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.

Is it a "new" N900 from Hongkong?

Yes. Which I realize now just means refurbished and put in a new box, but I think a bit too much time has gone by for me to go back to the seller and complain about being ripped off.

When you open the slider and look on the other side of the screen, what can you read: "Made in Finland" or "Designed in Finland"?

I have a real new N900 from Newegg.com that is "Designed in Finland"
and a fakefurbished "new" $200 brick from HK
also "Designed in Finland", I can look at my wife's N900 too if I remember.
I would contact paypal and ebay anyways at least they will put it in the guys file.
Maybe there should be a sticky in the forum that warns against HK/China "new" bad refurb N900s on ebay.

Ok, that is interesting. On my fake stands "Made in Finland". It came from Hongkong, as well. I thought, on fakes stands "Made in Finland" only.

I just looked at my bricked HK-N900 board, the switch is a pretty standard SM microswitch, you might be able to desolder one to fit from another old mobile phone.
Pretty much just two solder pads that need a momentary connect that in a super pinch you could make a crap replacement from two bits of copper wire.

Yes. This was a $200 "Designed in Finland" fake from HK. When I got it I kind of assumed it would be refurbished, but it seemed to work well, looked new, and I thought that was still a good price for a refurbished phone (I'm really surprised the guys don't go to the trouble of flashing the device though, because mine came with a bunch of software installed that I later learned wasn't stock).

I'd like to say that I would be able to solder in a switch from another phone, but I don't think I've got the skills even if I hadn't lost my small screwdriver set to open it up. There's a guy in the city who says he'll fix it for $45, but I'm a little skeptical that he fully knows what he's doing either.