Hey all, need advice :)

[Katherine]

Hi folks, i've read all the relevant threads and i know that the max processor that a thinkpad 600 can take is the Intel P2 400mhz m-1 i've already got one or two watched on ebay here in the UK.

However i have a few other questions, heres the specs of this particular laptop which i found in the attic of my new house....packaged away in it's box with all the disks and manuals...AND the docking port, obviously the previous occupants didnt bother bringing it with them.

Type 2645 - 450

228800 RAM on post

BIOS Version, Date - IBET37WW, 12/17/98

Intel PII 300mhz

I ran through the BIOS check and the motherboard sometimes comes up with these errors...

SYSTEMBOARD
DEV 086
ERR 22
FRU 0010

Now, i had the 8611 error which i disabled in the CMOS by replacing the 00 with 01 or something to disable the mouse, i have a new 600 keypad on order (from ebay).

I have a couple of questions though. The bios is the original by the looks of it and i seen on the IBM site that there is a new bios, the thing is though this 600 doesnt have a floppy bay, just the CD (which i replaced with a toshiba one) so is there anyway to flash the bios without a floppy drive?

Also, other upgrades. The memory has already been upgraded by the looks of it but is there anything else inside the laptop that can be upgraded or replaced?

Thanks for any help

Katie.

[tfflivemb2]

Hi...welcome to the forum!!

Nice find, by the way....

I believe the the errors that you rec'd were the result of a dead main battery. Try removing the main battery and run the test again.

As for ram, 288 is the max, so there is room to add to it.

I can't remember off the top of my head whether or not there is a non-floppy way to go about performing the BIOS upgrade, but I am pretty sure that the answer was no. I know that there is a battery bypass method though.

Another potential upgrade would be a 5400 or 7200rpm hard drive.

[Wingnut]

Hi Katie, and welcome. Nice find in your attic. Have a look at the Hardware Maintenance Manual (HMM) for your TP to see what the system board error code is:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... WIK-3SYPX2


As for the BIOS updaye, it can be done without a floppy. I have read a couple of posts in here with instructions. But I just updated mine last week and bought a cheap floppy on E-bay. t was so much simpler. I paid under 1 pound for the floppy, but of coarse the shipping made it more expensive. I ended up paying under 10 quid for it and it worked great. Some of the FRU's you can use for your search are 05K8874 05K8808 and 05K2643.

Good luck.

[Katherine]

Cool! Thanks for the quick reply all I'll just go down the road of getting an external floppy for the laptop since i'll end up using this laptop for quick surfing while my Toshiba Sat Pro laptop is charging, it'll be handy having the external floppy since my work still insists on using floppy disks from time to time.

I tried removing the battery to see if those systemboard errors would vanish, but they didnt, it still botts into windows though just fine, turns out after digging even deeper into these boards that it relates to the keyboard mouse thingy, hopefully the new keyboard will solve that

I'll probably need to get a new little harddrive for this as well since the 4gb drive is making some really weird noises sometimes... Still, its a smaller laptop than my toshiba and will be great for work!

[rkawakami]

Welcome to thinkpads.com!

The systemboard error code you listed seems to point to the trackpoint. Since you have disabled it in BIOS, that should have eliminated the boot error code (8611).

The BIOS is very old. The current version is IBET54WW. I'm not sure if there is a factory-supported method for flashing the BIOS from the hard drive. I know that there are newer laptops which IBM/Lenovo have published (the 600X for example). Your best solution is probably what Wingnut suggests; buy a floppy drive. Since you have the docking station and the 600 has an external floppy port, I'd get one like this:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 6855587255

[Katherine]

Yup, just got one on the "buy it now" option

One last thing, i went into device manager and theres a resource conflict...

Intel 82371ab/EB PCI Bus Master IDE Controller is conflicting with 2 instances of Standard Bus Mastering IDE Hard Disk Controller...ive tried removing both of the standard bus mastering instances but they get re-installed. There doesnt seem to be a problem with the HD or anything else though...its just an annoyance seeing that yellow ! in device manager...lol

[pkiff]

One last thing, i went into device manager and theres a resource conflict...Intel 82371ab/EB PCI Bus Master IDE Controller is conflicting with 2 instances of Standard Bus Mastering IDE Hard Disk Controller...

I assume you are running Windows 98/98SE, yes?

This issue is discussed in a number of earlier threads, including:
TP 770X, 98SE, IRQ conflict ???

The error comes about because you (or the original owner) did not follow the correct, complete instructions for installing Windows 98SE onto your machine, and in particular you have not installed the APM2APM.reg file from the Windows 98 "supplemental files disk" properly:
Windows 98 installation supplement files - ThinkPad 770, 600E/X

You should be able to correct this now simply by applying the APM2APM.reg file as directed above.

Phil.

[Katherine]

Excellent! Thank you for the help!