I executed the following steps in order to burn a bootloader into an AVR328P-PU chip I acquired on ebay.

1. I have set up AVR328P-PU on a breadboard as described here: http://arduino.cc/en/main/standalone

2. I have uploaded the ArduinoISP sketch into Arduion Uno.

3. Connected the wires in a way described here http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/ArduinoToBreadboard ( the setup with external clock)

4. Chose "Tools -> Programmer -> Arduion as ISP" in the IDE.

5. Chose "Burn Bootloader" from the IDE.

6. Got and error avrdude: Yikes! Invalid device signature., noticed that I connected the wires in the wrong order.

7. Fixed the wired, but still got the error:

avrdude: Version 6.0.1

     System wide configuration file is "C:\Program Files\Arduino/hardware/tools/avr/etc/avrdude.conf"

     Using Port                    : COM3
     Using Programmer              : stk500v1
     Overriding Baud Rate          : 19200
     AVR Part                      : ATmega328P
     Chip Erase delay              : 9000 us
     PAGEL                         : PD7
     BS2                           : PC2
     RESET disposition             : dedicated
     RETRY pulse                   : SCK
     serial program mode           : yes
     parallel program mode         : yes
     Timeout                       : 200
     StabDelay                     : 100
     CmdexeDelay                   : 25
     SyncLoops                     : 32
     ByteDelay                     : 0
     PollIndex                     : 3
     PollValue                     : 0x53
     Memory Detail                 :

                              Block Poll               Page                       Polled
       Memory Type Mode Delay Size  Indx Paged  Size   Size #Pages MinW  MaxW   ReadBack
       ----------- ---- ----- ----- ---- ------ ------ ---- ------ ----- ----- ---------
       eeprom        65    20     4    0 no       1024    4      0  3600  3600 0xff 0xff
       flash         65     6   128    0 yes     32768  128    256  4500  4500 0xff 0xff
       lfuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  4500  4500 0x00 0x00
       hfuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  4500  4500 0x00 0x00
       efuse          0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  4500  4500 0x00 0x00
       lock           0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0  4500  4500 0x00 0x00
       calibration    0     0     0    0 no          1    0      0     0     0 0x00 0x00
       signature      0     0     0    0 no          3    0      0     0     0 0x00 0x00

     Programmer Type : STK500
     Description     : Atmel STK500 Version 1.x firmware
     Hardware Version: 2
     Firmware Version: 1.18
     Topcard         : Unknown
     Vtarget         : 0.0 V
     Varef           : 0.0 V
     Oscillator      : Off
     SCK period      : 0.1 us

avrdude: AVR device initialized and ready to accept instructions

Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.06s

avrdude: Device signature = 0x000000 (retrying)

Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.05s

avrdude: Device signature = 0x000000 (retrying)

Error while burning bootloader.
Reading | ################################################## | 100% 0.07s

avrdude: Device signature = 0x000000
avrdude: Yikes!  Invalid device signature.
     Double check connections and try again, or use -F to override
     this check.


avrdude done.  Thank you.

My questions

1. I understand that this can be caused by poor breadboard quality. How can I test this hypothesis before buying new breadboard?

2. Could the wrong wiring from step 5 ruin the chip?