I have bought a used nokia n900 phone from ebay which I have just received.
For some reason it could barely find the router which is 1 meter away from me. After some hours it could find all routers around. A few minutes later it could barely find the close router.
This happened a few times.
Now it can only find that same router but not all the others.
Is it possible I fix that somehow before contacting the seller to send it back?

I have the same phone and below it shows the differences.
Phone on top is the used I bought.
My previous phone is the second and finds around 10-12 routers

Thanks

wilan power settings ? Flashing it ? Maybe open up to clean anteena contacts ? Else contact seller

thanks
what is power settings? where is it?

Edit: OK I found power settings and changed it but nothing happened

If the newly bought phone is using the standard wifi drivers, and most likely it is, then a h-w issue must be suspected and contacting the seller is the safest route.

I had a problem with one of my spare N900s. It could not see the WiFi at my work. It turned out it was on Channel 13 and the phone would only enable that channel with a European SIM card in it. No wonder it did not work for me: as a spare, I used it without a SIM card.

I am in Europe, the phone was bought from Europe and I am not using a SIM card.

Sorry I didn't make it clear. I am in Europe too but the phone doesn't know it without a SIM card. I know it's a silly design but that's just how it is.

I have just inserted a sim card and there is no difference
I have contacted seller and he offered me partial refund of 10 euros

flashed it with
RX-51_2009SE_10.2010.13-2.VANILLA_PR_EMMC_MR0_ARM
and
RX-51_2009SE_20.2010.36-2_PR_COMBINED_MR0_ARM

using flasher 3.5

Didn't help at all.
Problem persists.

I have even removed the back housing which has the antenna on it and replaced it with my previous n900. it didn't help.
I placed the "new/used" phone's housing on mine and it was working.

So the problem is not on the "outer" antenna and not a software problem too.
Do you suppose it might be a problem with the board wifi connector I show with green arrow? Can this be fixed somehow?

Sometimes the contacts between the aerials and the motherboard need adjusting/cleaning; if you haven't tried that already.