Noticed my phone would not charge the other day - after closer inspection I noticed the connection inside the phone is loose.

If you attempt to plug in the charger and then pull it out, it actually pulls out the little metal connector - not all the way, but about half.

I have attempted to open the phone up but cannot get to the part where this charge conenctor is - seems to behind the circuit boards.

My questions are this:

1. Is this a common problem?

2. Can it be fixed/repaired by myself?

3. Is it better to take it into a repair shop? How much would we be talking?

4. Or is better to sell as spares? Then again all my stuff is saved to my phone so I cannot really do that!

this is a very well know issue with n900 ..just do a google search or seach through the forums and you can find the same topic being discussed infinite times... there are guides to fix it yourself or better give it to Nokia care..

Give it to Nokia Care and you can safely bet you will never get your N900 back. They'll give you a device `equivalent' to N900 but not your N900 and not another N900.

I did look on google - will have another search - seemed to be USB problems rather than a loose connector.

I also bought it 2nd hand last year - still in box and docsuments -w ould Nokia Care still look at it?

Dont want to send it off and lose all my photos and video clips

EDIT - can see some threads but main one over 200 pages long - does not seem to be a fix - people mainly mentioning Nokia Care

If when you pull the microUSB cable from the device you see metal bits sticking out of N900, that's the actual microUSB housing. It is a general sign that it is already loose (and won't work generally). If you persist in plugging and unplugging you may end up with a completely broken microUSB port which may also leave the entire head of the microUSB connector floating around inside N900.

Nokia Care might look at it if your warranty is still valid (which would only be valid from the date of the initial purchase not the subsequent purchase). Most N900 by now would be on their way out of warranty unless their owners purchased the device with extra warranty or the device comes with extra warranty as per country's regulation or whatever. As far as I know (and I could be mistaken), Nokia only gives you 1-2 year/s warranty from the date of initial purchase. I don't think they would actually care if you had the box, cables, instruction manual, cleaning cloth, etc, etc, etc with the device.

Right now if your N900 is actually still powered on, I'd quickly backup your photos and video clips by transferring the data via bluetooth to another device. Unless you happen to have a BL-5J charger (N95-1 can charge that battery, so can X6-00 and some other phone that accepts BL-5J battery), I'd quickly backup the data before I regret.

There are some threads for people who tried to go about their own ways of fixing it.

If you installed power-kernel, There is a way to see if the kernel driver (USB) can actually sense a connection via dmesg. Normally you would get something like this:

MY N900.. out of waraanty...had the same problem ... MicroUUSB died.. Nokia fixed my Phone and send me back my N900 for free :P ! beat that.

I was actually looking at the external chargers - may buy one and charge my battery that way - but still gives me the problem of backing up my photos and vid clips - loads and loads and some big files.

Pity I can't bluetooth them to my PC and I obviously cannot use my USB PC connector either. Pah!

Could try emailing them to my PC I suppose - see if that works

install the SSH daemon and then SSH into the n900 to copy the data out. On windows, you'd probably use WinSCP for that.

same problem here but without seeing any loose parts. sent it in for repair. nokia kept it (threw it awy i guess incl data on it) and sent an E7 as replacement.
got another N900 from ebay,worked fine for three days now same problem. currently getting by by using an external charger.
As has been said above : quickly get full backup and plan on parting with your N900.
sad...

I will have to check if it is under warranty when I get home - no point sending to Nokia Care Team if it is'nt? Take it they would not repaid it?

Just worried if I send it that they will send me a replacement or a diff phone and I lose my file. So may need to buy that external charger first before I do that