by sich » Thu Sep 03, 2009 12:29 pm
The first few things you can do is to check the voltage at VDD & VSS pins (should be ~5V), the voltage at OSC1 & OSC2 pins (~1.9 to 2V), and MCLR pin (must be 5V). Make sure these pins are correctly connected and they get the correct voltage.
It’s better to use PR2 source code to test the chip, instead of modify PR1 source code. If everything is correctly connected, 7-segment led should give the desired output. The most common problem when using a breadboard is possibly loose connection. Please do double checking.
About the configuration difference you mentioned, it has nothing to do with the PICkit2 software that we use for UIC00A. It’s talking about the auto program loading when using MPLAB IDE. When you are using MPLAB and the device you select is PIC16F84A, you can't select PICkit2 (Goto Programmer > Select Programmer > ...). "7.PICkit2" is inactive for selection. It means you can’t auto program the PIC by using MPLAB right after you compiled the source code. PICkit2 software supports PIC16F84A because it detects the chip successfully (you'll see “Device: PIC16F84A”).