My n900 only worked once, now it does not start up
 

Hi.

I've received my n900 yesterday.

I charged it, placed my SIM and battery and everything went just fine. As I needed to finish my day, I placed back my SIM into my E71.

This morning I placed back the SIM into my n900, and sadly, it does not start up.

When I try to turn it on, it vibrates, and shows the nokia blue logo over a white background. Then, on the screen it's shown an animation, kind of 5 dots flashing.

And then, nothing else happens.

If I plug it into my computer (USB) y can even see the default files in it (images for example). Also, I could copy a jpeg into .images.

I called nokia and they suggested me to take the battery out, then try to turn it on to drain any charge on the phone, then I charged it for like an hour and nothing happened.

I'm afraid battery is not being charged properly. Is there any sign when battery is being charged? The manual says an indicator blinks when charging but I don't see anything. However if the battery was completely empty, how can it be that the logo is shown ?

Any help appreciated!

Re: My n900 only worked once, now it does not start up
 

did you try to reseat the sim again?
also try starting n900 without the sim at all.
if that works clean sim contacts and try again.

Re: My n900 only worked once, now it does not start up
 

where you buy the phone on nokia.com or amazon.com?

Re: My n900 only worked once, now it does not start up
 

I had the exact same problem, try starting it in R&D mode then shutting it down and starting it up normally, there are threads on how to do this.

Re: My n900 only worked once, now it does not start up
 

Hi Zack,
I cant find the threads, are you able to help ?
I would like to try and start my phone in R&D mode as I am suffering with the same problem.
Regards Andy

Re: My n900 only worked once, now it does not start up
 

I have the same problem. I just bought the phone from amazon.com. I charged it to the the full before using it. the battery went almost dead in my first use approximately in 10 hours without excess usage. So i ha my first shock that how this phone is going to last in one day if i use it fully. nevertheless, then, I connected the phone to the charger at night and went to sleep. When i woke up, i wondered that why the alarm of the phone did not turn on. I checked the phone and i saw a black screen. The phone was not charging at all.

the symptoms are similar to the other people wrote here. when i connect to charger i see yellow light lit constantly, later on sometimes it start blinking and after a while it stops.

i informed amazon about that problem. they offered me two options, 1) 10% discount and keep the phone as it is 2) full refund.

overall, i have been a nokia user for 10 years. but i think this will be my last nokia phone.

actually, i suspected due to delays of the launch of N900 that something would be wrong with this phone. but i wanted it so much and took the risk and bought the phone.

now i am returning by far the worst phone that i have bought.

so sad

Re: My n900 only worked once, now it does not start up
 

I tried and did not work. Thanks anyway!

Re: My n900 only worked once, now it does not start up
 

Amazon, and I'll returned.They're sending me a new one. I must confess though, I almost took the refund option: many problems on this device are reported everywhere. However, I still have faith on maemo having a boost on 2010 (new apps / many bugs fixed).

Even if I can probably do something that make the phone work again, I don't think it's fair: I've just bought a brand new phone for $550 and I just like it to behave like a $550 phone. I just want to plug it into the wall, charge it and use it, as it should be.

Thanks for your posts, and if further info regarding R&D mode can be posted here, It would be interesting to try it before shipping my phone back.

Re: My n900 only worked once, now it does not start up
 

*Stokes the fire*

But it's not really a Phone! It's an Internet Tablet with basic Phone functionality.


*hides*

:D

Re: My n900 only worked once, now it does not start up
 

I had a buggy phone too. Reset itself quite often, every 15 seconds to 10 minutes. My new phone arrives today! From what I hear buggy phones that are replaced work completely different. Just a few lemons out there...

I'm sure my new one will have a faulty mic, as that's just my luck.

Re: My n900 only worked once, now it does not start up
 

Oh, my God!
Have you tried using another battery?

Re: My n900 only worked once, now it does not start up
 

Neither a friend of mine nor a local store near by have a n900 :(

Re: My n900 only worked once, now it does not start up
 

The Nokia 5800 phone uses the same battery. It might be easier to find than the N900.

Re: My n900 only worked once, now it does not start up
 

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=37420

There you go

Re: My n900 only worked once, now it does not start up
 

I had the weirdest thing happen me just now: My N900 was completely emptied because I forgot it in my jacket pocket when I got home. So I connected it to a wall charger, got the pulsating yellow light, everything was fine... Fine, I thought, let's let it charge for 10 mins and then I'll turn it on, when the juice has built up a bit.

After 10 mins, I pressed the power button, expecting to see the clear white led lit up when the phone starts. Nothing. Instead the yellow light stopped pulsating and began to glow steadily.

I pulled the battery, put it back. I tried removing the charger, connecting the charger again and still nothing. I even fooled around with holding the power button for a long time. But I could get no life on the screen what so ever and I could only get the glowing yellow light, but not the pulsating one, indicating charging.

Luckily, I have another full battery, so I pulled out the charger and the failed battery, put in the full battery and the N900 started just fine. I shut it down, put in the previously failed battery and it too started up fine. Without a charger connected at any time. When it booted, it showed approx 1/3 charge (that it got during the 10-15 mins i charged it before trying to switch it on).

I have no idea how this would've gone down if I hadn't found my secondary battery. I might very well be sending the N900 back for repairs now, because there literally seemed to be now way to turn it on. It almost seemed like it didn't understand the "electronics of the battery" until I reset it by trying another one.

Re: My n900 only worked once, now it does not start up
 

I just had the same thing happen to me. What a serious pita. But I have pretty much recovered. Thank you Jayshire & ZackMorris for your posts. It gave me an idea that seems to have worked.

Jayshire basically put the thought that the battery charge was the issue. I had drained the battery during normal use (and it seemed to drain faster then normal), so I went to reboot it (won't do that again) and was going to let it charge afterwords. But he mentioned that by switching batteries his machine came back to life.

ZackMorris mentioned that he could get it to boot up by using RD Mode enabled.

What I did was:
1. Reflashed the USA rom, (I couldn't flash the emc rom)
2. Switched to R&D Mode
3. Booted it up (YEAH!!!)
4. Let it sit charging connected to my computer.
5. A couple hours later - disabled R&D mode.
6. Now it is booting up again properly.

I lost all my customizations, because of step #1. ;-( Step #1 may not be needed, but it was performed while I was trying to recover, before I figured out a possible solution by reading the posts. So for completeness sake I'll list it. But I suspect it may not be needed.

It appears there is something in the boot up sequences (normal & battery charge) that checks the battery; and then somehow fails and it then reboots. RD mode bypasses that, allowing it to fully boot. Once it is booted, charging works! Charging appears to also be a "software" process of some sort, because I noticed when it was off and tried plugging it in it would go into the same reboot loop. So getting it booted up into the os in R&D mode is the key to allowing the battery to charge, which then once the battery is at a sufficient level, you can reboot and disable r&d mode.

Oh and emc flashing seems to require that the battery be fully charged; I still haven't be able to do it -- but my battery isn't fully charged yet. Is there some hotkey like the 'u' that puts the device into flash mode?

Nathan

Re: My n900 only worked once, now it does not start up
 

I'm pretty sure you don't need to flash it to get around the boot issue. Unfortunately mine had to be returned because it absolutely wouldn't boot up unless in R&D mode.

Also for those having charging issues, please invest in an external charger, they're inexpensive and can save you when the charge issue comes up.

I think these issues are going to be resolved in the next fw update, I think it's noted over at bugzilla.

Re: My n900 only worked once, now it does not start up
 

Mine was like that until I let it charge for a while while booted in R&D mode. Once it charged for a while (several hours). I was able to finally reboot switch it out of R&D mode and it let me boot up normally.

Nathan

Re: My n900 only worked once, now it does not start up
 

I wish leaving it on the charge would help, as i left it on charge overnight, and also charged externally for several hours as well, all to no avail. I have to wait till about the 18th to get my replacement :-(

Re: My n900 only worked once, now it does not start up
 

No, it only "charged" when it was in booted up and in R&D mode. I also left it turned off and "charging" overnight and it didn't charge a bit.

Once I booted up I left it turned on in R&D mode plugged into my computer and then it charged (maybe it only works when it is charging via usb, rather than the the dedicated charger?)

Several hours later I unplugged it and it was about 75% of the way done. I was able to switch it out of R&D mode and it was working again properly.

Nathan

Re: My n900 only worked once, now it does not start up
 

Hey!
I experience the same identical problem.
I bought a n900 from amazon.com which arrived yesterday.
First, it booted. then I powered it off, inserted the sim, and tried to start it up. It asked me the pin of the sim and then It did not startup anymore.
When I connect it to the usb I can see it as mass storage.
It seems not charge when I connect it to the power.
Suggestion???

Re: My n900 only worked once, now it does not start up
 

amazon's stock items may not be the most recent. I got 3 N900s - 2 from Nokia and one from Newegg. The one from newegg I managed to brick. I was hacking it but I recovered it by reflashing. And now I live happily ever after. Reflash if everything else fails!

Re: My n900 only worked once, now it does not start up
 

@mrguizzo: When I had this problem, I came to this forum and opened this thread, to read for ideas to fix this issue, but later, I decided not to try anything to fix it by myself because I had just paid for a new working phone.

I sent mine back to amazon and they replaced it, no questions asked.

The new n900 they sent me, has been working perfectly since its arrival.

So that's my advice: just send it back. You've just paid a lot of your valuable money for a new and working device, so, it's fair to get what you've paid for.

Re: My n900 only worked once, now it does not start up
 

thank you, isolano!!!
but is it true that amazon sends you another phone before that you send them that damaged?

Re: My n900 only worked once, now it does not start up
 

that is correct.

As soon as I went through the return process (you'll find it in the order summary) they sent out the new phone that very same day.

If policies have not changed, you'll get 1 month to send the non working phone back to amazon.

Re: My n900 only worked once, now it does not start up
 

Actually, I chose the option that ups will come to pick up the broken phone.
They will come the next working day, that is next monday.

Re: My n900 only worked once, now it does not start up
 

same problem

solution for me:
- remove SIM
- reassembly phone
- connect charger
- orange light starts blinking
- after some minutes of charging able to startup

Hope this helps,

Ruud