N900 bricked after battery went flat
 

This happened to me yesterday, on an up-to-date N900. I didn't notice the battery going flat (my old E71 would scream at me :-) and when I came to plug it in, I got a solid orange light.

I have left it plugged in to the mains charger overnight, while I read up round here, with similar issues. I have attempted to get it in to R&D mode, using flasher-3.5 (I have the Mac OS X version) but flasher tells me there is no USB device found, and sure enough, the phone does not show up in the USB device tree in System Profiler. Now, this could be because I haven't quite got the sequence of events to get the thing into USB mode right. Can someone clarify? And help me out here?!

Cheers,
James

Re: N900 bricked after battery went flat
 

Sounds like it got too low to charge properly (did you get a green light?), so you'll need to charge the battery externally (desktop charger or a compatible phone). It should be fine after that.

Re: N900 bricked after battery went flat
 

I believe any sort of flashing doesn't work with empty battery.

Re: N900 bricked after battery went flat
 

Ah, makes sense, in a broken logic kind of way! I got no green light, just the steady amber. I will seek out a desktop charger....

Ta!
J

Re: N900 bricked after battery went flat
 

Hm, seems so - I' would have expected it to at least be powered off the USB though, whether or not the battery was flat. This is the daft bit - that you can get it to a state it can't recover from on it's own.

Cheers,
J

Re: N900 bricked after battery went flat
 

Yeah, a lot of problems could have been avoided if it was possible to power the device directly from the charger. There's no really good technical reason not to.

Re: N900 bricked after battery went flat
 

My wife says a similar thing about me sometimes:)

On the symbian phones I've used the device would shut down and preserve the last bit of battery, allowing itself enough to tell me "battery empty please recharge" if I tried to start it up again.

Something similar would be a good idea.
Maybe this needs to be suggested as a bugfix/enhancement.

Re: N900 bricked after battery went flat
 

I have had the exact same problem.
I went to all the shops in Phoenix looking for a battery for the cell because the present battery was totally drained out and would not charge again.
Finally, I landed up in a shady little cell shop. Got a Nokia battery with similar connector points and I was able to reflash my device.
The N900 has the BL-5J battery which is also used by the Xpress 5800. I got a BL4U. Note this is the smaller than the BL5J and cannot be used on a daily. But it is good to reflash.

Once that was done. I just had to recharge my original battery and I was good to go.

Moral of the story. Reflash only with a full battery. And if there is an issue do not wait for the battery to drain out.

It cost me $25 and half a day.

Re: N900 bricked after battery went flat
 

I still think the correct fix is to simply allow the device to be able to run on the charger directly. There's no technical reason it _has_ to be powered indirectly, through the battery (as now). If it would run on the charger directly we wouldn't need any fancy solution.

Obviously that would be for the next-gen device. As for the current N900, I would be surprised if it doesn't already shut down with enough juice left to let it engage and start its own charging function. What it can't do, whatever you do, is to reflash with a run-down battery if it needs to reflash. For that you need to use another battery or get your battery charged elsewhere. That should be fixed for the next device (i.e., let it be able to run on the charger directly.)

Re: N900 bricked after battery went flat
 

If you still have your E71, the n900 battery will actually fit in the E71 and you can charge it from there. Once you close the lid, the battery fits tight enough to keep charging....