I had trouble with starting the N900 yesterday, almost a day after installing the maemo 5 update.

The behaviour was that I held down the power button (not connected to the charger for some hours), the NOKIA text would show, brightly lit, then the screen dimmed, then the white led would come on, then gradually fade away. I never saw the screen with the row of dots appear.

I'm not sure if I'd just let the battery run down too far for it to start, though, although I seem to remember having charged it recently enough before I had the problem.

After charging for a little while, then removing the battery and microSD card, and then putting the battery back in, it was able to boot.

Unsettling, but might be just down to my not having charged it (though in that case, why the brightly lit NOKIA screen?)

Anyway, for those people with this problem

• Is this the same sequence of events?
  
• What happens when you attempt to boot the device and it won't boot - do you see stuff on the screen, etc.?
  
• Do you get the same problem while charging via the usb cable into a PC/laptop ?