Well I've been fighting with it since Wednesday... there was an intermittant connection issue with the RS232 output from the board. So I went for a delve to try and fix it. At first it appeared to be caused by the plug, as when you wiggled it broke the connection. After lots of faffing I broke the plug, so removed it from the board and hard wired the inputs (not ideal!). In removing the plug I also buggered the pads as well somewhat... doh. Not that much of a problem...
So now it's hard wired, and the bloody thing would break its connection! Broken wire I thought... but aftyer checking with a voltmeter a voltage was getting to the RS232 input... it was just DC at -3.5v... hmmmm
Then I noticed that waggling the socket in which the PIC programmer plugs in caused the error to go away and come back again.... maybe it's that I thought.... so I've pulled that off the board now... that'll go back I'm sure! <figers crossed>.
Well there was some stray solder under the socket, so I've scraped that off, and made sure that none of the tracks are joined where they should be... still the little whore of an error is there...
Now I've noticined that if you tap the MAX232 on the board the error will go away and come back... there is no waaaay I'm taking that off (surface mount)... any ideas on what it could be?
In other news... my replacement harddrive has arrived! Yey! I hope it lasts longer than the last one...