I know there have been many "fried PIC" stories on this list but I don't know if I've seen one like this. Due to some temporary mis-wiring (can't say I know exactly what I did!) the PIC 16C745 on my board got extremely hot. After correcting the wiring the chip "worked" (at least the functions I was using). However, it still got hot and I discovered it was drawing 250 ma of current (should have been closer to 15 ma). The interesting thing is that when I read the contents of the chip using a PICstart+ I heard a noticeable high- pitched hum. Can you harm a programmer with a bad chip? (please say no). I'm also curious about what could have gone wrong with the chip such that it still appeared to function. Needless to say, I've scrapped the chip. -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.