I haven't seen a thread on here quite like mine . . .

-N900 was working fine, had it a couple months.
-Accidentally let it die before I can charge it up. It's happened before, no big deal.
-Next day, try to charge it, but now nothing ever shows on the screen, and the backlight never lights up.
-Occasionally I'll get a red blinking indicator LED, that's it.

Tried a different battery, too. What's the deal? Wish I could re-flash it, but the PC won't recognize it because the thing doesn't actually power up at all.

If you don't know, are there repair centers in Texas for devices like this?

This may be a dumb question, but, was the different battery that you tried pulled out fully charged up and working, from a different phone, or was it a spare that sat in a drawer since you bought the N900? Your battery is my prime suspect, I've had a spare BL-5J die through being left discharged and it behaves in a similar fashion... in my case, it pretends to charge (green light), but never actually develops enough juice to boot the phone - reproducible with the knackered battery on 2 handsets. I don't know the state of play with after-market repairs in TX, but I suspect that this will either be something you fix yourself, or something that can't readily be fixed.

Second dumb question: you are trying to charge it from the proper wall charger, not from USB? And being patient enough (5-10 minutes) for the battery to recover and start charging normally if it is going to? I've known it take a minute or two for a phone to register enough juice to report that it is charging... If none of that helps - and it really will not boot with a fully charged battery that is known to work - then you do indeed have a problem I don't think I've seen before.

Thank you for your reply! To answer your questions:

-The battery was from an older N900 that died on me a couple months before (it got washed in the washing machine . . . I have terrible luck with these phones).

-Both batteries involved, I would put in the water-logged phone and it would light up the backlight (which is all it ever does, since it's dead-dead). So that tells me they both have some juice.

-I had it sit plugged in overnight, and am very patient about trying things maybe 5-10 minutes apart from each other.

-The chargers I use both are Samsung but use the same connector. The only thing I'm wondering about (though I imagine it doesn't matter) is that they are wall chargers, but with the option to remove the USB... Something exactly like this: http://goo.gl/cnvOO I also tried via USB to my computer, but got nothing.

IMHO, that still doesn't rule out a battery fault if the second battery you've tested with has first been through a washing machine, then out of use for a couple of months.

If I understand correctly, the battery contains protection circuits to prevent over-charging or discharging, and these are mission critical as a Li-Ion treated wrongly will catch fire. So, the phone checks for this circuitry and refuses to use the battery if not present and correct; that would certainly explain a refusal to charge even when there's enough juice to light up a backlight. If there's any way you can test it with a borrowed battery from a live N900, do. This is still my prime suspect. I can't be certain enough to say "buy a new battery" - but it sounds like your battery has given up the ghost and I have little faith in the old one as a test...

I don't envisage that the brand of your charger makes any difference if it charges the phone during normal operation, but, confirm it's capable of 1000mA, not all USB chargers are.

I see. I didn't know that about the batteries, I thought they were much simpler than that. I actually just ordered a BL-5J off of eBay for 2 bucks. I guess I'll wait a couple days and then update you. I don't have any friends with an N900 (or Nokia of ANY kind . . . all my friends use iPhones with the occasional Android phone). Thanks for your help so far on this.

100% this is a battery fault i am sure of it.

Get an iPhone . It really works.

IT JUST WERKSS!! lol troll . . .

I'm actually stoked now to hear the "new" (eBay'd) battery might just solve my problems on this.

Don't be stroked. iPhone simply works. You can stoke and text on iPhone

Yeah, true multi-tasking =P