Just bought a 600E

[beshad]

hey guys.

just bought myself a neat condition 600E. always wanted a 600 series and this one came up locally, i grabbed it for NZ$50. few things about it though, 1) screen starts with a very red tint but it completely goes away after a while, i am guessing the CCFL is on its way out, am i right? does it make sense to replace it now (while there are replacement parts available) or just put up with it until it dies? 2) i get this message while booting and it hangs there: https://ibb.co/YbbXqHW what does this mean? no hard drive comes up in the BIOD test, will test the HDD out of laptop but could this error message be HDD related? 3) while the overall cosmetic condition is without blemish, sadly the door for external floppy port is broken off https://ibb.co/sFxQPxM can replacement part be found and can this be fixed? tried to lift the remainder broken part off the chassis but it is not separating easily and i didn't want to break more stuffs.

by the way, seller had a Thinkpad 130 and R31, both immaculate, 130 sold for NZ$36 and R31 for NZ$30. should i kick myself for not bidding more to win those too? there was so little information about the 130 (Japanese market only?!) which i didn't know if its worthwhile, same with R31, i assumed anything from R series is not much a collectable valuable.

cheers

[TheForgottenKing]

hey guys.

just bought myself a neat condition 600E. always wanted a 600 series and this one came up locally, i grabbed it for NZ$50. few things about it though, 1) screen starts with a very red tint but it completely goes away after a while, i am guessing the CCFL is on its way out, am i right? does it make sense to replace it now (while there are replacement parts available) or just put up with it until it dies? 2) i get this message while booting and it hangs there: https://ibb.co/YbbXqHW what does this mean? no hard drive comes up in the BIOD test, will test the HDD out of laptop but could this error message be HDD related? 3) while the overall cosmetic condition is without blemish, sadly the door for external floppy port is broken off https://ibb.co/sFxQPxM can replacement part be found and can this be fixed? tried to lift the remainder broken part off the chassis but it is not separating easily and i didn't want to break more stuffs.

by the way, seller had a Thinkpad 130 and R31, both immaculate, 130 sold for NZ$36 and R31 for NZ$30. should i kick myself for not bidding more to win those too? there was so little information about the 130 (Japanese market only?!) which i didn't know if its worthwhile, same with R31, i assumed anything from R series is not much a collectable valuable.

cheers

CCFL is on it's way out

Possibly a bad CMOS

HDD error could be HDD or motherboard

You might be able to find the door, not really needed

130 you should indeed kick yourself, that's quite a rare oddity from the looks of it

R31 is nothing special but not a machine to be ashamed of, I have an R32 and it's a quite nice purchase for $16.10

[beshad]

I thought the 130 might be something special. Believe it or not there was one thing in my mind stopped me from buying it: Finding replacement parts for a rare thinkpad is not easy. I am already struggling to find part and fix a backlight in a 750C and that's not even exactly that rare. I don't think I would have much problem finding parts for 600 I guess. I notice even AliExpress sells parts for 600 series!

[Screamer]

should i kick myself for not bidding more to win those too? there was so little information about the 130 (Japanese market only?!) which i didn't know if its worthwhile, same with R31

No, because those machines are not highly upgradable.

The 130 was simply a garbage-tier i-Series 1300 with a Japanese keyboard, and the R31 is a decent but a strange machine that doesn't allow you to hot-swap anything found in its Ultrabay Plus drive. Either way, I doubt that they are worth anything to you.

[beshad]

should i kick myself for not bidding more to win those too? there was so little information about the 130 (Japanese market only?!) which i didn't know if its worthwhile, same with R31

No, because those machines are not highly upgradable.

The 130 was simply a garbage-tier i-Series 1300 with a Japanese keyboard, and the R31 is a decent but a strange machine that doesn't allow you to hot-swap anything found in its Ultrabay Plus drive. Either way, I doubt that they are worth anything to you.

So I guess I picked the best out of the three he had 600e seems an interesting machine

[beshad]

I took the HDD out and it works fine in other machines. It's not detected in 600e BIOS when I run test. Any idea?

[Bondi]

Re boot error - are there any beeps?
I'm checking the HMM https://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/p ... 9n1033.pdf
but it does not mention this kind of error screen...

[Bondi]

found the description of the screen in USER's manual https://www.manualslib.com/download/753 ... -600e.html

"This message appears when you restart your computer and after you change
the IDE channel from 2 to 3. Power off the computer and wait at least 5
seconds; then power it on again."

[Jefferson]

To remove the remaining piece from the base, use hair dryer to heat up the plastic and the piece should easily come off with a bit of prying. When heating up the plastic, I would cover up the rest of the base with thin booklet, or whatever u can find.

I happen to have a port cover piece and I've been pondering the best way to attach it on my 600X, which is also a brand-new condition. Because those port covers are attached with some kind of heat treatment, theres no easy way to attach them that would be as clean as factory-installed. Since floppy ports are frequently used anyway, I'm leaning toward leaving it alone.

[beshad]

To remove the remaining piece from the base, use hair dryer to heat up the plastic and the piece should easily come off with a bit of prying. When heating up the plastic, I would cover up the rest of the base with thin booklet, or whatever u can find.

I happen to have a port cover piece and I've been pondering the best way to attach it on my 600X, which is also a brand-new condition. Because those port covers are attached with some kind of heat treatment, theres no easy way to attach them that would be as clean as factory-installed. Since floppy ports are frequently used anyway, I'm leaning toward leaving it alone.

thanks. probably not the best solution but i was considering using black epoxy and neatly fill the 2mm gap between the broken piece and the remainder still on chassis and convert it to kind of semi-permanent door. i know it won't be easy to access the port after that (likely my repair separates again if opened) but i don't have an external floppy drive with that type of port anyways, so how often would i actually be needing to access it? can i boot-up from CD drive as i need to install Windows?

[beshad]

found the description of the screen in USER's manual https://www.manualslib.com/download/753 ... -600e.html

"This message appears when you restart your computer and after you change
the IDE channel from 2 to 3. Power off the computer and wait at least 5
seconds; then power it on again."

thanks for the manual. i got it and it will be very helpful. i thought before i do anything i must replace the CMOS battery because i know they can cause all sort of BIOS errors. HDD is wiped and no OS on it now but it seems to be working fine when used as an external drive on my other machines. i change the CMOS battery tonight and report here.

[Jefferson]

thanks. probably not the best solution but i was considering using black epoxy and neatly fill the 2mm gap between the broken piece and the remainder still on chassis and convert it to kind of semi-permanent door. i know it won't be easy to access the port after that (likely my repair separates again if opened) but i don't have an external floppy drive with that type of port anyways, so how often would i actually be needing to access it? can i boot-up from CD drive as i need to install Windows?

It really depends on your usage. At the least, you'd need to use W98 booting floppy disks to partition the hard drive, etc. Even if you have the recovery disc, it offers little to no option for partitioning the hard drive. and if you are like me, you'd go through several different hard drives and even SSDs because, well, just because Once you get the system set up with proper USB driver, you wouldn't use the floppy too often but then by that time, you may move on to another Thinkpad

I wouldn't perform the port cover repair until you are pretty much done with it and are ready to box it up

[beshad]

thanks. probably not the best solution but i was considering using black epoxy and neatly fill the 2mm gap between the broken piece and the remainder still on chassis and convert it to kind of semi-permanent door. i know it won't be easy to access the port after that (likely my repair separates again if opened) but i don't have an external floppy drive with that type of port anyways, so how often would i actually be needing to access it? can i boot-up from CD drive as i need to install Windows?

It really depends on your usage. At the least, you'd need to use W98 booting floppy disks to partition the hard drive, etc. Even if you have the recovery disc, it offers little to no option for partitioning the hard drive. and if you are like me, you'd go through several different hard drives and even SSDs because, well, just because Once you get the system set up with proper USB driver, you wouldn't use the floppy too often but then by that time, you may move on to another Thinkpad

I wouldn't perform the port cover repair until you are pretty much done with it and are ready to box it up

agreed, by the way is there an internal 1.44 floppy drive for 600 series? all i can see for sale online is external with enclosure.

[Jefferson]

It really depends on your usage. At the least, you'd need to use W98 booting floppy disks to partition the hard drive, etc. Even if you have the recovery disc, it offers little to no option for partitioning the hard drive. and if you are like me, you'd go through several different hard drives and even SSDs because, well, just because Once you get the system set up with proper USB driver, you wouldn't use the floppy too often but then by that time, you may move on to another Thinkpad

I wouldn't perform the port cover repair until you are pretty much done with it and are ready to box it up

agreed, by the way is there an internal 1.44 floppy drive for 600 series? all i can see for sale online is external with enclosure.

yes. my 600 came with external enclosure that can fit both FDD and CD-ROM

click for pic (warning: the link has one picture)

https://cafe.naver.com/tpholictalk/23948

[beshad]

yes. my 600 came with external enclosure that can fit both FDD and CD-ROM

click for pic (warning: the link has one picture)

https://cafe.naver.com/tpholictalk/23948

awesome so i kind of don't need that SCSI port if i buy a 600 external floppy as i can swap the CD player with floppy if needed, can't i?

[beshad]

just finished replacing the CMOS battery and that also solved my HDD error (https://ibb.co/YbbXqHW) plus the obvious error 161 and 163. rebooted and tested OK the HDD in BIOS. no OS installed. funnily enough i initially formatted the HDD using Debian and now every time i boot i get Grub error 17 message, even-though i reformatted in Windows few times after. not a big deal i only need to sort out a floppy drive and install an OS of my choice and all should be good.

this turned out to be a good buy, excluding the red tint CCFL issue and missing port door the laptop is in an excellent cosmetic and likely operational condition. i am also impressed (and happy) with spare parts availability for 600 series. anything i search for there are people selling them on eBay.

BTW, do all these 600 smell?!!! mine smells like inside a vacuum cleaner lol

[Jefferson]

yes. my 600 came with external enclosure that can fit both FDD and CD-ROM

click for pic (warning: the link has one picture)

https://cafe.naver.com/tpholictalk/23948

awesome so i kind of don't need that SCSI port if i buy a 600 external floppy as i can swap the CD player with floppy if needed, can't i?

From what I know., the floppy port on 600 is IBM proprietary but the same port is used on 770 and few other Thinkpads.

Yes, u can swap them but under typical Windows 98 installation scenario, you'd need an access to both CD and floppy so I dunno what good it's gonna do.

Besides, I'm positive they are not hot-swappable...

[beshad]

Yes, u can swap them but under typical Windows 98 installation scenario, you'd need an access to both CD and floppy so I dunno what good it's gonna do.

i am bit confused with this! if i recall correctly, on my 380XD i booted via a bootable DOS disc and made the C:\ bootable, then booted without floppy and installed cd-rom drivers and ran WIN95 setup file from the CD. is WIN98 different?

[beshad]

agreed, by the way is there an internal 1.44 floppy drive for 600 series? all i can see for sale online is external with enclosure.

yes. my 600 came with external enclosure that can fit both FDD and CD-ROM

click for pic (warning: the link has one picture)

https://cafe.naver.com/tpholictalk/23948

might need your help on this pls. do you think this would work?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-THINKPAD-1 ... 3305131954

pulling the cd player out an inserting this one

cheers

[Jefferson]

yes. my 600 came with external enclosure that can fit both FDD and CD-ROM

click for pic (warning: the link has one picture)

https://cafe.naver.com/tpholictalk/23948

might need your help on this pls. do you think this would work?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-THINKPAD-1 ... 3305131954

pulling the cd player out an inserting this one

cheers

mine has the following #

ASM P/N 05K8804
FRU P/N 05K8874

it looks identical to what i have but the numebrs don't match,

but then the IBM numbers are so convoluted sometimes it gives little meaning to what it's actually compatible with...

do it as your own risk

[beshad]

might need your help on this pls. do you think this would work?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/IBM-THINKPAD-1 ... 3305131954

pulling the cd player out an inserting this one

cheers

mine has the following #

ASM P/N 05K8804
FRU P/N 05K8874

it looks identical to what i have but the numebrs don't match,

but then the IBM numbers are so convoluted sometimes it gives little meaning to what it's actually compatible with...

do it as your own risk

i did that as my own risk and bought it lol

btw, did you get my message on your other post about missing floppy port door? where did you buy that cover from?

[Jefferson]

mine has the following #

ASM P/N 05K8804
FRU P/N 05K8874

it looks identical to what i have but the numebrs don't match,

but then the IBM numbers are so convoluted sometimes it gives little meaning to what it's actually compatible with...

do it as your own risk

i did that as my own risk and bought it lol

btw, did you get my message on your other post about missing floppy port door? where did you buy that cover from?

i removed the port cover from my brand-new 600 and tried to install it on my 600X. But as soon as I removed it, I realized that it wasn't installed with

double-sided tape(which was what I was hoping) but some kinda heat treatment sealing from the factory.

I suppose I could use super glue or something like that but i didn't care for the inevitable glue-residue. At this point, i think i'm gonna just leave it alone.


you are not gonna find a brand-new port cover but i suppose you could find another 600 in decent condition and remove the cover from it

but it's probably not worth ur time and effort and this coming from a guy who's pretty obsessed with Thinkpad

[beshad]

i removed the port cover from my brand-new 600 and tried to install it on my 600X. But as soon as I removed it, I realized that it wasn't installed with

double-sided tape(which was what I was hoping) but some kinda heat treatment sealing from the factory.

I suppose I could use super glue or something like that but i didn't care for the inevitable glue-residue. At this point, i think i'm gonna just leave it alone.


you are not gonna find a brand-new port cover but i suppose you could find another 600 in decent condition and remove the cover from it

but it's probably not worth ur time and effort and this coming from a guy who's pretty obsessed with Thinkpad

yeah i see. luckily i still have the broken piece although there is 2mm strip missing between the fallen off piece and remainder still on the laptop. as soon as i have done with the OS installation and USB/PCMCIA drivers planning to use black epoxy to semi-permanently attach it. at least that open port won't be an eyesore