Pop your USB car charger apart and short the D+ and D- pins together. Simple 5 minute job.

The D+ and D- pins are the two center pins

I have also an usb car adapter that doesn't work, i think i need to short the D+ and D- pins together but with a resistor or directly ?

I am using a iGo USB charging cable with their Micro USB tip. I have used this combo to charge my N900 from my Laptop, Desktop, portable battery and a generic USB car adapter. I also use it to charge my Sprint MiFi. The thing I really like about this cable is that it is short enough (about a foot) that I keep it in my pocket all the time and it also has a built in holder for 2 additional tips, in case you have some other devices that need charging.

You can get the USB cable here:

http://www.igo.com/Accessories/USB-C...vt/ps002710003

and the correct tip for the N900 here:

http://www.igo.com/A-Series-Tips-for...invt/660069701

They also have a car charger which will probably work, but I haven't tried it and at $20 I am not likely to buy it. I bought a generic USB car charger for $6 at fry's which works fine.

http://www.igo.com/Mobile-Device-Cha...550007&bklist=

In my car (citroen c4) the lighter is far from the front panel, so i need:

• lighter to usb adapter (i'm using aiio USB-MCLA-B but doesen't work with n900)
• 2mt. usb male to famale cable
• usb to micro usb cable (nokia ca-101)

I think i should open the lighter usb adapter to short the usb pins (d+ and d-) or found another adapter thatk works.

as ghetto as it may be.. i bought the cables and not willing to buy anymore.. i stuck a 1/8th by 1/4th piece of foil with tape on the edge, into the USB A side, and wallah..
tried with wall charger/cig, with same cable, works fine..

even tried onto pc.. it detects it as only a charger.. not a data cable with usb/pc suite mode

hope this helps everyone

I bought a car charger made for the Nokia N97, I assumed (hoped) it would work for the N900, but no luck, it doesn't work at all :-(

The shorting of the data pins is a sure-fire way of getting charging working it seems. However, I've found just good ole' fashion persistence gets the n900 to charge on generic chargers.

I, for example, use one of the Belkin micro USB chargers with a blackberry storm cable (standard microUSB cable afaik, works to sync and all) and if I continually plug and unplug the charger I will eventually get it to charge. I wouldn't recommend it (and it cant 'wake' the device if the battery is totally flat) but if you REALLY need to charge your N900 on the road and haven't shorted those pins yet. This has reliably worked (in the sense that sometimes it will charge upon the first plug-in and sometimes it will take a few solid minutes of trying :P)

So this one doesn't work. I was hoping the cable would be shorted already since it was never intended to be used for data.


I am waiting on an OEM Nokia car charger - nothing to do with usb - and hope it will work.

i have an old style nokia charger with the fat plug, i just wang the adapter that comes in the box on the end, happy days. i did have a micro usb charger, but that lasted no longer than 10 minutes when it blew up and smoked in the 12v output. lucky it didn't blow the phone up as the fuse never went.

I've borrowed a friend's N900 for a week or two to see how I like it. But I'm also having problems charging it.

I have a Nokia microUSB charger that I use for my N97, but that doesn't work - which seems odd as I'd have thought they'd use the same method?

At the moment I'm limited to hooking it up to my computer which is a pretty clumsy way to charge it

Is there a simple third party charger that'll charge an N900 and an N97?