maemo.org - Talk - TRULY Bricked N900? Help needed for analysis

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- - TRULY Bricked N900? Help needed for analysis (https://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=58885)

TRULY Bricked N900? Help needed for analysis

Hey there guys, I don't mean to add to the whole horde of people claiming to have bricked their N900 (when in reality they only need reflashing), but I seem to have REALLY bricked my N900.

While it starts, it gets stuck at the loading screen after boot, indefinately (yes, I've left it trying to load for a day).

So, I did what any sensible guy would do and reflashed it. What I found out was while it COULD take rootfs reflashing, it seems to NOT be able to have its eMMC reflashed (gets stuck in the loading screen, flasher NEVER detects eMMC. (and yes, I have reflashed both successfully a couple of times before).

So, a dead N900 that starts but could never go to desktop and cannot be reflashed? I'd say it's bricked.

And no, this is NOT a hate thread or a flame thread or a rant thread (and I hope it could be KEPT THAT WAY). I just want to find out what went wrong so that I can avoid it in the future.

And as you can see below, A LOT could have gone wrong.

Okay, a bit of background, the N900:

1) Is 3 months old, bought back in April.

2) Is used constantly and heavily (I blame you guys).

3) Has most of it's system files modded directly by replacing the files in /usr/ and /etc/.

4) IS OCed with Titan's kernel, using starving voltage settings at 500-850.

5) (in respect to voltage adjustment) Has NOT shown any problems playing video files or recording them. Camera has been working fine as well.

6) Has NOT shown any obvious signs of data corruption, save for a few occasional reboots/lock-ups each week.

7) Has been dropped, say, a couple of times - usually clad in a hard rubber case of some sort (for the last week or so, an Otterbox).

8) Had 84.4MBs of free rootfs (prior to its demise).

9) Was running PR1.2. Has been reflashed a couple of times.

8) Used a symlinked dpkg cache relocated to /home/.

9) Had Nokia Maps relocated and symlinked to /home/opt/ as well.

10) Has the bootmenu-rescue stuff (by robbiethe1st) installed. Also tried to use it PRIOR to the first reflash - TO FLASH THE eMMC.

11) <ADDED> Has been partially disassembled a few weeks before to tighten the slider by a bit (it was getting uncomfortably loose) by liberal use of electrical tape (the TehkSeven way).

Next, these are the steps that led to the device's embrickment:

1) Was using the device as usual, 6 browser windows and was downloading something.

2) Device slowed down, most probably due to stuff being thrown into swap.

3) Restarted device.

...

4) DID NOT PROFIT.

So guys, what did you think went wrong.

And by the way, I'm intending to get the device repaired, or failing that, get another N900 and use the old one for parts. I just got TOO used to the N900 way of doing things, and can't go back to anything else now.