I bought a "new" N900 off eBay in the spring. About 2 months ago I started having problems with the power button not responding reliably. Read some threads here that suggested it might be a hardware problem, and reflashed rootfs - phone started up, but still no response to the power button. At some point I let the phone run down too low, and it turned off and I couldn't get it back on. Read some other posts about putting it into R&D mode, and that will let it boot up when plugging in. Got R&D mode enabled, and it would start to boot up when I plugged it in, but wouldn't make it all the way (I'd get the white R&D mode Nokia screen, and then it would give me the dots on the black screen for a couple of rotations, but then go black).

It sat that way for about a month, and then yesterday I finally reflashed (both rootfs and eMMC). Booted up after that, but power button still doesn't work, so I'm scared that if I let the battery run out I'll have to reflash again just to get it turned on.

So two questions:
1) Is it possible to get the power button fixed? I called Dr Cell Phone (which I saw a link to here as a place for N900 repairs) and they said they can't get the parts to do a power button fix. I don't have the expertise (or the tools) to open it up and see if I can fix it myself)

2) Even if I get the power button fixed, does the fact that it won't boot in R&D mode when plugged in indicate something else more serious might be wrong with it? Once it powers up everything seems to work fine.