Arduino ISP not working

[baxterdavid]

Hello guys. I got a problem with Arduino ISP. I was going to use my Uno for programming microcontrollers using WinAVR(not Arduino IDE). I assembled the circuit as tutorial suggested, uploaded the firmware(IDE's version is 1.0.5) aaand it's not working. I can say that by seeing that heartbeat LED does not blink, and when I try to program my MCU using avrdude, it says "not in sync". I checked everything in the circuit and it seems to me that it is ok. Any suggestions?

[Felix]

I tried that as well and it's very quirky. It caused me a huge amount of grief and bricked a few atmegas. I decided to just invest $40 to get the real thing and I'm very very glad I did. Just get a genuine AVR ISP MKii.
The new AVR Ice programmer is the latest model although its almost $100.