The power button on my "new" N900 seems to be failing. In the 3+ months I've owned it it was never very responsive, but today when I turned it off I had a very hard time getting it to turn back on. Holding down for a very long time finally seemed to do the trick. Since then I've experimented and the power button is basically completely unresponsive when the phone is on, including when I booted into NITDroid.

Since it seems to respond if I hold it just right for the correct amount of time, I'm guessing this is hardware and not software issue. Is this something where I can maybe open the case and try to clean it out, or if need be replace that part?

Hard to say, without actually opening the case and trying to clean If that doesn't help, replacing maybe necessary, but before doing so, check with multimeter if button is really to be blamed.

/Estel

I was afraid you'd say that, but I'm nervous to turn it off to disassemble in case I can't get it back on again.

So it happened today. My battery ran out completely and the phone shut off. I got it home and charged it up, but I can't get it back on. I thought I'd read something about being able to turn it on by hooking it up to a computer via USB, but I can't seem to find that thread again, and I don't think it was that detailed to begin with. So is there another option besides the power button?

you could set the R&D mode. then every time you insert the battery (or start charging) the N900 will boot all the way to USER mode (not ACTDEAD like when only charging).

so use the flasher to set the R&D mode and your problems will be solved

Thanks. Will look that up and give it a try. Any downsides that I should be aware of?

@dylanemcgregor,

Not really. Check here (http://wiki.maemo.org/R%26D_mode). R&D mode has a number of flags.

* no-omap-wd
* no-ext-wd
* no-lifeguard-reset

The above three you can set to ON in order to disable the hardware and software watchdogs. For your purposes I would leave them OFF so that Maemo will still continue to work "as normal".

* serial-console -- DO NOT SET, REDUCES BATTERY LIFE

* no-usb-timeout
* sti-console

Regarding the above two, their function is not known, so leave alone.

* no-charging -- SET/LEAVE TO OFF

* force-power-key

This is (I think) the one responsible for turning the N900 on whenever you plug the battery, as well as getting rid of the ACTDEAD mode.

The one "downside" will be that your keyboard leds will flash. This is easily disabled by editing /sbin/preinit. Ask if you need help on that. If you fvck up when editing that file, your N900 may need a reflash.

Thanks for the info and links. I followed the instructions and the flasher reported that R&D mode was enabled. When I plug in the phone it flashes with a white screen with some blue text on it, and then starts to boot up. I get the dots on the screen for a couple of seconds, and then the screen goes blank and that's it.

I had just reflashed completely yesterday, after having the battery run out on me a week before and not finding any other way to get it to turn on (holding u on the device keyboard while plugging into a computer got me pretty much the same behavior I'm seeing now when I plug in, minus the initial white screen.)

After reflashing it turned on and everything seemed to work fine (with the exception of the power button, which is still unresponsive).

Any ideas on what to try next?