Hey guys,

This is a long story so if you’re not in the mood, just skip it!

So I found a cyan N9 with (presumably) only a dead battery and I had my own (white) working as it should.
I disassembled both and started trying different combinations in order to see what’s working and what doesn’t, so with only one working battery there was too much swapping here and there.

Everything looked ok with the cyan except that it wouldn’t turn on even with my battery. I tried to charge the flat battery with flasher till about 7% and then removed it. At that moment I saw a faint green line showing up on the screen and then the phone didn’t turn on as usual. It does look like it’s charging when I plug it, but I can’t be sure because if I plug it in the flasher it will brick because I didn’t find the for it yet (I was using the files for the white n9 in the flasher to charge it).

That’s issue number 1. It might be fixed once I find the firmware and flash it.

This is where the story gets weird.
I decided to use the cyan housing with my working white n9 board. Sounds simple, especially since in my case since I disassembled N9’s countless times since 2012.
The moment i used my board with the cyan housing the phone didn’t turn on, I could only see the led turning on as it should and then again when shutting it down. I disconnected the front camera and it turned on but no touch response. I remove the camera completely and it didn’t work! Plugged it again and worked. Anyway, as you can assume there were many different weird things happening, but it’s a N9 so you can’t actually find logic behind everything.

I flashed the phone (firmware and emmc) successfully but the phone still doesn’t turn on ! I see the led lighting up for a few seconds, then lighting up again when I press the power button briefly and again lighting for longer when I try to turn it off. Normal behavior like the phone actually turns on and off (except vibration). The screen is completely black (tested both screens) and there is no vibration at all when I turn the phone on.

And lastly, I noticed at some point yesterday that the led was pulsing slowly a couple of minutes after I thought I turned off the phone.

Now my point is, is there any way to pinpoint what could be the issue? What else can I try software-wise to turn back on my beloved n9 now with its new cyan housing?!

Thanks in advance!

Just wondered why you stopped charging so soon as personally always try to get past 10% but I know it's a bit sad timing how long it takes to go from 8 - 9% and 9 -10% to get an idea of how much time in hand once turns 10%. Trouble is most batteries date from 2013 now. It can sometimes take a considerable time for flasher to even recognise N9 if battery on 0%.Trying to boot with depleted battery takes several % of SOC out of it.

Unfortunately can't offer you solution here, but are these genuine OEM housings or copies? I always use fine spudger to detach front camera from housing as junction of cable strip to camera seems quite fragile.

About the only issue with my many N9 resurrections is increasing incidence of emac failure, but at least a source of spares. Majority of "dead N9" are just 0% battery so flashing to ~ 10.5% SOC then connect to charger to complete. Only ever had one which wouldn't take the Swiss firmware Swiss DFL61_HARMATTAN_40.2012.21-3.480.04.1_PR_LEGACY_480_ARM_RM-696_PRD_signed.bin

Good luck!

I stopped because I couldn’t find the proper firmware on time and I started the process with another firmware so that it will charge. That’s why I stopped it before going too close to 11%!

Both housings are originals, I just wanted to swap the dead (for whatever reason) cyan’s board and battery with my working (white) board.

I really don’t know why suddenly it stopped showing anything on the screen and also not vibrating when turned on.

Especially since I reflashed the device when i swapped the board and the battery.

Edit:
Just for the record, the problem was actually the wear and tear from more than a decade of use. Connectors became loose, battery died and buttons started recessing.
I fixed the second one cause everything was hardware related and left the other one for spare parts!