600E: Ultra slim bay battery running alone and external monitor and parallel ports’ cover

[pantelis_1973]

Dear friends, I was already a T495s and a T60 owner when I stumbled around a 600e at local bazaar in Thessaloniki, Greece. Even though it was in a filthy condition it was so hard to resist. Such a classic IBM ThinkPad, such a beauty! I was successful in bringing back to life this beauty after spending quite a few hours ... Runs 98 SE and serves me as a (fabulous) typewriter (Office XP). Plus, a decent retro (MAME) game machine. No plans in internet browsing with this one. Though Ttwo issues pending. The original battery is dead and it is so hard to find a new one. On the other hand, I noticed there are plenty of ultra slim bay batteries available, the ones that fit in 600e's ultra slim bay. Could one operate a 600e only with the ultra slim bay battery? In addition, the external monitor and parallel ports’ cover is missing. I’ve spent hours of searching for a spare part but unfortunately all my efforts came in vain.. Any suggestions? Thank you so much for dedicating some of your time reading my post.

I wish you all the best,

Pantelis Braikidis

[rkawakami]

I believe you can use the 600E with just the Ultraslimbay battery, but it's been a long time since I've used any 600 series system. Those batteries were not designed to run the laptop as long as the main battery. All things being equal, you might get 2/3rds the run time. If you can find a genuine IBM main battery, it's probably going to be at least 15 years old. "New" batteries will be aftermarket parts that might last longer than the original batteries since they will use newer (higher capacity) cells. One other option is to see if you can find a place that will "re-cell" an old pack but make sure they offer a good guarantee.

As far as the port covers go, they are just a piece of plastic that is glued onto the laptop's base. The "hinge" is simply a thin part of the plastic that is flexible. So after many uses and/or time, they will eventually break. The glue can also fail over time and the whole thing just falls off and is lost. About the only place I know of where you could find them these days is eBay.com. You can always try posting a LF (looking for) or WTB (want to buy) thread here in the Marketplace forum. They may have been sold as pieces in an accessory parts pack from IBM when the laptops were new but I doubt you can find one today. One thing to consider is looking for a whole "parts" system (non-functional / broken screen / etc.) or seeing if you can find just the laptop base with all of the needed ports still in place.

Good luck!

ref: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/UltraslimBay_Battery
ref: https://thinkpads.com/support/hmm/hmm_pdf/09n1033.pdf (Hardware Maintenance Manual for 600/600E)

[pantelis_1973]

Thank you so much for all this valuable information. I really appreciate it. Best regards from Thessaloniki, Greece