Thinkpads Forum

Waiting for a new 600X to arrive in the mail. What would your best guess be on the problem?


Seller states-

Damaged LCD (displays vertical colored lines across entire screen - see photo). Works with external monitor. BIOS is not accessible. The laptop displays the error nos 161, 163 and 611 on the external monitor.


What bothers me is he says BIOS cannot be accessed. Also I am unable to find much info on error 611

Ideas?

I *saw* this one on eBay! Fell into my 600X parts/repair search algorithm but I passed it up. I was going to ask about the "611" error. but since I really had no intention of bidding on it, I decided to not ask.

My best guess would be a video ribbon cable issue, as long as the LCD itself is physically intact.

The 161/163 errors would be a dead/missing CMOS battery. The BIOS not being accessable could simply be the keyboard ribbon cable being loose from the Sub Card, which may also account for the 8611 error (trackpoint).

I hope thats it, I have the proper parts on hand to fix it if thats all thats wrong.
I am willing to bet that this laptop took a fall of some kind
By the way, I got it for $35 shipped from Canada

Yeah, I saw. Nice deal if you can get it working again. What's your opinion on the black "mark" next to the right-side speaker? Is that a hole or simply some paint (or missing paint)?

Its just the paint, or lack of. A new palmrest will definately be in order

Cannot get into BIOS might also mean there's a supervisor password on the systemboard.

It seems like I remember a 611 error on a 600 series I tried to put in a 600x processor, it plugged in fine but had some issues.


EDIT: I'm going from memory on this and was just thinking I could have had that error msg from trying to use the wrong RAM, it was one or the other.

Update-

Just got the laptop today and gave it a look.

The LCD is trash, the keyboard is no good, and there is a password set, so the motherboard is also garbage......It seems I payed $35 to have a mmc-2 500mhz cpu with fan as that is all I can think I may ever be able to use from this system

if i were you i would experiment with the Hmmm.... Never mind... I musnt speak of this

so the 611 was 8611...

sorry to hear the bad luck

you can keep it and strip out parts... find a laptop with a dead LCD backlight and you can use that sell the individual keys on e-bay for 50 cents a piece. if the case is good then keep it for parts...

jamerslong wrote:if i were you i would experiment with the Hmmm.... Never mind... I musnt speak of this

And so my experiment begins

I haven't used my 600E in 2 years - thought I's dust it off and see what's there. I can't login. I get the 161 and 163 errors. After I update the date/time, I'm getting an error that jsut says Off -> on. Is this indicative of a CMOS battery failure? Where is the battery? And last - but not least, which battery does it take (model/part #)??

Thanks, and Cheers from Southern Maryland.

Bob H.

Yes you need a new CMOS battery, you can one real cheap on eBay;
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0146872167

Here are the instructions on how to replace:
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... IGR-4YQMN7

Moderator edit: Shortened URL to prevent horizontal scrolling

Thanks for the quick response!

Cheers!

The LCD is trash, the keyboard is no good, and there is a password set, so the motherboard is also garbage......

What makes you think the LCD is bad? In the picture, the backlight was working and the vertical bars could be due to a faulty GPU signal, bad LCD cable or bad connection. The palmrest is no good, but again, in the photo, the keyboard doesn't look that bad and might be at least useful as a spare. And as for the password... well No comment.

Seems to me that for $35 you got quite a nice collection of spares... I'd be more than happy to take it off your hands for the same price - but if I were you I'd turn down the offer.

What makes you think the LCD is bad? In the picture, the backlight was working and the vertical bars could be due to a faulty GPU signal, bad LCD cable or bad connection. The palmrest is no good, but again, in the photo, the keyboard doesn't look that bad and might be at least useful as a spare.

Well, I have tested the lcd in a known good machine (including all the cables) and it gives the same results, so.......

And when you get 8611 errors with a keyboard in several different machines, its junk

Well, I have tested the lcd in a known good machine (including all the cables) and it gives the same results, so......

Have you also put a known good LCD in the questionable machine? It would be interesting to see if the LCD display is then OK or also streaked. I'm just wondering what would cause an LCD panel to act that way, assuming the video signal is OK. The first thing that comes to mind is the cable, the second some problem with the mainboard connectors, and the third a GPU problem on the mainboard itself. Or has anyone heard of anything similar to this that was actually caused by a defective LCD panel rather than something connected to it?

Yes, I did hook up a good lcd to that board, and there is no problem with the board at all (except the password)


The problem is definitely with the panel........


Before putting computer parts in my dumpster (which I did with this panel) I make sure that without a doubt it is of no use to me.