Thinkpads Forum

Ive recently gotten a Thinkpad 600E from my grandmothers friend. Came with the original carrying case. Main lithium battery holds a good charge. Anyway, I turn it on for the first time and i get the usual ram count then also errors 161 and 163 which i know already were cmos errors. I knew that you could just remove the old cmos and press OK to boot a floppy or cd, but that does not work. I have no idea why. When i get home the next day i remove the old cmos and change it out for a CR2032 using the original wires and connector from the old CR2025. That doesnt change what happens at all. When i get to the error screen (the one where you press OK then set the time to boot a disk) and press OK or Cancel it tells me to read the manual. Then i find out that on that check the manual screen its like its completely locked up. I cant do anything not even ctrl alt del to restart the laptop works. Ive never owned any thinkpad before so i dont know what to do with this, although im no stranger to vintage pc hardware. I tried doing a bios update but i cant even boot a msdos boot disk. If you need anymore info i can try to do some testing. Ill also add some pictures (my pictures are so big ill add them as an imgur link) and the 2 reddit posts i made. Any help would be great!

images: https://imgur.com/a/lLCjQ0W

reddit post 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comme ... _fix_this/

reddit post 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comme ... os_errors/

Having seen this kind of thing dozens of times my guess is your replacement battery still is not adequately powering the CMOS.

I'd start again with a brand new 2025 battery, connect a fresh set of wires to it and start again.

I have ordered some new cr2025 cells and will do that.

solidpro wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 09, 2025 5:50 pm

Having seen this kind of thing dozens of times my guess is your replacement battery still is not adequately powering the CMOS.

I'd start again with a brand new 2025 battery, connect a fresh set of wires to it and start again.

Nope still doesnt work

Well, the 770 which is much the same era will not let you boot the machine with a dead CMOS - same manual and locked up screen, and I suspect the 600 is much the same. Did you actually set the time and date to current?

It would be a different error, but does the machine have a verified working boot device?

I know it has a hdd and it doesn’t click so I’m assuming it’s fine. It should have a copy of some kind of windows. As far as I know it was never wiped. I’m unable to set the time at all it doesn’t let me.

1st i thought the CR2025 plug could be attached in a wrong way, but it looks fine on the pic, like in my 5FGs.
(iirc the "mere" 600 has a slightly smaller plug, may also have the polarity switched)
Ofc the cables on the battery could still be flipped, best check with a multimeter etc.
2.6V should still work, 2.9 i have never seen failing to provide sufficient power.

A missing or dead CR2025, btw i prefer to use 2032, will not prevent the machine from booting,
either [esc] or(and?) [F1] should bypass the halt and allow to enter bios
Since date should be on default due to empty Cr20xx, iirc there should be no need to quicly hit [F1] when its turned on,
but better try it nevertheless.

If the 600e does not find a bootable drive, it will, again iirc, display an "animation" of a floopy inserted in a diskette drive,
i.e. a HDD with mechanical issue should also not prevent to access the bios.
Ofc the drive could cause elextric issues, e.g the 5V shortened to gnd.
If in doubt pull it, even though the hdd connector doesnt like to have the pins inserted many times,
especially when they are not perfectly straight, or a HHD with the cage missing is not alligned well when pushed in.

Last not least the tiny chance the eeproms content may be corrupted, e.g. bc someone made a mistake when he tampered it for reasons,
messed up in such a way the machine cant boot at all.
Think i have a working 600e bin sitting on one of the old HDDs if you should really need it,
but there were two different bioses for two different 600e types, so i would guess the bin could also be type specific.
(the bin contains the type Nr, so its not a gamble if you know your 600e type)

hth a lil, even though my crystal ball failed to spot the actual cause.