I was listening to a podcast on panucci, when a text message came through. When I went to look at the text message, I slid open the screen. The screen went blank but the keyboard lit up. I tried pressing the unlock button and so forth, tried sliding it open and shut etc, but nothing - blank (ie black) screen but keyboard backlight on. Through all this the podcast continued to play in the background (and another text message notification came through). Eventually I gave up and shut it down by holding the power button in.

The battery was nearly full at the time.

When I try to turn it back on all that happens is the indicator light comes on - bright white/yellow - and then just fades away again.

I've tried taking the battery out, back in, simcard out, tried charging it up until the light turns green ... but when I try to turn it on it's the same - either the light comes on and goes off again, or nothing happens at all.



Any advice?

Also - I never got to read the text messages - I don't suppose there's any way I can retrieve them via the USB cable or anything, if it is dead, is there?

maybe the backlight is dead. You can check it by exposing the screen to direct sunlight, the shine will show you the actual screen without backlight

lucky for you, there is nokia cares for a hardware replacement

badly for you, nokia dont cares too much

I think the ribbon got disconnected from the LCD/motherboard.
Use the TV out cable to use the N900 (read messages and backup) then send it to Nokia or try to attach it yourself (not the best solution really)

Edit: Ignore the last line of the post before mine.

You could try connecting your N900 to your PC using the USB cable. Assuming it's not totally kaput, it should appear as a USB drive and you can copy data off. I'm not best placed to tell you where your Conversations data is, but that may help. (If it's in a database, as I suspect, then it's of limited use.)

It sounds like you may be in a position where reflashing may help, but I'd only recommend that after exhausting all other avenues.

Update...

Now, sometimes but only sometimes the Nokia screen will come up and then the flashing dots for a second or two, and then it dies.

I could swear the dots are flashing more quickly than usual...but maybe I'm imagining that.

It's most probably a hardware problem, a reflash won't help.
Shaking the phone slightly might help though
But again, use the TV out cable, use the backup app to backup to a MicroSD, take it, send it to Nokia

Usually when I connect with the USB cable I have to select "connect as mass storage" before it shows up as a drive on my computer (am on a mac).

See my update above - it's not a problem with the screen.

Just out of curiosity, in the past few days have you installed any software or done anything out of the ordinary on your phone? Modifying system files or anything like that?

hmm ok I think I know what's going on ... Sort of.

I got it back to life again.

It is to do with the screen after all - the backlight keeps switching itself off. I've checked in settings in case I'd inadvertently changed something there but the baclight is set to 2 mins.

once it switches off touching the screen doesn't bring it back on again but sliding the screen lock slider slider does. However it goes back off again within a couple of seconds.

So the question is... Should I try a reflash? Or is it probably a hardware issue?