Thinkpads Forum

Hi

Does anyone out there have any thoughts on this?

I have an old 600X machine whose CMOS battery failed (it has a superviser password set which I know!). As a result of the battery failure it gives the usual 161 163 errors and wants to go into Easy Setup on each boot. Up comes the superviser password prompt and I enter the password and is says OK but it then just hangs with a blank screen and flashing cursor. It appears to be trying to access the floppy but putting in a bootable disc does nothing.
Presssing ENTER instead of putting in the password does the same thing. I get the feeling it would boot if only it did not insist on going into setup to make me set the time (but as it never gets that far, I can't!)

I am presuming the BIOS has become corrupt but if so, I am not going to able to do anything about it (am I?) as I can't get to a point where I can run a program. Presumably it is not possible to avoid Easy Setup when the CMOS configuration settings have been lost.

Does anyone have any bright ideas or is this machine destined for spares?!

Thanks
Jason

jds123 wrote:Does anyone have any bright ideas or is this machine destined for spares?!

Replacing the CMOS battery should put the machine right. It's forgotten the BOOT order and is simply failing to find a bootable media.

James

JHEM wrote: Replacing the CMOS battery should put the machine right. It's forgotten the BOOT order and is simply failing to find a bootable media.

James

Thanks for posting but unfortunately I've already tried that and it makes absolutely no difference whether there is a new CMOS battery, a dud CMOS battery or NO CMOS battery in situ - the machine does exactly the same.
I believe the problem is that I can't get far enough through the startup sequence to set the time as the moment I expect it to go into the time setting screen it just hangs.
My limited experience suggests that without setting the time, the machine will ALWAYS want to enter setup before it will go any further and it doesn't seem to be able to do so.

I believe you have to initialize in bios to accept the new battery. This is what happened in the 600e I am bringing back to life.

Just a wild thought, and maybe it won't help (but it shouldn't hurt either), the next time you have the 600X powered on and in the hung state, try depressing the reset switch (located between the power button and the USB cover. The initialize function that vanaya mentioned is within the Config menu of Easy Setup; if you can't enter Easy Setup, you can't access the initialize button. You may also want to try to de-populate the system as much as possible (including memory modules) and see if that helps.

(edit: Has there been any CPU upgrades made to this machine?)

Thanks for the suggestion - I tried the reset button idea but that hasn't made any difference either.
I've already stripped the machine of memory and hard drive.
Floppy drive is in the bay but removing it doesn't help. The CPU has not been touched (as far as I know - this machine was bought second hand but some time ago now).

When in the "hung" state, the floppy drive light and motor are on (and stay on, usually indefinitely) but inserting a disc (even an "official" bootable BIOS update disc) does not cause it to be read.
No keys seem to do anything at all - except that after pressing a dozen or so you get the "buffer full" beep.

My bad.. I thought jds was having to set date each time computer was restarted.

Must read thread a BIT closer...

Okay, here is one last thing that I can think of, short of opening up your laptop and poking around. It probably won't work either based upon what I just tried, but hey, who knows unless you try...

Hold down the F12 key while powering on to access the boot menu. "Enter Setup" should be the last option displayed in that menu.

I installed a supervisor password in one of my 600X systems and then re-started the system. Booted normally. Re-booted, holding down F1 to make sure the password was activated (it was). Turned off the system, removed the CMOS battery and shorted out the pins in the motherboard battery connector (to insure that the CMOS was lost). That should have simulated what your laptop went through. Turned the laptop on, received the plain text boot screen (i.e. NO graphical IBM or Thinkpad logos) with the installed memory and 173 and 163 errors codes, followed by the lock prompt. However, in my case entering the password led me to an Easy Setup error screen and then the time setup. I tried the F12 boot menu key and there was no difference in the boot procedure. It still led me to the time setup and not the boot menu. I also tried holding down a random key during POST. I got the expected 301 error but again, no difference in the way that Easy Setup operated.

At this point the only other things I can suggest is to open up the system and re-seat the processor board and look for any obvious signs of damage and broken connections. You can also try shorting out the pins in the CMOS battery connector on the motherboard and leaving both batteries out for a day or two.

You seem to have gone to a lot of trouble to investigate this and I appreciate it your efforts. It sounds as though you have recreated my problem exactly except that you get past the blank screen to the Easy Setup error screen after entering the password whereas I don't!

As you have found, pressing F12 whilst switching on does not help.

This has been a problem for several months and I removed the dud CMOS battery ages ago so it has spent plenty of time without any batteries in it.

I will open it up and have a look around but I am not feeling confident of solving this problem! Thanks a lot for your input.

Jason

jds123 wrote:You seem to have gone to a lot of trouble to investigate this and I appreciate it your efforts.

I enjoy these troubleshooting exercises. I have fooled around with electronics since a teenager and work as a test engineer so I have a very curious and analytical mind (drives the wife crazy most of the time! ). Sometimes I end up learning things about these Thinkpads in the process.

jds123 wrote:I will open it up and have a look around but I am not feeling confident of solving this problem!

If you do find a solution to this problem, please post back in this thread as it may help others who encounter the same issue.