sorry guys, my bad, it is not chip_en that reads only 0.4V, it is the boot pin (pin 15) and as mentioned VDD_SPI pin (pin 18).
chip_en is not shorted to ground, i read 319 KOhm resistance between that pin and ground.
sorry for the confusion.

thanks Sprite,
no, it is not shorted to ground, it must be something else

Hello,
i have made a diy board using ESP32-C3 chip. I populated one and have it working perfectly. I populated a second one, identical to the first, but when i plug it to my windows computer the usb connection does not work. The board gets power but from the computer side it is like if nothing was ...

thanks, i appreciate your help!

no luck i am afraid :-/

my router is a fritzbox 5490

thanks for your answer.
Did as you said, this is what comes out (in a loop) when running the SimpleWIFIServer:

[ 42597][W][WiFiGeneric.cpp:1057] _eventCallback(): Reason: 2 - AUTH_EXPIRE
[ 42604][D][WiFiGeneric.cpp:1081] _eventCallback(): WiFi AutoReconnect Running
[ 42620][V][WiFiGeneric.cpp:97 ...

hi,
my diy board with ESP32-C3 doesn't want to connect via wifi to my router. Whatever i try (the examples in Arduino IDE or other code i find in the internet...) i get the following:

eventCallback(): Reason: 2 - AUTH_EXPIRE

however, it does connect to my smartphone hotspot without any issues and ...

Thank you all, much appreciated.

It should be due to different thickness of silkscreen layer.

So i understand that it might be legit then?