I couldnt help notice that the n900 will not charge with dumb usb chargers. is there a way without soldering the middle 2 usb clips together, to get the n900 to charge?

Can this be done with software? or is this a hardware issue?

I'm not sure what a dumb usb charger is. It charges with anything I try to charge it with.

If you've got some soldering skills I imagine you can do a custom USB female -> USB female adaptor which simply shorts the data pins.

Thats not a bad idea indeed. but is it a software issue in the n900 or is it the hardware and cant this be changed with software.

@geneven, a dumb charger is a wallcharger that has both connection pin + and connection pin - not connected together and cannot communicate with the n900. if both aply the n900 will not react and wont charge. Most of the chargers i have like the solar charger 4x AA battery charger and my wall charger, i did modify so it would work. but i dont understand why de n900 cant charge without using the datapins.

There must be a way to fix this with a small piece of software?

There is an old thread on this forum where people have done exactly that. But also discussions on other possible solutions. Search for it and you should find it (it has lots of replies)

I would guess hardware, since a dumb wall charger outputs more current than USB from a computer. That means that the N900 must be able to tell the difference, and this is the way it's done.

(The above is what I think I have read and is not necessarily correct)

@stl paul, this stil doesnt answer my question if it can be fixed with software. on that thread wich died out, they only discuss different cables. i want to know if i can tweak my n900 to accept dumb chargers

There's no way to do it without soldering AFAIK.

I have a dumb charger from my car using 'belkin micro charge'

When I bought this, it is not working as other N900 users. I have no soldering skill and tools with me so I gave up initially.

One day, I plug the usb cable into N900 (and try again) but nothing happened. So I pulled the usb cable out. I got a status message from N900 telling 'Charger is being disconnected' (you tried this out yourself). Strange as charging never happened but it could detect charger disconnection. At that time, I guess some pins hit the N900 for charging while I pulled the usb cable out.

Then, I connected the usb cable (dumb charger) again. Try to lose the connection, move the connection in/out (but keep cablie-N900 contacted).... while I keep moving the cable for 10sec, N900 can charge!!

Magic anyway, if you dont understand, I try to capture a video and post it to youtube. please let me know.