Trackpoint mouse

[rogermagic]

Any idea how to replace the trackpoint mouse on the thinkpad 600E?

THe red small trackpoint mouse is dead on my thinkpad and the bios is giving sometimes error 8611...

any ideas if this mouse comes with the keyboard and is it easy to replace and where can i find parts?

Any input is appreciated.

Thank you in advance.

[BillD]

You have to replace the whole keyboard...Check Ebay....

[rkawakami]

Ah, beaten by BillD's response as I was typing this...

The trackpoint usually comes with the keyboard. Although it is held in with four screws (I'm looking at a keyboard that has a dead trackpoint), you have to remove at least four keys (G, H, V and B) in order to get to them. Assuming you don't break the keycap's tiny clamps or the pins that they snap onto, then it looks like a simple matter of removing the four screws holding the trackpoint. I don't have a tiny enough Philips screwdriver at the moment to do that. I can only assume that once those four screws are removed, the trackpoint falls out. I'm not sure exactly how the trackpoint is electrically connected to the keyboard.

Given all that, you may want to try to remove the trackpoint from the keyboard but you might have a hard time locating just a replacement trackpoint. As BillD says, eBay is your best bet for a source for keyboards; I was not able to find anyone selling a separate trackpoint for the 600 series keyboard.

If you can't/don't want to go that route, then you can disable the trackpoint and use an external mouse. If you cannot get to/use the Thinkpad Configuration program in Windows to disable the trackpoint, then I believe this might help:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=25461

It explains how to disable the trackpoint by using an undocumented procedure on editing the BIOS.

Good luck!

[BillD]

Yes,thx for mentioning the BIOS hack..Even though I have used that hack on a 600e I have with a dead trackpoint I forgot to mention that..

Keyboards on Ebay run anywhere from $20-40,it's according to when you're looking...As RK mentioned if you want to save the money just do the BIOS hack and then your 8611 error will be gone.. Even if you could find a trackpoint I wouldn't reccomend trying to replace it ,it looks like trouble...

[rkawakami]

Even if you could find a trackpoint I wouldn't reccomend trying to replace it ,it looks like trouble...

It is... To settle my curiousity I decided to take apart a keyboard that I removed a few months ago which had the 8611 boot error.

http://www.rkawakami.net/ibm_600x/trackpoint/

In short, not something I would do either.