I happened to receive a Nokia N900 by mistake from Nokia. I have a friend in Canada, her name is Giulia. She had a N900 and sent it in for repairs/replacement because it had some kind of a problem with the phone memory. The Nokia manufacturer she sent it to is based in Texas. Well, apparently Nokia Care doesn't do international service! They sent her broken phone straight back to her! She IM'd me one night and asked if I could do her a favor. She asked if she could give them my address (I'm in Arkansas) instead of hers so the replacement phone would be shipped to me. In turn, I would ship it back up to her. We agreed to do this. I received the replacement phone from Nokia, and promptly shipped it up to her. When I got home from shipping it off, I noticed another package dropped at my door from UPS, exactly like the one Nokia sent. They sent me another replacement phone, brand new, unlocked, from the factory!

I asked her about this and she said she's fine with me keeping it if I want to. We thought about calling Nokia and letting them know, but because these are replacement devices under a warranty there was no monetary transaction made. Giulia figured since she's not getting charged for them, it's no big deal. Nokia still hasn't contacted her about their error.

Because it's a replacement, it came with no battery or accessories. I guess they assume I already have those. So as a thank you given the circumstances, Giulia bought a battery, a wall charger, and a micro-USB cable (all official Nokia products, not third-party) and had them shipped to my address. I just got them yesterday.

Now to the problem at hand...

The battery appears to be working and the phone is currently charging through the wall charger. The light will flash yellow as its charging and eventually it'll turn green minus the flashing, which I've learned is normal behavior. So, I think it's charging just fine. But when I turn the phone on, it goes to the regular loading screen with the five flashing dots...and it just stays there, hangs. The system doesn't actually boot.

Any idea why it's stuck at the five dots and not booting?

Thanks,
Phil

if the phone is on it's first boot , it stays for a while at the flashing five dots screen (not more than 3 minutes though) , if it is stuck for too long then try booting without the sim card , as some one previously reported his phone to get stuck because of the sim card .

if you think it's really stuck and it takes forever, just re-flash it , no big deal .
re-flashing the phone is really easy , if you don't know how , people here can help .

Try flashing it. It will solved the problem.

Its easy. only 2 steps.
1 put your N900 in the toilet
2 Then hit flash

Hehe just joking. You're so lucky. Thanks for sharing your story. I recomend you do some reflashing. It will probably fixed it.

you lucky d.., just reflash it should work fine.

I'd say reflash too - even if the sim card thing solves it, it's a very good idea to learn how to flash and i think it's better to learn now while the device is clean than when you have it set up how you want it. Plus, it'll need the latest firmware and although this can be done OTA i much prefer flashing it

and now you posted in on a nokia-sponsored site...busted! jk.. nokia can't be bothered to read the threads around here.

Are you sure it's a new phone? They sometimes send a replacement and ship the broken phone back too. They did that with my N95 years ago and I was irritated too...

its a refurbished phone.. reflashing will sort your phone out

Oh damn, I envy you! Try reflashing and let us know if it starts working.

Out of curiosity, is this the behavior her old phone had? Maybe they sent it back as well? If so, that would explain it.

Re-flashing is a simple thing to try really. Worst case, it's still busted, and you spend 20 minutes learning how to do a trivial tech task, no major loss. Best case, you get a cool working phone out of it. Good luck!