ok so i decided to mess around with the programing on my $50 robot. when it was turning from a dark corner to head towards light it was very jittery and would only turn inches at a time instead of a 90 degree turn ( what i was looking to do). So i hooked my bot upto the programmer, turned him on (holding it in my hand so it wouldnt drive off the table) hit program on avr studio 4 and everything wrote successful. First thing i noticed was the red led went out on the bot and it stopped moving. turned it on and off and nothing. I can still write to the chip and read its signature. So what went wrong?
Update** ok thank god its not dead. after messing with the programmer ( had to do an update after doing this) i got everything working again!