600X - Battery Life, Diagnostics and 1 Crazy Question

[willmize]

Well, my new (to me) 600x is all tricked out (max ram, plus Ultraslimbay battery) and I'm ready to go!
I've been reading through the forums and had some questions regarding batteries and battery life, general upkeep and of course, one question that's just so embarrassing I've saved it for last.

1) I read that when running the TP on AC power, you should remove both the Usb battery and the regular battery to extend their life, and only install them when you're heading out the door and intend on running the TP off battery power only. True? Kinda true?

2) Because my batteries are both fully charged, is it a good idea to occasionally run them down to zero? I vaguely remember this extends life, as opposed to running them down to 50-75 and then recharging them on a regular basis.

3) I've read a lot about PC Doctor that Lenovo supplies for getting a good idea on just how healthy my TP 600x is, but have yet to figure out how to run it. My assumption is that it must be run from a floppy or a CD. I tried burning a CD image of it, but that didn't work. It is possible to run PC Doctor from a USB thumb drive to scan and diagnose my C: drive?

4) And now for the question that I'm just embarrassed to ask, but hey - it's bugging me. When I look at "My Computer" is says that I have a A: floppy drive, but I've searched that dang computer over and have yet to find a slot to stick a floppy in. My assumption here is that it's seeing the *port* that I would put an external floppy drive into. Is this correct?

Again, I thank you all for your answers, recommendations and knowledge. I am loving my 600x to Reeces Pieces.

- Bill

[bobgarty]

Hi Bill

1. I haven't heard of that before and in fact if you have a speedstep 600X it would never run at full speed on mains power as it requires a good battery to be installed to step up frequency.

2. IBM's advice is to do that - BUT I have done it before on a battery that regularily lasted over an hour and when complete it lasted a lot less time and showed more % wear than before "reconditioning". so for me the jury is out on that.

3. I run PCDoctor from a diskette created from the IBM installer - not tried a CD - someone here is bound to have an ISO image that works.

4. Yes, the floppy would either go in the bay instead of the CD/DVD/2nd Battery or would be in an external housing that plugs into the floppy port on the right side of the 600x.

[willmize]

Hi Bill

1. I haven't heard of that before and in fact if you have a speedstep 600X it would never run at full speed on mains power as it requires a good battery to be installed to step up frequency.

Hey Bob!
Follow up on that point - I've heard of the speedstep, but how would I know if I had it? I have a 500mhz PIII 600x.

Thanks!

- Bill

[rkawakami]

Bill,

1) Mostly true, but I've never bothered to remove the main battery when plugged in on AC. I'll risk shortening the life of the battery in order to have a UPS (uninterruptable power supply) in the event that I lose power or accidentally pull the power cord.

2) I've done a couple of reconditioning cycles on older batteries and have not seen any improvement (or diminished capacity either).

3) I have a .ISO of PC Doctor for the 600X hosted on my site as noted in this thread:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=30115

I've not tried booting a 600X from a USB drive (of any kind).

4) Already answered.

As to the SpeedStep processor... If your system came with a 650Mhz CPU, then that's a SS model. If you check the BIOS (Easy Setup) main screen, it should say what you have as a CPU.

[willmize]

3) I have a .ISO of PC Doctor for the 600X hosted on my site as noted in this thread:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=30115

Hey Ray!
You know I think I downloaded that image, and burned it to a data disc (on my mac). I thought that a data disc was a data disc, but I may be incorrect, and that's why it didn't work.

There's so much I haven't explored on this computer, or may not be able to since it doesn't have the original IBM seed.

Thanks for your input, I appreciate it.

- Bill

[rkawakami]

Don't know how it works on a Mac (got two but rarely use them), but an .ISO image file is not a standard "data" file. You can't simply "copy" the file onto a CD and have it work. The CD burning program should have a setting/option where you tell it that it's going to use an image file to create the disk. Once done properly, the CD is bootable. You just have to have the 600X boot order defined so that the CD drive is before the hard disk drive. That's done in the BIOS Startup menu.

[Robin Mutoid]

Not so sure that standard fitment of the 650Mhz processor is THE way to confirm a speedstep board. I recently obtained a 600X 500mhz machine and wondering whether it WAS speedstep, fitted the 850Mhz processor out of my other machine. The '500mhz' board proved to be a speedstep. Initial boot on XP was a bit tricky and only succeeeded with the battery removed. Once into the OS I changed the processor driver from 'Pentium III Processor' to 'Processor' (unrorit's advice) and all was returned to normal 'speedstep' behaviour.

[bobgarty]

If the date on your serial number label on the base on the 600x is prior to year 2000 it is unlikely to natively support speedstep - after that for 500Mhz's it is a bit unclear which ones were shipped with the speedstep motherboard and which ones weren't - check the fru of the board - sticker is near the memory slots

[pkiff]

1) I read that when running the TP on AC power, you should remove both the Usb battery and the regular battery to extend their life, and only install them when you're heading out the door and intend on running the TP off battery power only. True? Kinda true?

1) Mostly true, but I've never bothered to remove the main battery when plugged in on AC. I'll risk shortening the life of the battery in order to have a UPS (uninterruptable power supply) in the event that I lose power or accidentally pull the power cord.

I have a spare, almost dead, main battery that I use sometimes when I know I will be plugged in for a long time so I don't add additional wear to my good battery. But I found I got tired of constantly swapping them, so now I rarely remove my good one. I do, however, keep the UltraSlimBay battery out except when I'm unplugged.

2) Because my batteries are both fully charged, is it a good idea to occasionally run them down to zero? I vaguely remember this extends life, as opposed to running them down to 50-75 and then recharging them on a regular basis.

2) I've done a couple of reconditioning cycles on older batteries and have not seen any improvement (or diminished capacity either).

My experience is similar to Ray's on this, but if you want to learn more about battery theories and some specific issues related to the 600 series, you can consult:

How to prolong lithium-based batteries (BatteryUniversity.com)

and

IBM ThinkPad 600 Battery Page (Milnoc - Francois Caron)

Phil.

[Robin Mutoid]

Serial date on that 500Mhz 600X is /99.

Re. Batts. has anyone managed to find the way to tweak the battery pack into giving out an overall (average) voltage reading rather than individual cell-pairs? It really sounds as if that's what the problem is?