Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

About the slider, does anyone use the power button instead to shut the lcd off, i'd love to hear some feedback before taking the decision of replacing the connectors as I'm planning to do
I'm also thinking of replacing the µUSB by another connector as If everything goes as expected, I won't need it's USB capabilities anymore

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

Hi there, LCD ordered, usb ordered even though I think I'll make the mod instead. Now I'm going for a battery, I saw the cheap "gold" high capacity batteries, I contacted the seller and I'll make a real capacity test (on the work-bench), so what do you think of cheap batteries off ebay, I know my grand father have one for his N95 and it works well (he didn't buy it off the internet though).
Waiting for your thoughts

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

You would have to go through the threads pertaining to very very specific alt. batt.'s to determine... even roughly... whether what you find on fleabay and elsewhere ...is even remotely legit in it's specs, output etc.

I do know that the gold and polarcells are known to be compatible and legit.
BUT...it's finding a "real" one...since there are so many fakes out there now.
You'd have to go through those threads (and I'm not sure if there are any links or web addresses...) and find a proper distributor or sales outlet.

The best thing that can happen is that you luck out and get a decent alternative battery.
Odds are though...you will probably find the alt. you purchase isn't a legit gold or polarcell (especially if it is cheap...that is a dead giveaway..) and it's output is not what it claims...
Or worse...it is so fraudulent it can permanently damage or destroy your device.

I've bought a few in my time which were frauds...
output wasn't even close to a normal bl5j after testing them...
never used them since..they just went straight to the recycling.

Best thing you could find is new or original bl5j's with little or no use...
or refurbished and replenished bl5j's ( I have a few refurbs for all my nxx0's and they work fine...not quite "topped-up" to full charge...since they lose a bit in the refurb process ..somewhere between 5 to almost 10% of their charge...but they work great...and they can be found for a bit cheaper...)

Go for cheap bl5j compatible knockoff's or even expensive knockoff's at your peril.

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

Thanks for your answer, I saw some topics about these batteries, very interesting to see that a lot of them, even from European sellers are crap.

Of course, I'll never try a battery in my so waited and loved N900, without testing it to it's limit with my charging/discharging setup.
but just for curiosity, i'll give this golden one a try, the seller guaranteed me that there was no problem and if it doesn't work as expected, i'll ask for a refund.

One more question, what is the price for a new BL5J battery nowadays because I see a lot of them, branded nokia for 3-5$

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

If it's on fleabay...
best suggestions are...
steer clear of chinese sellers.
read EVERY bit of negative feedback that buyers have had in the past with the seller.
If there is little to none then you "may" have a scrupulously honest and thorough seller (rare) who has the time to check (or bothers to) his stock....who isn't a flim-flam man (very common).
If there is even the hint of a mention in buyers feedback that batteries (and it doesn't have to be specifically bl5j's ...it could be any type..) they purchased were crap.
then...
walk away.
If the sellers rating is 98% or less ...you are probabbly going to find bad feedback concerning quality.

I have had good results from a couple of sellers in Germany and Britain.
But that was years ago.
I'm sure there are legit bl5j's out there...just gotta look.

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

OK, i'll checkfor real ones

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

I took a look on fleabay and I'd hate to have to take my chances now....
Last ones I got were from a Canadian refurbisher ...they worked dandy.

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

Encouraging :p

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

I think the best option is to purchase Lumia branded battery. They are original and probably easily available. They costs 15€ in Finland.

http://kejjo.fi/kuvat/bl5j.jpg

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

Hi, I just received the new lcd, I made the repair, put everything back on and the LCD backlight lit but nothing else, when it comes to the auth. the backlight goes off again (the keyboard is backlit and i feel the haptic feedback from pressing the touchscreen), what could have gone wrong ?

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

Could be a number of things. Round the loop we go ;)

Tou say the backlight come on, so that is eliminated. The screen is new but that is no guarantee that it is OK. But let's just assume that it is. That leaves a loose connector, a broken flex cable and a motherboard fault.

Let's go back to basics. Can you see anything on the screen at all, however dark? You mention LCD backlight in the same sentence as the keyboard backlight, do you mean that both come on? When you attach it to the TV through a video cable, does it react to touching the right places on the phone's screen?

If the answer to most of the above is yes, then the screen is probably OK and your problem may be the connector or the cable.

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

Well,

I confirm, nothing on LCD at all, I got back lighting first from the LCD and then from the keyboard when it is at lock screen (with password)

before I had signal on TV, now I don't have one anymore, though before I had no sound shutting the phone off, now i have a "doung" on shut down.

I think i replaced everything back fine, the digitizer and the LED work.

I suspect the battery to be discharged as the phone is starting to boot (white led) but is not responding to the touches now, the keyboard is also not lighting up anymore, so I put the battery on an external charger as usual and I'm waiting to retry tomorrow when it'll be fully charged.

I really hope we'll find a solution as I can't wait anymore to use my so waited N900.

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

Hi guys,
It's been almost a month since I last posted here :(
but a few good things have gotten better:

-I did boot the phone with the new lcd (still on AV composite) but the phone works just fine.

-I belive the new battery (for $5) is fine, at least it's much better than the original which is dead (30 minutes of autonomy max)

-The camera is working now (image quality medium) but as before I can't save the photos I take apparently because of memory problems

but still:

- The internal LCD (the brand new one) doesn't works (I'll contact the seller for informations if they have

-The USB, I didn't fixed it

-The digitizer is as scratched as before (but before replacing it, I want to make the phone work)

Any ideas about that LCD ? Broken connectors/ribbons were mentionned before, any Ideas how I can check for that (visual inspection done, nothing suspect)

Thanks to all of you in advance and for all the work we've done so far ;)

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

I wish I had so much spare time... :)

Regarding the ribbon and LCD, other than very obvious things you would find by visual inspection, and with the lack of test equipment that no one of us has, the only remaining option is trying them in another N900 that you know works. And vice-versa, try a known good LCD in yours.

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

Thanks for your response, I checked the website where I got this N900, nothing for sale under 150€ (that's a bit too much for my budget), of course a known good LCD would leave the suspictions but I don't think I can find one, I contacted the seller, I'll see if I can get any useful infos from them :rolleyes:

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

I saw a technician who is specialized in smartphones, he checked everything and saw nothing except some corrosion, could it be a problem ?

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

All of them will have some corrosion to some level. I had four passed through my hands and all had dirt or corrosion inside. It should not hurt to clean it. An old but clean and dry and preferably soft toothbrush should do the trick. Do not brush too hard so you don't rub some components off the board.

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

ok, I'll do it, for the respect to the venerable N900 then and after I'll continue to search for a problem because it's driving me crazy to see it work on TV but not on the internal LCD :mad:

I'm still checking ebay and "leboncoin" for a new device but i belive there will be more after christmas (I found one for 100€, too much because I have to add to the sum the 30€ I already spent)

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

New one for 100 €uros? where?

Thanks

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

It's not new, second hand.
link: http://www.leboncoin.fr/telephonie/8...77.htm?ca=11_s

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

It's been sold fast apparently

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

I might be able to help you out with a less expensive N900 (I can sell it after I have received another N900 that I recently bought). You need to be prepared to accept one with working - but severely scratched screen.
Ship from the Netherlands we can discuss details and the price incl. shipment via PM.

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

I might be interested (depending on the price) I sent you a PM,

see ya !

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

Replied - at least I think I did :)
PMs are apparently not automatically saved.

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

received, no problem, I'll respond in the PMs ;)

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

Sent PMs are not saved by default. I have also been hit by that in the past.
There is a setting in your control panel to change that.

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

Correct - I already found the setting yesterday and changed it. Would have been more logical for sent pms to be saved by default imho but not a problem to update it.

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

Hey,

now, when I'll receive the machine, I'll take off the complete LCD assembly and put it on my not working machine, if it works, it would mean that the problem is the original ribbon cable or the LCD I bought off ebay,
So I could buy a new ribbon (after having tested the LCD in the known working LCD assembly) or get a refund or a replacement for the one I already got.

If it still doesn't work, it would mean a problem in my motherboard because this LCD assembly is known as a working one...

If it works I'll recompose a phone with the least damaged parts and buy a new digitizer+film screen protector and maybe a new complete case...

Another thing that could be an idea is that I might buy a Neo900 motherboard (even though they are a bit pricey) in the future which I could put in the out of order N900.

I come back when I got the new phone ;)

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

Just received yesterday, thanks t-b, he included a lot of stuff and the machine was fully charged, the digitizer was heavily damaged so I changed the whole lcd block and put the one that was on the other N900 I have, I played with it a bit, wonderful device, I was installing stuff (with the maemo.org applet) and it said "low battery" (normal after 2hrs reading the user contract for OVI even though I won't use OVI and 1.5hr tinkering with the device on wlan+3.5G), so I leaved it alone, it finally shut down by itself.

When I got home I plugged it on a 5V 500mA charger, a yellow light started blinking but after 1hr or so of charging, it wouldn't boot, I checked on the voltmeter, 3.1V, not a normal voltage for lithium battery I think, so I put the battery on a charger I have which is pretty smart but can revive almost dead cells, I let it do it's job all night long and finally, when I woke up a few hours later, the battery was at 4.1V, which is cool, I put it in the phone and it did boot and all, asking for date and suff but it said "low battery" again and

when I plugged the phone on my PC to charge it and to do the "lsusb" command just to see (i'm under GNU/Linux), the screen seemed to have a problem because it was fading, not being backlighted and all, the phone shut down instantly and since I try to boot it but it doesn't want because it keeps restarting, I put the battery back on charge, we'll see if it gets better.

Do you think I screwed something up or I'll have to charge my battery extternally as if the connector was dead ? or could it be the battery ?

Thanks in advance

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

I'm guessing the battery.
I'd be hoping it's the battery...
since that is the cheapest and least invasive fix...
If a new batt or 2 has the same result ...
then it is a device issue...
or battery management issue bleeding off your battery untimely.

I'd suggest 1st getting a couple of new batts. ( or even decent oem refurbs)
(don't just get one...when you need your n900 running the worst thing is having only 1 batt. WITH a low charge... me ...I have 6 batts for my n900...perhaps a wee bit overkill-y but hey...if you are going to make sure you always have a back up plan...than make sure you have 4 back-up back-up plans in case the 1st 2 back-up plans get ******-up :D)

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

Hi nazmi - good to see that the phone arrived but too bad you are again experiencing issues with a N900. I hope it is something that will be easy to fix.

As mentioned this was not my main phone, but a spare so I haven't tested it for a long time. That said I did test it for more than one full day before sending it to you and during that day everything was working fine.

Did the following tests
Phone calls in and out - ok
Camera - ok (lens slider needs some force to open)
gprs 3g - ok
wifi - ok
GPS - ok
USB port - storage ok
SD - recognized and able to write / read
accelerometer - ok
sound - ok
multimedia (mp3 tested) - ok
As expected eeprom battery was not working.

USB-port - charging ok - I was able to charge it until fully charged (so green LED) / using standard Nokia charger - AC-10

http://natisbad.org/N900/img/AC-10E.png

One software issue: starting the phone - "An unexpected reboot has occurred, your custom kernel settings were not loaded" message appeared.
Should be able to solve it by reflashing:
http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=78828

The firmware on the phone is still stock Maemo 5 - 20.2010-36-2 so no CSSU yet installed.


I think it worked fine when I tested it. Of course something could have happened during transport / changing LCD or you just have bad luck.
I don't really believe that a battery suddenly stops working at all though, especially because you received it fully charged and the phone was working fine for a while.

Now I think of it - there might be a small chance I mixed up two batteries after removing the sim card after testing it. But then you should have the battery from my main phone, and that was working fine too.
How is the battery from your broken N900?

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

Hi, thanks for your complete reprise of what happened to the phone, well,
I used it today, worked fine again (but the battery I bought off ebay didn't last long (I'll perform a capacity test with a constant current load when I'm done charging it)), now it's charging flawlessly on my PC with another USB to µUSB cable, I'll check the cable you gave me (thanks anyway), it might be the problem of the phone ignoring the battery or saying "charge problem" or shutting down. but with the new cable:
it charges perfectly fine !!!!! so no problem around here.

one more thing: do you know the password for Superuser and the phone pass ?

also, is there some tuning that might make it better running, sometimes firefox is a bit slow or the and animation of screens is lagging, nothing problematic but if you have fixes, I would be very interested.

anyway: the N900 is a wonderful device, I hope from now everything is going to be fine.
Thanks in advance

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

Great, I am glad you solved it :)

Phone lock should be default 12345 (I think I checked that, but not sure) - if it doesn't work then there are methods to solve that.
Superuser/root : https://wiki.maemo.org/Root_access

Before trying to optimize I suggest first to start reading about installing CSSU https://wiki.maemo.org/Community_SSU
Adding Nokia repositories
http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p...&postcount=112

and do a lot of reading and searching.

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

Big Em-pHA-siS on searching.
Use the search bar.
Use google.
Use the power search bar.
Use the wiki.
Use everything above...use it all...
for searching for your answers ...
before asking ...
since all we are going to do (if it is not a new query or a problem which is an odd twist on an old solvable problem..) is point you to the links you would have found using the above searchable engines or places...(like t-b just did :D)

oh yeah..
and in the wiki...
look up "the perfect setup" for the n900...
that is a good one too...
You'll have to hunt it down.
Good beginner easter-egg hunt for you.
since I ain't linkin' it for you here to easy-peasy click on it.
:p

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

Good evening,
I just installed the CSSU, checked the repos, uninstalled some of the nokia/ovi stuff, removed the non-free repository, about that, does anyone knows what it makes me miss ?

also, when I put my simcard in the phone it made me sign a contract (which is not valid because I didn't and won't sign up to nokia ovi services), this contract included the possibility that a lot of my data may be transferred to nokia, what is about those services now ?

I'm starting to feel home in this phone, the terminal is a bit different from the one I got in debian but it's almost the same.

I read the "perfect setup" article on the wiki.

I think I did a lot of stuff today, tomorrow I'll try to get my SDR dongle working, I know someone on the forum made a little tutorial on it, I'll see if I can get it working :D (not sure at all)

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

For all intents and purposes Nokia and Ovi are officially gone and their support for maemo platforms with them...
They don't care about you anymore than you care about them.
So pay no bother ...
If you do need anything Ovi (maps and such) or Nokia related head over to maemo-repos.com and the necessary catalogues are there if needed (thank that great gent while you are there...he's doing a stellar job keeping the vaults open) ...also there is a few links to Ovi map downloads I would suggest downloading for the n900....
like ummmm....the whole planet? :D
I got my back up.
Should be good for a few more years....un-updated...
after that it is marble for me ... I suppose....
So yeah...don't completely discount Ovi's usefulness...
Just be savvy...

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

I used Nokia Suite just yesterday and the maps were still there.

Regarding the EULA and your N900 calling home, just uninstall cherry before you put a SIM card in. You will need to install rootsh first and use the command line. Due to the weird Nokia dependencies, uninstalling cherry will force the uninstallation of the Fremantle metapackage which means you will have to do all your updates manually so obviously this solution may not be for everyone.

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

Yes, luckily.
But after the sale of Here to BMW/Daimler/xxx I am afraid we will loose that soon. Fortunately all are mirrored on archive.org :)

There is an easier way:
before putting in the SIM first time, install rootsh from maemo repos, open terminal and copy/paste/excute below:
and probably:
, but that I do not really know. It contains the EULA which I have on my device cached in German (see below).
But I agree, nothing for non-terminal-savvy guys/girl. ;)

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

^--- Wonderful!

Re: Waited 1 year for N900, but some more days of tinkering may be required
 

Thanks for the explanations about all the OVI stuff, I belive I did not erase anything at all for now because each time I made the command:
apt-get remove "package"
it responded me nothing which seems abnormal,

it's the same when I do apt-get update or install
it's getting a problem as I need to install some stuff that way and I would prefer to use the good old apt-get to install stuff.

Do you have any infos ?

PS: I did the command with sudo and in a root shell (with sudo gainroot typed before).

Thanks in advance

@endsormeans: ok, I'll test the OVI maps stuff but it'll be the only one I will keep (if I do), I tested marble on the N900, it did not convinced me but it was on a tv and I had no image on LCD (the precedent N900 I had was damaged) but I use marble on my desktop/laptop and it does a great job for my uses (essentially marking points on a map and a bit of routing).

@Pichlo: it's now too late but I will remove cherry as soon as possible and I did not sign or fill anything but the little contract with the welcome screen.
@peterleinchen: sadly, it's too late now, I signed because I knew/thought a lot of that stuff was not working anymore, anyway, what will this imply to me ?

Also, I heard that the N900 was a bit lacking of autonomy however since I charged the battery, now it's working since yesterday without charging (altghough I used it intensively 4hours with wifi and or bluetooth and made 5-6 calls, ...) and the battery is still almost full (3 pixels down (I checked with my camera zooming on LCD)), is this normal ?

I really need to solve the sudo/apt problems so that I can make my phone better because for the moment, I can't watch 720p vids, connect to a DLNA/UPnP device with mplayer or an alternative file explorer, watch online videos, ...
and it will be important for me to have those functionalities, also I'll try to enable the USB host mode and also mumble, gqrx+my sdr dongle and some way of streaming the camera.
However before being able to try all of that, I need apt working fine, if possible like on my desktop

Thanks in advance guys, you are helping me a lot ;)