Thinkpads Forum

I'm having a minor problem! I'm deployed to Afghanistan and decided to take a "spare" 600E instead of my "good" laptop. It's dusty over here! Anyway, the "spare" has a bad Trackpoint. That's not a problem, I've been using it with a mouse. But I'd like to disable the trackpoint so I don't get the 8611 error all the time. I can't, however get into the BIOS. I can get into the diagnostics screen, but not the BIOS. I've tried holding F1 down while booting, that doesn't work. I get the error screen where it gives me the option to restart or test (go into diagnostics). I hit "ESC" to bypass that, then get the 8611 on the screen. Hitting F1 will bypass that, and I get the crossed out OK and IBM booklet pic, then it boots into XP -- even if I hold F1. So how the heck do I get into the BIOS??

Has anyone figured out how to bypass the 8611 error altogether, maybe by editing the BIOS with a hex editor? It just delays boot really.

I don't know how to get into the BIOS editor if you can't interrupt that boot-up sequence you described. But if you manage to get to the Config screen (maybe you can do this at the "Test" screen?), then you can follow these instructions to disable the TrackPoint in BIOS altogether:
TP 600E Error message 8611

Caution: I've not tried this myself and can't guarantee that it will work.

Phil.

Thanks, that did the trick! I discovered my mistake in not being able to get into the BIOS through the link and a little exploring on the computer. It's all fixed now!