Thinkpads Forum

My 600X had the CMOS battery die... I think. 163 and 173 errors, and it wouldn't boot even after changing the clock.

I got a new CMOS battery, and had one 163 error, but now the machine still won't boot: Power on, memory count, IBM logo, ThinkPad logo, screen clears, blinky cursor as if it's going to boot... waits... screen turns off... waits... power on. Repeat.

I do have a supervisor password set, and know what it is, but holding F1 when I turn the machine on does nothing.

What's my next step?

Since no one has replied yet, I thought I'd post details of my experience of getting a 600X locked into an endless reboot cycle. This may not have any common links with your situation other than the reboot cycle itself.

My machine does not have a supervisor password, nor did I have a bad CMOS battery that needed replacement. I am still not quite sure what brought about my endless boot-post-blinky-blank-beep-reboot sequence.

However, my current theories are that it was caused because I was switching around various hardware components on a multiple-hardware-profile, dual-boot (98SE/XPSP2) machine and the BIOS got confused about what the current hardware set was. Or that it was caused because I switched around my IDE "channel" configuration in Win 98SE by enabling the 3rd IDE channel in the ThinkPad config utility and that my BIOS got lost about where my actual boot drive date was supposed to be coming from.

In my case, I was using a SelectaDock III with my 600X and the incessant reboot cycle only occurred when I tried to dock the system, not when I used the laptop standing alone. I was able to solve the problem by pulling all of the extra devices out of the SelectaDock III, deleting the docked hardware profile, and then booting up in the Dock.

Now, everything is working fine with 3 hardware profiles and two OSes.

It is hard for me to figure out whether there is any common element in my endless reboot sequence and yours, but maybe you can see something common there?? Do you have more than one hardware profile? More than one OS? Have you got any additional hardware devices that you can detach? Is you boot partition on C: with no other fancy boot loaders? Have you tried to reset the BIOS using the pin-hole behind the power button?....

Phil.

Thanks for the response, Phil.

I have only Linux on the machine. It doesn't get close to actually booting an OS; there's just the blinky cursor, and the screen goes blank. So, it's not OS configuration, nor hardware profiles.

However, I will try the reset button. Then removing all of the hardware (but I only have two batteries and the hard drive installed). If that doesn't work, I'll try reflashing the BIOS. The BIOS checks very early for a BIOS update floppy... maybe it's just for situations like this.

Bah.

With the automatic rebooting, can you still access the BIOS? If you can, trying going in an intiializing the BIOS again.

P.S. Welcome back!

I cannot access EZSetup (BIOS). Holding F1 at power-up does nothing different. An initialize would be awesome.

whizkid wrote:I have only Linux on the machine. It doesn't get close to actually booting an OS; there's just the blinky cursor, and the screen goes blank. So, it's not OS configuration, nor hardware profiles.

I see. You've definitely got a different situation then.

Note however that there is some kind of BIOS-level check of the current hardware set that occurs prior to launching into the OS startup sequence. On my machine, my reboot sequence also occured at an early point during the boot cycle -- the F1 Easy Setup key would not stop my reboot cycle from repeating either, so I also could not get into the BIOS. In my case, I've got this dual-boot XP/98 system and the first stage of a normal boot is the boot loader screen asking which OS to boot with, but the constant reboot that I was experiencing occurred before that screen even got loaded.

I don't know the technical details, but I think this hardware check is what allows the machine to detect that you are starting the computer with a different hardware profile than the last time you booted. Based on what I observe with my 600X, if a new hardware profile/config is detected, then the machine will stop the boot sequence before getting to the OS, while the screen is blank except for the cursor, and there will be one high-pitch beep, a short pause, then a second high-pitch beep, then the machine will pause for a while before issuing a low-pitch beep and rebooting, starting with the memory post again. When things are working correctly, the boot process then proceeds normally.

So my theory is that it is somehow possible to create a corrupted config/profile record somewhere in the BIOS that results in this constant reboot.

Bah.

Indeed! Good luck with things.

More twiddling...

What happens is the memory count is displayed, then the IBM logo, then ThinkPad, then the normal beep, screen clear and blinky cursor.

Then there's a higer-pitched beep, the screen turns off, there's a wait, then another high beep and it starts all over.

I removed the memory, both batteries, the CMOS battery and plugged into AC, and the same thing happened. I pressed the reset button (which I was surprised to find turns the machine off), to no effect.

I tried several times, trying slightly different things in different order to no effect.

After putting the CMOS battery back in, I got to enter my supervisor password to set the clock, and then right back to not booting.

I fear there's a BIOS bug that won't be fixed, and I'll have to get a replacement system board.

Anyone?

If you are able to access the BIOS (Easy Setup), then check the order of the boot devices (under Startup/Power-on) icons. If all appears fine there, then try clicking on the Initialize icon (under the Config icon). If neither one fixes your problem, you could have an issue with the motherboard.

Was the anything else on the laptop that was changed recently?

I cannot get into EZSetup.

whizkid wrote:After putting the CMOS battery back in, I got to enter my supervisor password to set the clock, and then right back to not booting.

Ah, sorry, I took that statement to mean that you were finally able to access the BIOS.

Have you tried booting with the hard drive removed? I read back through your posts and saw your note about only having the batteries and hard drive installed, but didn't see that you have tried booting w/o the HD. Sorry if this re-hashes something you've already thought of...

Yep. I did try it with the hard drive removed. No change at all.