Hi CC,
When your Chip dies, does it smoke, get hot or explode?
What does the 5V, 12V look like when there is no chip plugged in? What do they look like when the chip is in? (ie do either get dragged low from the dead chip?)
Have you checked your wiring, pcb for shorts. Double check that the VSS and VDD are connected to the right pins!
Take out all your electrolytics - it's possible that one of them is failing (shorting) when there is a voltage across them. Is one of them back to front?
I don't think that the floating inputs are going to kill your chip.. Its good practice to tie them to vss, or vdd when not used. I always just link them to ground and in my code set the tris registers to high (ie high impedance).
Oh if your not using the MCLR pin, just set the config fuse to off ie MCLR OFF.
Cheers
Squib
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