Hi guys,
I recently got a used n900 from ebay at a very low price. But the problem is that it's in a bootloop. The nokia logo appears, then the five dots appear and it starts rebooting. I tried connecting to my Ubuntu machine for flashing using flasher-3.5 but it does not go into update mode. When I start the device by pressing u it still goes into the bootloop and it wont show the usb emblem. Sometimes the yellow led blinks. The device won't even appear when I run "lsusb" on Ubuntu. I tried changing batteries with the same result.

somehow charge battery to full (e.g. in other working phone or via external battery charger). then use flasher for full reflash.

Yeah, this happened to me once too. Don't remember whether I needed a new battery or a charger for my battery, but either of those things work.

I had this happen to me once, It turns out I ran down my battery waay too low so I had to use an external charger to recharge it. It only happened once. That or you can buy a new battery.

I tried charging the battery externally and even another battery. Still no luck! Any other suggestion guys?

A faulty cable? A broken USB connector? They do suffer from that hereditary disease.

Also try cleaning the connector with a big needle or a small watchmaker's screwdriver. I've had at least one N900 with so much fluff collected there that it prevented a proper contact.

You may want to try cold flashing, too. Although I doubt it will help (as you're getting to the five dots stage), it won't hurt to try.

/Estel

Tried cleaning out the connector. Again, no effect. I'm able to power the led light alone on the n900 via usb connection even when the battery is removed, so that should mean the power is being supplied right?. For coldflashing shouldn't the phone get detected by flasher too? And the cable works for other phones. I'm willing to even pay to get this working

ok plug in the USB cable with batt out and do a
sudo tail -f /var/log/syslog
on your computer and report the output to us when you go through an insert battery with u pressed

the good news is you are getting to the dots so worst case broken USB you can solder onto USB pads under the battery and do a Frankenstein reflash. I have had used N900s which would just never enter flash mode no matter what I did.

Still nothing. I do have a bus pirate with me, so if flashing via serial is possible I'm willing to do that too.