Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

Hi,
I know its been talked numerous times and I think I have gone through quite a lot of them if not all after my phone stopped booting up since yesterday. I was using power-kernel45 and there was no any problem just the battery was low and I left it to charge for around 10 minutes and when i tried to turn it on from the sleep mode, it just didn't. So I turned it off and since then it hasn't turned on just does the blinking of 5 dots and thats it. When I tried to turn on immediately after the problem, it was only showing weird lines across the screen. Its after leaving the phone for an hour without the battery and turning it on, I get this never ending blinking dots.

Firstly, I tried just reflashing the firmware with the latest 1.3.

Secondly, I tried reflashing both the frimware and the emmc as stated in the wiki without any luck.

Thirdly, I tried to flash with enabled rd mode as I read that the device will try to fix itself but it still couldn't get through the blinking dots.

Final one is I'm just repeating this process hoping to get lucky.

So, if there's anything else I'm missing plz let me know. I'll be grateful. Thank you.

regards,
Jay

Re: Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

u could try reflashing just the kernel? :)
i had a problem with booting and it ended up being just the kernel

Re: Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

What do you mean by yout tried to flash. Why it failed?

Re: Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

Thanks guys for the replies.
@flipalong: I reflashed the firmware 1.3 and the emmc so the kernel should have been flashed but the problem still persists.
@slender: I reflashed the frimware and emmc successfully, but the problem didn't go. So, I just flashed doing this:
$sudo flasher-3.5 --enable-rd-mode
It set the device in RD Mode and I tried boot up, but again stuck in the same blinkings.

EDIT: Also after some time in the blinking loop, I find the touch vibrate on as if everything has loaded in the background like after a new reflash but desktop is not loading???

Re: Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

quick question..might be silly....

did you restart in between flashing the firmware and emmc?

if you are planning to flash both, u need to exclude the "-R" from firmware flashing, and add to emmc flashing..

Re: Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

No. Flashed firmware without -R and emmc with -R option. Three times now. :(

Re: Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

Something like that has happened to me from nowhere too [here], but, then I removed the battery, waited for about 8-10 minutes and then, I was able to boot the device.

But in my case, I wasn't able to boot the device, was like it was without a battery... I suspected something got inverse powered (once my led got weak, and the screen was weird, sometimes normal and sometimes without light).

But in your case... I have an idea: Have you tried to power it and look against a strong light source? If the problem is with the backlight, you will be able to see if the screen is working.

Re: Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

Are you confident that your battery is fully charged? There is a pretty long history of people who had problems with low battery and their flashing didn't work and since people often don't have a spare battery they never got things working right.

That's one reason why it's nice to have a fully charged extra battery. You specifically mention leaving the battery to charge for 10 minutes. 10 minutes is pathetic, frankly, it needs to charge for hours to be fully charged, and the documentation specifically mentions that it needs to be fully charged to flash properly.

Re: Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

Thanks guys for the response. As I dont have another device to check the battery level, I am definitely not confident about the charge level of my battery. My friend got N900 I'll check in his and do everything again making sure the battery is full.

But for now, I reflashed the firmware and emmc without any reboot in between and tried to boot after, but got stuck in the same blinking dots. I then turned it off. Then flashed as "sudo flasher-3.5 --enable-rd-mode" again and took the cable out and booted. I'm still stuck in the same thing. Now, when the keyboard is slidedout and the display goes off (though the display is only of the blinking dots), my left side of the keyboard where there are "Ctrl" buttons, the backlight blinks quickly and continuously and the right side keyboard backlight stays lit. Does it mean anything coz it should serve some purpose as its in R&D mode?

Re: Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

http://thenokiaguide.com/2010/01/11/...sets-all-data/

try this site reset to factory defualt

Re: Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

The way I understand it, low battery prevents you from flashing. Since you are able to flash then I doubt low battery is your problem.

Re: Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

what a silly advice! the op has done that multiple times....

Re: Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

it just crossed my mind that you could have hardware problems. only issue leaving the device to the dots that I have heard is a counter for dirty reboots that blocks the bootup. and that can be overridden by putting device into rd mode.

and yes, the light blinking tells something but don't know what, maybe service would help?

Re: Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

Thanks again guys for the replies and suggestions.
Now I've made sure the battery is full and going through the process again:
1) Flash PR1.3
2) Without booting flash Vanilla (latest)
3) Then try to boot..

If I'm again stuck with the dots.. I'll flash the device to be in R&D mode and then try to boot again.

After all these, if I still get stuck with the dots while booting, does it confirm that there some terrible problem in my N900's hardware? Thanks.

Re: Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

this happens with me every time i reflash. For me taking out battery and restarting works.

Re: Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

BTW, is there any custom kernel that supports graphical frame buffer, so that its easier to figure out what went wrong and where than just sit and watch the dots blink and in this case forever? I found one but they were all .deb files which in my case are useless and the links were invalid anyway. Thanks.

EDIT: Also what does the: "no initfs \o/" means which I get while starting the device in R&D mode along with other infos.

Re: Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

R&D mode
Quoted from the wiki:

Nicolai

Re: Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

ya exactly. I read the same and was asking if the activity can be identified by the way the backlight blinks :D

Re: Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

Framebuffer kernel, pr1.3: http://mohammadag.xceleo.org/public/...-fb-omap1-pr13

Re: Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

ah! frame buffer isn't revealing anything coz it's getting stuck in the same blinking dots after the msgs are printed and these msgs are hardly readable as they scroll very quickly :(

Re: Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

You need a serial console :)

Re: Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

1. Make sure battery is full

2. Take battery out for a full 10 minutes, take out MicroSD and SIM to rule those out.

3. Reinstall battery, Perform full rootfs + eMMC flash

4. If N900 doesn't work, you definitely have a hardware problem. The framebuffer kernel might tell you what it is but you should look into warranty replacement.

Re: Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

ok now I think the problem is bigger than I thought. Took to the nearest Nokia Care - 1 hr travel in train. Person there suggested me to call some 1300 number (Nokia Careline) to make the international warranty as I bought this phone from USA. Without it he said if he put some software other than US's the phone will completely stop. So I called that number and the guy there is saying that if its not booting up its software problem and hence they can't touch it(is it for real) at all so only thing I can do is send it to where I purchased it from which is US and sending it to US and getting back to Australia which is sth I feared the most :( . So any suggestions guys n does it worth it. thanks

Re: Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

Has anyone who had such booting issue with continuous blinking dots experienced this: At first its like the normal boot, dots blinking. After around ~30 secs I can see that there's touch vibration active (like when you start your device from a fresh reflash as it by default sets the touch vibration on). It kinda feels like, everything is loaded and running in the background, its just these blinking dots not leaving the foreground :@.

Re: Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

They're saying a US model won't work with non-US firmware? I'm pretty sure all the regional firmwares are interchangeable...but try the US firmware just in case.

Re: Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

did u wait long enough to let it boot when reflashed?
cause the first boot takes some time to load.

and did u flash with global firmware?

Re: Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

ya, one whole night :( I falshed with global and US firmware and the eMMC as well. I think I'll give it a try with local mobile repair shops. Do youse think they will be able to fix hardware issues if any coz by now I think I'm pretty sure the problem is with the hardware.. thanks

Re: Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

did u try masturbating to relieve the tension?

Re: Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

How can i check that my n900 is US model or not ?

Thanks

Re: Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

I know because I bought it from US :)

Re: Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

If my N900 from Asia What firmware that i have to use ?

Sorry for my bad language

Re: Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

This is a lie.

Re: Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

I have the exact same problem. The only difference is, I got it to start one time by removing the battery and all cards, for 10 minutes, then turning it on with just the battery. Haven't been able to get it on since. (The battery died and now it won't start up again) stuck on the dots forever.

When you plug it in from off does the phone go into a reboot loop? Mine does...or when you power off the phone from the 5 dots screen does the phone make a low tone as it switches off? Its not the low battery sound..

I think my phone memory is corrupt or something cos when I plugged it in to PC when it did boot I got all sorts of errors

I also bought my phone form US so bad news for warranty. Any other updates on this?

Edit: Oh and yes I also flashed Emmc, enabled R&D mode and did everything else that you did :(

Re: Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

Sad to hear you got the same problem.

When the dots are flashing, within few seconds I feel the touch vibration. When powering it off long pressing the power button in this state I get the sound like powering off normally long pressing the power button, i.e one single sound. About plugging into PC, I was able to reinstall the firmware via Nokia Software Updater after few tries and PC recognised my phone but I couldn't use the mass storage thing maybe because of the fact that we have to choose from the option in mobile to use it.

Latest update is that my device is now in the hands of Nokia Authorized Repair Center in Alabama, USA and even they are saying my device is out of warranty in repair status in their site as I still had few more days left for warranty :) and 'm having trouble getting in touch with them due to this 17 hrs time difference. I'm waiting for Tuesday morning to get more details and also know how much it costs to repair outside warranty and what I have to do to get my device back.

Re: Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

Hmm maybe my problem is different - I don't get the vibration when the dots are flashing. Mine is working to some extent now, but if my battery wastes then I have to reflash! - Everytime! Head wrecking!

I'm out of warranty but have insurance. Let me know how you get on, best of luck with it.

Re: Can't boot my N900 - did everything I found through search :(
 

yey!!! just got the replacement N900 ( looks brand new ;) ) from Nokia today free of charge except for the courier fees and just finished updating to PR1.3... now the busy days start all over again :D