Bad stepper ????

I have been using printer hard last year. I noticed some "filament Dust" around the extruder gear that feeds filament. every time I noticed it I was in the middle of a print. Last night I heard a squeaking sound coming from that stepper and I stopped the print. This AM I disassembled the all metal extruder and the motor all clean. I tested it before By plugging in cable and one mounting screw tight for ground. It doesn't feed filament. When I try to spin shaft , it locked, cant move. Shut printer off and I can spin shaft then. Feels and sounds ok, but nothing when plugged in. Think I should just replace stepper? cheap enough I see Thank You, Bruce

News flash Turns out stepper is good. I swapped connector with Y axis stepper connector and it spun its shaft very happily I put extruder stepper connector on they Y axis and NOTHING. SO that tells me its the wiring or the mainboard connector

Or the little plug in stepper driver module on the main board. Swap the Z axis module and extruder modules over to see if the extruder works

Or it could be the little plug in stepper driver module on the main board. Swap the Z axis module and extruder modules over to see if the extruder works

I have swapped mainboard connectors around and the extruder connector is on say for instance the Y axis, the "extruder stepper" motor works fine. When I take Y axis mainboard PLUG and place in extruder mainboard not even a shaft movement happens. I've done about 6 different combinations to troubleshoot what's at issue. And determined the extruder stepper motor is goog, The wire from mainboard to ext. stepper is good. But when I connect a known good wire with another axis stepper, absolutely NOTHING happens. All my stepper motors are good.

So I've determined its something on mainboard. The printer is over two years old.

As I said it sounds like the driver module on the main board has failed. The module is plugged into the main board and actually drives the stepper motor. They are cheap and easy to change - 2 types A4988 and DRV8825 £7 or £8 from Amazon with you monday ( search Amazon for " stepper motor driver) worth a try

I have a brand new SKR 1.4 Turbo with TMC drivers to install. If I can get a case printed for the SKR board, I'll just install that. But thank you for the info

I was ok swapping out old stock board and installed new SKR 1.4 turbo with 4 TMC2226 drivers. The microCD has firmware.cur but it’s created 7/2020. So I watched over and over teaching tech and Chris basement YT videos on how to download latest firmware. I have DL’d marlin 2.0 into the latest vsCODE. LONG STORY SHORT. I STINK AT CODE TWEAKING. I have tried 5-7 times, watching video on laptop next to main computer screen and did same exact changes. I did notice line numbers were diff invsCODE Iwas using. I walked away for day or two from it. Is there a GitHub page/site where firmware for my printer resides? Ender 3 pro w/SKR 1.4 Turbo w/TMC2226. ( I read I can use firmware for TMC2209) since the two are so alike and no exact listing for 2226. Help

Frustrated in Maryland