Thinkpads Forum

My husband's cousin recently bought a Thinkpad 600E from a yard sale. It had no power cord, but his girlfriend swears she "knows" it works. Anyway, we got a power cord for it and when we plug it in, it makes this cracking noise (could be the speakers, not sure), the lights flash for one second, then everything's gone. With the battery removed, it does the same thing. With the power cord unplugged, it does nothing at all, no lights or anything. My question is, could it be the battery? Should it run with the power cord even without the battery? What could the problem be? Should we just tell him to take it in somewhere to be looked at?
Thanks in advance.

The 600e should work on AC without the battery in it. Probably something more serious than the battery. You can try removing everything like memory, HD, CD drive, battery and see if anything different happens when you turn it on.

Sounds more like the DC-DC card is damaged. The 600E will run w/out the battery and is advised if you leave on AC power or Docked for extended time periods (several days) so you don't overcharge and kill the battery.
You can find DC-DC cards on ebay as well as almost all the parts neccesary to build a 600 from scratch ... If you like.

Hey same happened to me.
put a new motherboard in it, go to ebay, you can get one for about $50-$70 bucks