N800 no longer wants da elektrikxx.
 

Well, that's it. I plugged my N800 in for recharging last night and it wouldn't. Recharge, that is. No funny sound, no animated battery icon, nothing. At first I thought I had a wonky charger, but my old 770 charged just fine from it.

So I tried a few things; different charger, swapped batteries with the 770. left the N800 with battery out overnight... nothing worked. It still won't charge. The charging plug looks normal, nothing is wobbly (at least, not wobblier than before), nothing looks weird inside, so I guess something must've broken deeper inside the tablet. I'd send it back, but... you know.

Re: N800 no longer wants da elektrikxx.
 

Guess that Pandora can't come too soon?

FWIW I never use the N800 to charge batteries anyway, I have an external charger and spare batteries for that.

While it is may not be the end of the world, I still wouldn't want my N800 to be faulty in that regard either. So, a bit of a bummer really.

Re: N800 no longer wants da elektrikxx.
 

I figure I'll use my 770 as a battery charger for the remainder. It'll certainly lower my N800's uptime statistics though...

Re: N800 no longer wants da elektrikxx.
 

Maybe the power socket is faulty.
My n800 fell (a long time ago), it almost broke the plug (it was bent) and the socket.
I had to push a tiny amount of foam in the socket, behind the negative plate, so that it made good contact with the almost broken plug.
It worked for many months, then the plug broke completely, so I replaced it with a cheap ca-100 (usb charger) knock off from dealextreme.
It worked for 2 weeks, then it stopped working.
I simply pushed a couple of strands of fine electrical wire inside the plug. It's been working well since last august (from time to time I have to put another couple of strands of wire).
I don't know if the cause of the problem is the cheap plug or the half broken socket, but I don't really care as long as it works.
You could try it as well, just be careful not to short the contacts of the plug (the strands have to stay completely inside the hole of the plug, so they shoul be 5-7mm long).

Re: N800 no longer wants da elektrikxx.
 

Well, I've compared the powersockets in my 770 and N800 (they appear to be identical parts) and from the outside they look the same. No apparent damage is visible, the center pin is in the same position in both sockets and appears to be of equal length in both devices, there is no noticeable wobble in the N800 (both sockets wobble a bit when the plug is inserted; I mean: The entire socket wobbles, including the plastic surrounding) and -- most importantly -- I didn't do anything destructive to my N800 prior to it giving up. It just refused to charge.

As I'm uninclined to perform surgery on the thing, I'm probably going to wait until my Panda arrives before sending it back to Nokia; my 2 year warranty doesn't end until January 17.

Re: N800 no longer wants da elektrikxx.
 

My "Millenium Falcon" N800 took a bit of shear damage to the charger port when I carried it around connected to an external battery charger; it now is extremely finicky to charge. I found I got a better connection by taking a jeweler's screwdriver and carefully prying the metal plate on the outside ring of the hole so that it touches the plug better, but that doesn't sound like your problem.

It sounds like your charging port had a weak solder point, and that has broken somehow. I agree, if you can return it under warranty, that's better than opening it and resoldering the connection. I really hope the Pandora comes on time, you're cutting the warranty close by waiting to the end of this month...

Re: N800 no longer wants da elektrikxx.
 

I had a similar problem with one of my N800's. Mine was self induced though by having the polarity wrong on a generic charger and plugging my N800 into it. Quoting GreyGhost from another forum "Electronics run on smoke, if the smoke gets out it stops working"

On my N800 this caused a small surface mount fuse to go bad. I ordered a replacement fuse and have it at home but have not replaced it yet to see if this was the only damaged part.

Not sure if if the cause of your problem is the same as mine but the symptons are the same.

These are very very tiny components and unless you have experience with soldering these small Surface Mount Components I would have some else do it. I have the schematic on my home PC and can get more info tonight if you need it.
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Re: N800 no longer wants da elektrikxx.
 

This is very interesting... Thoughtfix's picture of the open N800 shows the charger isn't even soldered to the board, it is embedded into the plastic back of the N800, and it just has two contacts that press against the board... So if that board gets separated enough from the charger port, it would stop making connection and stop charging... Try pressing the charger port upwards (towards the "face" of the N800) while the charger cable is in the port and see if you get any response... maybe just pinching that area while the charger is in...? very interesting...

Re: N800 no longer wants da elektrikxx.
 

That's weird; inverse polarity should normally not be a problem for the tablets. In any case, the battery's circuitry has amenities for that. In any case, I haven't used any new charger, just the ones that used to work (and came with the tablets).

As to my soldering skills: I haven't got any.

Re: N800 no longer wants da elektrikxx.
 

Tried pushing up and pinching. Fail.

It has to be either the contacts or Dan's fuse suggestion -- although it must have been blown by a stray cosmic particle then, because I'm extremely anal about the things I shove into my electronic gadgets (perv pun obviously intended).