this subject:

“ I just wanted to share my solution which I came across by chance and blind luck. The problem is the UART drivers for the CH9102x serial chip. These are now very common online and it’s very easy to buy the wrong ESP32 by accident as I found out.

Solution: Driver: CH343SER

The ESP32 which uses this chip also doesn’t use normal button function as far as I can tell. The only way to successfully flash is to hold the boot button down for the duration of the flash. Wait for the message which indicates the device has attempted to reset itself. The flash will hang at this point. Then let go of the boot button, and shortly after click the EN button once. Then wait for the download to complete.

“

0 Vote Up Vote Down Sara Santos Staff answered 5 years ago

Hi. Can you show me a picture of your board? Or a link to the product page/seller where you bought it? Regards, Sara

0 Vote Up Vote Down Steve Mercer answered 5 years ago

Which driver did you install for this board? A quick Bing search for “CH9102 driver” appears to suggest using the VCP driver.

0 Vote Up Vote Down Diogo Santiago answered 5 years ago

Which driver did you install for this board? A quick Bing search for “CH9102 driver” appears to suggest using the VCP driver.

Well i searched and found that need to use a driver called ch342SER, that’s only found on a chinese site.

As you can see from the image, the Espressif one have the CP2102 chip, but this have another this other chip and i cannot make it communicate with any usb cable, tried 3 drivers already but keep getting memory errors: “A fatal error occurred: Failed to write to target RAM (result was 01070000)”

0 Vote Up Vote Down Sara Santos Staff answered 5 years ago

Hi Diogo. I never experimented with an ESP32 with that driver. It looks very similar to the boards that we have. So, I think that after finding the right drivers, you’ll be able to get it working. I think you need to install these drivers on your computer: https://ftdichip.com/drivers/vcp-drivers/ Then, let me know if you got it working. Regards, Sara

0 Vote Up Vote Down Steve Mercer answered 5 years ago

Yes, those are the VCP drivers. I would suggest uninstalling any other drivers and restarting your machine before installing those so you don’t get any conflicts between drivers competing for the USB ports.

0 Vote Up Vote Down Diogo Santiago answered 5 years ago

Thanks for the help Sara, i am afraid i cannot test the driver anymore because i returned both ESP’s i bought. At least, if it really works, can help others that bought this model.

1 Vote Up Vote Down Sara Santos Staff answered 5 years ago

In this case, I’ll close this issue. If you need further help, you just need to open a new question in our forum. Regards, Sara

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