unless nokia made a BIG change in their USB design on the N900 then yes all models have 'bad' USB that will brake sooner or later.

OK, I've been putting off soldering the USB port down for a few months, because it seems too difficult and too dangerous to attempt, and each time I decide to do it, I come to several insurmountable obstacles. So I might just ask:

1. What kinds of screws should I purchase, and what tools do I need? There are only two types of screwdrivers I need to purchase (Phillips 00, and TORX 6), right? The manual explicitly says to throw away all the screws – can I ignore that safely?
2. What's an SS-93? What can I use instead?
3. All steps after the removal of the engine board (step 15 in the RX-51 manual) do not apply to this and I can simply ignore them?
4. What does it mean to scrape the green stuff? Do I use a fingernail, or would a tiny flat watch screwdriver do it? Would it be obvious what I need to scrape when I open the phone, or are there any before and after scraping pictures? (Maybe this one and this one, but they are showing the opposite side of the connector, so I feel uncertain.)

Use the correct screws, i don't have it on the top of my head someone else can fill in there.

REUSE screws

Use a small screwdriver (flathead) to scrape off the "green stuff", as pictured, be carefull tho not to go mental on it, when you open your N900 and look at the circuit then you will see where you can scrape of.
Scrape of on both sides, just not much on the "small" size, again when you open it up you will see what i am trying to explain.

Again this is a very simple fix and you really really have to mess it up bad to ruin anything.

As for the soldering, warm up the iron of the USB so you are sure that solder will stick to it and then solder it to the BASE (where you scraped off the green stuff, this is right up against where the USB is soldered to the board with a very little contact patch (hence why it comes of "easy").

Hope this has helped, please report back after you done it, also if you can take pictures/video of the fix please link post and i will add to post #1/2.

Hi there, i've just completed a fix for a N900 that had its USB port ripped out with the cable and this fix may be of interest to some. Basically the pads and the connectors all got damaged meaning that the USB socket was unusable and an alternative was needed that didn't require shopping.
For this I decided to see if I could get a small charger port into the phone and the smallest available was from an old busted Nokia 6280, the port is really tiny.
I found an area that was free for this after some Dremel use, just near one of the speakers.


The socket then got glued to the main board in this location below -



Resulting in a little charger socket that was visible via a hole drilled into the outer case -



The charger is the original 5v, 850mA one that came with the 6280, its using the USB circuit but thats rated for the N900 charger of 1200mA so it shouldn't be a problem. The data+ and data- pins were soldered together without a resistor bridging them.

This might not be the most elegant solution but given the restraints of not having much equipment, minimal soldering experience and an iron that was too large for the tiny tiny SMB type stuff.

I hope this may help some and I only offer this as it was the great info and posts available here that made my fix possible, so thanks!

you can also consider re-creating USB connection using pads beneath battery - they're quite big, so it shouldn't be a problem. Of course, to achieve that, you would need to undo shorting of D+/D-.

Otherwise, nice work, if there wasn't anything better possible to achieve

/Estel

I have stopped using my usb connection for anything except flashing, so I don't think I need any premptive solution for usb problems. For transferring files, I use WinSCP, and for charging I use a separate battery charger. Works very well for me.

USB Hostmode and USB networking is already enough reason, to care about USB port, at least for any advanced/power-user. Not to mention, that it may find widespread usage in using Raspberry Pi as HDMI out for N900.

/Estel

Yes, I'm sure that anyone who doesn't use their #N900 the way you do isn't truly a power user. Egos rule!

to be honest, I would suggest You to not go to ego yourself. I just meant to point out, that USB port is much more than charging/ flashing, or mass-storage mode.

For sure, my post wasn't mean to bite your ambition in any way.

/Estel

Yeah, presently the USB isn't vital cos the phone for this fix is used by someone who just needs it to power on and charge, that isn't flimsy in its fix and can stand a bit of rough handling as he lives in the Australian bush and isn't, nor should he be, tech savvy.

The USB port can be replicated via the pads mentioned but it leaves the problem of recreating a USB port somewhere on the phone. The only real use this user would have for a USB connection is to get stuff onto and off the SD card and as that isn't possible with this fix he will just have to go without and use bluetooth