@mrguizzo: When I had this problem, I came to this forum and opened this thread, to read for ideas to fix this issue, but later, I decided not to try anything to fix it by myself because I had just paid for a new working phone.

I sent mine back to amazon and they replaced it, no questions asked.

The new n900 they sent me, has been working perfectly since its arrival.

So that's my advice: just send it back. You've just paid a lot of your valuable money for a new and working device, so, it's fair to get what you've paid for.