Thinkpads Forum

Having had good success installing and using linux (mostly ubuntu 7.10) on my old 570's and T40 as well as the new T60, I decided to revive the dusty old 600 under the coffee table to see how it would do in this modern world with a lightweight OS. I knew that it had finally failed to recharge the battery 4 years ago when I finally set it aside in favor of the 560s and 570s I had at that time, but it was a great pleasure to open the lid on that well made case and slide the power button.

But, alas, I was soon confronted with error msgs, 00192 being the most prominent, while I don't remember there being error msgs before! So i powered off, waited, tried again, etc., but the error was persistent. In fact, the full error sequence was 00161, 00192, 00163.

Of course, there is no hope of finding any original documents, although I did find some extra batteries and various FDDs, and I may be able to dig up some HDD-resident docs on the old 570's, but years ago I became dependent on the IBM website for such docs since I thought THAT would last forever.

I suppose that the 00192 must be a HDD problem, which would mean that perhaps I can simply put a small travelstar in and forgo the data on the old HDD, which I probably don't need anyway. Or perhaps a HDD revival expert can deal with it.

I suppose I should fix the charging circuit, which probably requires a new DC-DC which I recall requires a new system board.

Any ideas? Experience? Anyone know a source of parts?

Replacing the CMOS battery should clear the errors. Lenovo has all the documents and drivers on line. The hardware maintenance manual is at http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... WIK-3SYPX2

Yep, CMOS battery. The 192 code is for the cooling fan and the other 2 are because the date/time needs to be set. Don't ask me why, but the CMOS battery replacement fixed my 192 fan code too. Maybe it won't power the fan if the date/time is not set? Thus the code for it??? Anyway, if you do a search for the 192 code, there are several old posts about it.

Good luck.

Oh Crap....
You guys beat me to this with the actual correct answer...

And I was going to suggest he give me his DEAD PC for a song and a dance LOL!

My 600E had the same error, and making the recommended battery replacement completely cured it.

As mentioned by BillP, all documentation and drivers are available.

I have XP on mine, and I'm certain that if I were to max out the RAM it would run rather well. As it is, it's a little clunky..

You got me thinking about trying linux on it....
Hmmm....

Joe

I ordered the CMOS battery thru eBay for $3 (inc. shipping) so that will be soon fixed.

I suppose I should sell this 600 to someone for a song and a dance so that it is put to work, since I don't need it. I wonder where I can find someone like that? Anybody know?

Maybe I should wipe the old Windows system along with any old data and then run the ubuntu liveCD and see how it works. Then I can try a couple of these old 802.11a/b PCMCIA cards laying around here and see if they still work.

John,
I was joking about the song and dance.

The 600 series is quite popular, since the value is somewhat low, and the performance is acceptable.

Let me know how it runs Linux. I was seriously considering giving TinyXP a try...

As mine is currently, it will probably be used in the SUV on long distance trips for DVD's and such for the kids. Last trip to FLA was plagued by snow and wind making it a 27 hour trip both ways. The kids watched all 6 Star Wars movies on my T21. Being the knuckle head I am, I installed a 12V three speaker system for the laptop.

I don't ever want to hear another light saber..... and the kids get headphones from now on.

Joe

Installed the new CMOS battery and no more error codes. I also popped in an additional memory I had laying around which bumped it from 97mb to 163mb (hmmmm, I thought that mem board was 128mb) and that 600 hums right along on the old w2K. I should be able to find a slightly used 32gb HDD around here, so I can clone the W2K and add linux.

Now if I can solve the battery charging problem, which i believe requires a mobo transplant, this thing should fly.

You can still find all the documentation on the Lenovo website.

How sure are you about the battery not charging? Old cells do die after a while. I have had some luck replacing cells in laptop batteries. In fact, the 600 I have would not charge, but replacing the cells sort of fixed it. (The circuitry in the battery has issues, and it won't charge more than 67%. Still I get about 2.5 hours off it)

Joe

I tried all the 600 batteries I had, I think 3 or 4, and concluded the DC-DC was shot. But I'll try again.

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John H wrote:
I suppose I should sell this 600 to someone for a song and a dance so that it is put to work, since I don't need it. I wonder where I can find someone like that? Anybody know?

Does that count?