Hi everyone

It's been 2 years now since I sold my N900 and bought a Galaxy Note and whilst it's been a great phone there was always one or two things that i missed from the little Nokia, like the true multitasking and the FM transmitter.
So, i found myself in a position that i needed a second phone and number (online business) and decided to get another N900.
Briefly.. Found one described as "mint" on ebay and won the auction with a bid of £62.00, bargain, or so I thought!
When it arrived it was clear that it wasn't as described, with lots of dust under the screen and the dreaded red line through the sim card icon.
Long story short... Told the seller i was sending it back, he offered me a refund of £30.00 so i accepted thinking it was worth a punt at fixing it.
Reflashed on windows.. Failed halfway through eMMC! Tried again, same. Loaded up Ubuntu live CD, eMMC flashed successfully but OS failed.. Three failures later worked out it was (probably) due to the cellular module not working so ordered a new one from Stellatech (£10 delivered).. Then read somewhere about putting paper on top of the sim for a tighter contact so had the idea of squeezing the phone tightly while flashing. Amazingly this worked (with live CD) so reflashed both images successfully.. Booted phone up and.... Perfect.

I also watched the dismantling vid on youtube and took it completely apart and gave it a real good cleaning.

So, I now have a perfectly working, clean N900 for £32.00..quite a good result i think... Oh, and an unused, new cellular module as a spare :-D

And I can't seem to put it down... Anyone want a galaxy note?

Dan

p.s thanks to all for the various threads on sim-card errors, dismantling and flashing.

Yeah, sometimes it's the sim card slot, sometimes it's the telephony chips. Seems to vary by device and your luck. Either way, seems that all problems of sim-card/telephony not-working variety boil down to 'something not attached well enough to the motherboard'. Which is really annoying. But fortunately is typically fixable, as you've discovered.

Anyway, congrats on your bargain acquisition and welcome back into the fold.

I'm happy for you sir.