melzi 1284p "not in sync" error

Hi, I've been wrestling with this issue for the last two days fruitlessly, I've used Arduino .22, 1.0.3, 1.0.4 and 1.0.5 all with the latest drivers from [reprap.org] (Though I wasn't sure how to amend the boards.txt document so I just replaced it with the one from github which contains only the 1284p board)
I've also got the latest ftdi drivers, both 32 and 64 bit (my system is windows 7 64bit).
When I plug in the board it pops up in device manager, it originally popped up at com11 (which I think was because I had a printrboard installed before on com4) but I changed it to com4 just to see if that would make a difference; it doesn't
I've also tried different usb cables and ports.
I've tried uploading with the auto reset jumper in place and removed- manually resetting the board when the arduino IDE is done compiling. I've also tried connecting via usb power and via 12v power.
I'm really at my wits end here, I consistently get the "avrdude: stk500_getsync(): not in sync: resp=0x00" error.
: (

Last time I saw that error it was on a dead Mega board. More specifically the power to the programming interface on that board was dead. I moved a jumper and all was well after that.

What it's telling you is "I looked for the original AVR programmer (the STK 500) and I didn't get the response that says it's there. I got all zeros instead". Either it's dead, or you have a different programmer setup on your particular board. Most (but not all) boards emulate a STK500 since that's the easy thing to do.

I'm not sure what you mean, I've tried uploading using usb power only and using 12v power, is that the jumper you mean?
I've also tried changing the atmega12848m.upload.protocol=stk500 to atmega1284.upload.protocol=arduino in the boards.txt as suggested in this post:
[www.eventorbot.com]
But oddly, the stk500 not in sync error still occurs

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/11/2013 02:58PM by myfacelackseyes.

The jumper on my board was one that enabled the programmer on the board. Without that jumper in place it did not program. My guess is that you have somehow erased the boot loader code or blown the part of the chips that make up the boot loader on your board.