Jun 28 2005
Reviving dead hardware: IBM Thinkpad 600
I had an old IBM Thinkpad that I bought used at a local computer show for Dena. A Pentium II 233Mhz with a 5G hard drive and 192M of PC100 RAM. Not exactly high end but hey, it’s a Thinkpad and it was fairly cheap.
After she got her Powerbook I installed Debian on it and used it as a backup laptop. A buddy of mine needed a machine for a while so I lent him the Thinkpad. I eventually got it back a year or so later but it wouldn’t boot. Instead it greeted me with the BIOS error code “161, 192, 163″, which is computer speak for “What the fuck, I can’t remember who or what I am.” I did a little googling and found that this Thinkpad uses a very standard battery for CMOS, the CR2025, which can be bought damn near anywhere. I picked one up at Radio Shack for under $3.50 with tax.
Getting to the BIOS battery is painfully easy. Remove the cover housing the memory and pull the top piece of memory. You might be able to work around it but why bother. From there, you can disconnect the battery lead and pull it free. It’s just sitting there waiting for attention.
The guy at Radio Shack was in awe of the yellowness of the battery. Apparently he’s unfamiliar with modern marvels such as “shrink-wrapped plastic”. In any case, we’ll be cutting off the plastic coating shortly.
Cut away the plastic coating. The negative and positive leads are stamped into the surface of the battery so you have to pry them off carefully. I used the flat blade of a screwdriver to work the lead away from the battery.
Putting it back together is a bit of a cheap hack but it seems to work well enough. I cut small strips of electrical tape to secure the leads to the battery. I made sure to wrap the exposed leads to the wire so that there is no chance of them coming into contact with each other or anything else metallic in the case. Then I wrapped the entire thing for safe measure. Putting the battery back in place is easy, just reverse the process. Tighten it up and you’re ready to go.
The first time you power it up you’ll get another BIOS error code, this one telling you that you need to set the date/time. It’s an ugly screen but it works.
This quick and simple hack has given this old Thinkpad a new life. Armed with a fresh install of Ubuntu and a wireless card, I’ll be rigging this up as a semi-permanent member of my wardriving setup.
Dude; I’ve got a Dell PII-400 that I’m thinking of doing the same thing to, so let me know how it turns out. Of course; your Jeep’s got more interior room than my SRT-4, so I may just skip this project.
I can’t get your RSS/Atom feeds working in NewsGator (desktop). I’m getting a 404 error for /feed/ and it’s not retrieving feed/rss/, although I can see that inbrowser.
Handy tip there for the 600 chassis. I nearly had the entire thing apart
Dude thanks. I just fixed my old stinkpad 600 the same way. I just grabbed the nearest 3V Li battery I could find (out of my keychain flashlight) and taped it to the leads. I had to flatten out the IBM contacts after prying them off the factory battery. First time I ever fixed a laptop with a ball peen hammer. Thinkpad 600 rules!
I replaced my battery , and I’m still getting the 161, 162. I just press enter when asked for the password. I was told I needed to know the password is this true, since I never had it before
Um, those batteries are crawling all over ebay. Either the same price or cheaper than Radio Shack. I have the same laptop, the battery is still good.before it was given to me somebody decided to upgrade the ram from 32 to 288. Sweet jesus.
Thanks, worked perfectly on my 600E tho I soldered the wires on to the new battery I got from Maplins for £1.99!
sweet…works like a dream and as easy as it sounds ! Any 3V will do it.
J’a un portable IBM type 600 le Bios code Comment decode S.V.P
I had the same Thinkpad 600 problem and your article was a solution. Thank´s for a good article
Thank you!My friend’s ThinkPad 600E is now as good as new!I did have to flash the BIOS (I hate doing that) to get the 161 and 163 to go away, but, all is well now.This is a GREAT hardware hack!Regards,Robert
mi laptop tiene problemas al encender salen los siguientes codigos de errores 163 ,161. Se que es bateria baja y fecha-hora lo que significan pero la laptop, despues de dar la contraseña aparece el mensaje otraves de los errores y solo me da,dos opciones aceptar o cancelar,,,si acepto o cancelo, aparece de nuevo los errores con una flecha indicando hacia un manual o libro y se detiene el boot de la maquina… la verdad es que no se que puedo hacer;ya remplce la bateria por una nueva y sigue el problema.
This just happened to my ThinkPad. I had never seen this before so I too did a Google and ended up here. Thanks for a great post and with pics too. This was a great learning lesson and it didn’t cost me anything except the battery. Kudos!
hey i have 1 laptop ibm thinkpad and the laptop have 1 password in bios tell me what can i do to cancell that password.PLZ SEND me 1 email.pal whith respect mendi.
Very good article…I was able to fix my dead laptop within $5 budget and your valuable advice.
You da man…………… You helped me look good and I made some money too!!
YOU DA MAN !!!
Excellent solution …be careful if you solder on the tags on the new battery..mine must have got a bit hot and leaked a bit of electrolyte but it still worked though but could be dangerous.All the same,excellent work.
Wow.. you solved my problem bro! Thx alot.
Code 192 is ‘fan not working’ according to the manual so I pulled everything to bits, couldn’t find it, so put it back together and the same 3 faults appeared. Decided to bin it but found this page. Excellent.
Has to be the best page on the ‘net!
This is a cool hack, I have not tried it but complement you on your intelligence. Some people would just tear the motherboard to hell but you didn’t. Great hack!
Acid Matrix
Hello,
having read everything in this forum I’m astonished about my still remaining 161/163 messages.
Even with an 3 V charger wired to the CMOS contacts they remain.
Has anybody an idea to that subject??
Best regards from Germany…
Thank You!!!!! I was about to sell my laptop for forty bucks when I found this page. Worked like a charm. $1.99 for the battery at Office Max.
Thanks, my laptop Thinkpad 380D works again. I’ve bought a Varta’s Battery (CR1212) for 2.5EUR replaceing my old Sony (CR1220) both of 3Volts.
Gracias, ya funciona, reemplazando la bateria todo ok, me habia asustado ya que no tenia ganas de llevar el portatil a repararlo.
Doesn’t work for me. As some of the guys above I still experience the errors 161/163. What to do?
Dude, you totally ROCK! Fixed my Thinkpad after days of panic using this hack. I thought mine was a goner for sure. Got a Radio Shack battery and followed the instructions easily. Simon, I would say that you don’t have the battery connected correctly, or the leads are touching each other or something. Try another battery? I had the same problem – 161 & 163.
Yup. Awesome. Thanks!
i tried and failed like some of the outhers error 161\163
I TRIED THIS METHOD AND IT FAILED ,TRIED 3 DIFFERENT NEW BATTERIES ,STILL GET 161 163 TRIED HOLDING THE F1 BEFORE POWER UP UNTILL THE 2 BEEPS STILL WILL NOT ALLOW ME TO ENTER THE BIOS CONFIG I GET THIS PASSWORD PAGE WITH A PADLOCK WHEN I HIT ENTER IT SAYS OK THEN SHOWS ME A NEW BLUE PAGE WITH A BIRD FOR A MOUSE POINTER AND THE OPTION S OK OR CANCLE STILL SHOWING THE ERROR 161 163 WHEN I CLICK OK IT SHOWS ME AN ARROW AND A PIC OF WHAT I THINK IS AN MANUAL AFTER THIS IT FREEZES PLEASE SOME ONE HELP VERY FRUSTRATED LOTS OF OTHERS ON THE NET HAVE THE SAME PROBLEMS AS ME
Tired replacing the battery. Still requiring me to input time and date. Get to another window that still has 192 code. Fan not bad. What next?
I have the EXACT same problem as allan (two posts above).
I am trying to get it to work for two days… I am pretty sure the BIOS battery is OK, because the 192 error is gone, but I can’t to a thing because of the other two errors.
I have red most of the documentation on the subject on the net but
1. I cant get to BIOS menu because of the two errors (just as allan said above)
2. The error codes are confuzing, because 161 should mean (according to IBM) dead battery – but I have just changed the battery and the other error (code 192) dissappeared bu this one didn’t
In the (unlikely) case I will find a fix for this problem or at leas a certain answer to it, I will post back here (and on the other forums that raised id).
Just wanted to thank you for a perfect solution to my problem that came up first in google and did all i could ask for! You have made me a happy camper today!
Thanks!
On my IBM 380D, it uses a CR1220, which when read, was only 1.0V, should be 3.0v. It initially posted 161, 163 errors, but when I replaced the battery it then went to posting 173,163 errors. Reset the time, rebooted and everything was great. Thanks guys…..
Thanks for this inofrmation, in my case whe I try to remove the battery I removed the conector too, there is any schematic of the motherboard to soldering back again the connector? I do not know where positive and negative goes.
Thanks
Thanks. Worked a treat. I had a battery for my car remote, which is actually broken not a matter of changing batteries. Unlike some others I had no problems with new or returning errors.
Now to fix why it insists running scandisk every time it boots.
OK, regarding allan’s problem (and mine) listed above, namely
hitting the Enter gets you passed the PASS screen but then locks no matter what you do, the answer is
ALTHOUGH IT LETS YOU HIT ENTER AS PASSWORD, YOU ARE LED TO A DEAD END, BECAUSE OF INCORRECT PASSWORD. YOU __NEED__ THE RIGHT PASSWORD. ENTER WILL NOT DO.
As someone put it, someone at IBM has a sick sense of humor letting you believe you passed the password check.
I tried thid solution and I changed 3 batteries without any result. Any extra suggestions
thank you stefan i will find away around or the actual password
ADAM – THANK YOU!! Your most generous post has revived my laptop. I only use it as a word processor, but “it’s back baby!” I realize not everyone has found success with it (for varying reasons) – but I followed your post step by step, and it solved my 161, 163 errors after a re-boot, all for a $5 battery! I’m so thankful – cheers!
Great. I was given this Thinkpad 600e with 161 and 163 codes. Changed the battery and it is up and running. Great!!! Cougar
This is superb, thanks very much. Just needed one final reboot after entering the date and now works perfectly.
Thanks
If you’re still getting the 192 Error after a battery replacement do the following:
1. Re-measure the voltage on the battery it has to be 3Volts or higher. Move your voltage meter probe contacts on the neg. and pos. sides of the battery to see if the voltage varies. If it does drop below 3V as you move it around, it’s most likely a bad battery, get another new one.
2. Be sure you are replacing it with a CR2025 Lithium battery.
3. Poweron with the F1 key held down, you need to get to the BIOS Config option and Initialize it once.
4. Poweroff and then on again to see what error codes you get.
5. You may need to reset the date and time if you haven’t already done this.
6. Poweroff/on again to see if the error codes still appear.
Good Luck! This was my own experience with a Thinkpad 600.
Rather than removing the memory, with the cover removed it’s easy to find the bright yellow battery clipped in place towards the front edge of the laptop. If it’s difficult to pull out by hand, a pair of haemostats used gently can pull the battery out of its clip; replacement batteries with the leads already attached are easy to find on Ebay. I have a Thinkpad 600E.
Man, this totally rocks. If only when I reattached the battery to the laptop, the “female” part of the attachment hadn’t broken free… Looks like this laptop is done.
That worked perfect for me. Excellent description. I soldered the wires to the battery, which is actually critical because of the heat. “burned” the first one.
Thanks
Replaced battery CR2025 – still posted 161, 163 errors. Reset the time, rebooted and everything was great!!!! Thanks!!!!!!
Ok, Allan and Stefan and now me. I know the password on my 600x. I didnt know about the password-erase shorting pads so i disconned the battery. Now its just like allan and stefan: 161 and 163 errors. BUT IT WONT TAKE THE PASSWORD either. I hit enter, blah blah u guessed it- dead end, no access to bios. WTF???? It worked perfect before i removed the batt, it tested good with 2.8v. This all happened 2 hours ago. I saw earlier a page where someone claimed to know the default ibm password, i am now going thru my history to find it. I will post it here when i do.
Thanks for any help- I cant make any money without my computer!~~~~~~~~
That default IBM password is Balti. I dont know how they know this, when it can be used, or what. Just passing it on, maybe it will work for someone else. It didnt fix my problem though.
I did the same hack and it had no effect whatsoever. I’m beginning to think that it may be a problem with the CMOS and BIOS circuitry, which I cannot do anything about. So long Thinkpad 600E…(which I recieved with a “Y2K Certified” sticker).
Yes, it is old.
HEY MAN I WAS ABOUT TO THROW AWAY MY LABTOP AND I THOUGH I WOULD RESEARC HONE LAST TIME AND IT ALL LET ME UP 2 YOURE PG THANX 2 U I FIXED MY IBM 600 THANXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
thank you so much for the detailed instructions with pictures
google picture search led me here 
Dude. thx so much. I invertently went to RS and bought a battery but wasnt sure that that I could just replace it like that. The RS rep was in such aww that he told me to buy the battery and the soder the the connections. But now I know that I dont have to soder anything and it worked like a charm, many thx.
I’ve had a similar problem but I can get to the date and time screen (shown above) easily. I just have to do it every time I start up (initially I get the 2 beeps and the 00161/00163 error message). Do I still need to replace the battery?
Thank you for this excellent article. I searched Google and found this article, acted upon and everything worked fine for my Thinkpad 600E.
thansk for the info… had my 600X almost completely apart looking for the battery and decided to google it and found your article. simple and cheap fix! nevermind the main battery doesn’t hold much more than 10 minutes of power anymore but its nice not have to set the clock ever time i power it up now. installed fluxbuntu and gave this little notebook another year of life.
Similar problem to all but I cannot get past the screen that shows a book after error screen, checked CMOS Battery 3.i4V please help
tengo una ibm 600e y aparece el error 161 163 luego suena el beep dos veces, dandome la opcione de ok o cancelar, le dio ok pero jamas me aparece la pantalla para cambiar el fecha y hora alguna sujerencia
thanks that really helped me!
Awesome tips; I have a ThinkPad 600 sitting right here next to me with the same error codes/same problem. Let’s see if i can use this fix to get it to work. Thanks a lot for the article!
FIXED! Thanks a ton man!
I changed the battery and still had the 192 error.
ThinkPadUser’s note on holding down the F1 key worked on reboot. I’m back in business as well.
Fixed my 380D Thinkpad by replacing the Sony 1220 with a Maxell 1220 (both 3v lithium) bought at a local battery store for about $3.00. No cable or connector involved; just popped out the dead one and put the new one into the slot. When I turned it back on, it showed the error message that sent me to the ’set the date’ screen. After setting the date, it was back to normal. Thanks.
if anybody still gets on this website and knows how to fix the 161 and 163 error after replacing the battery please tell me how, people been asking but nobody wanna help nobody, what do we do.
If you still get the 161 and 163 error after changing the battery I had to reboot about 5 times with the F1 key held down in order to get to the configuration screen. Then hit initialize. This worked for me. Good Luck
Adam,
Thanks for the instructions. First I tried looking for the battery myself, taking the computer almost completely apart and still couldn’t find it. Then I Googled it and there it was! Well, I don’t read instructions manuals either, before I have to
I installed a Varta CR 2025 (1.80 euros)and don’t need to setup the date and time anymore at each start.
do as told above and if you are still geting the error the hold F1 though the bootup
if it works BUT u cant get past ur old password or the one set, (not the BIOS pass) then reboot in safe mode
run > cmd > net user> net user (enter user’s name) *
set new pass and your in problem sloved
Too easy! Worked like a champ.
Just got an IBM 600 from a friend and he said it’s been working fine in till now. Here’s the problem. On start up there’s a 161 163 error which I know is the dead CMOS bat so I ordered one and replaced it and here is what it does.
1. On POST boot shows 064960 kb OK
161
163
2. There’s a picture of a lock with a floppy or HD
3. I press OK
4. A black and light blue screen with a stop error 161 163 then giving me option of OK or Cancel.
5. When I press the Enter it shows the same light blue screen with a arrow pointing to a instruction booklet.
My first thought was there’s a BIOS password in order to get to the BIOS setup to configure the date/time. Is there a jumper that can reset the password? I’m trying not to take this notebook apart. I have woks on note books in the past and this is a pain in the neck…
Any help would be great Adam..
Well guys I kind of knew the answer but I was looking for a easy way and it’s simple.
On the IBM 600 model the start up will continue to say the errors 161 163 in till you set the correct time and date. For those who have the stop hand and the blue screen that would mean there’s a BIOS password on the system so unless you have it there no setting it up to reconfigure.
I found out the hard way that since theres a password and I don’t know it I would have to replace the EEPROM chip that has the password embedded on it and you can get this from ebay for about 5 bucks..
Worked for me also! Thanks again for keeping this up to help others!
thanks for great tips! Worked like a charm! There is a terrific glue (like instant glue) called ‘Bondini’, sold at WalMart, that works like solder on wires & electric components. An electrician showed me.
Your help was Brilliant!
And yet another person you have assisted! This was a perfect and VERY economical fix. I think I spent $3 for the battery on eBay, including postage. Put it in, set the date and my ole Thinkpad was running again. Thanks!
Thank you for helping.
WOW…this is magic! Soldering was not successful (solder wouldn’t adhere to the battery well enough), but the electrical tape seems to work just as well. Booted up, set the time, cycled the power and we were good to go! Thanks for providing this wonderful “public service”! You ROCK!
You can buy a replacement battery on E-bay for $2.94 with free shipping. Is in the yellow wrapping.
Great Tip! I’m writing this message from my newly restored 600x. I ordered the battery on e-Bay. I’d recommend this option. Just unplug the old battery and plug the new one in!
Hi,
I replaced batteryset time and date then I get a screen with this: O > | with off and on beneath them and I cant get past this screen.Any help I would appreciate, thanks.
Hi Orsi,
The O > | message is asking you to turn off the laptop and then power it back on. When it restarts it should be ok. Sometimes I’ve had to re-enter the time/date a second time before it remembered it.
Jeff
Thanks a million! After seeing your pix and taking your advice, I bought a battery on ebay for 2.95, no postage. The leads came with it, so all I had to do was plug it in after removing the battery cover.
I’m a senior citizen, so if I can do this, anyone can. I promised this laptop to a friend, and just before I sent it, it died. You’ve saved me from an embarrassing moment.
Thanks again.
I followed the directions above and now my TP 600 boots to a black screen. There isn’t any beeps or error messages but the battery indicator is flashing orange. Fans are spinning as normal. Help?
I have changed the battery, but the error 161 and 163 refuse to go away. I think it needs the password. Is anyone aware how to reset the password?
My problem is similar to that of Daniel above.
Thanks
NOTE: The RED lead goes to the POSITIVE side of the battery.
Also,
- It’s not necessary to remove the memory board. The battery slips out easily.
- Tweezers help to remove the tiny plug from its socket and put it back.
- Soldering doesn’t work. It tried that once. Electrical tape holds just fine.
- Be sure that the lead on the negative side does not cross the lip of the positive side. Add a small piece of tape where the lead crosses the lip.
- I saved the yellow jacket by slitting it along the side and put it back over the taped battery.
- CR2025 batteries are available at most drug, grocery and big box stores if there is no Rat Shack nearby.
Hey Adam,
Thanks for the info! This is exactly what I was looking for. I have a 600e I got off of eBay, and after a year of use the CMOS battery has gone belly up. I’m loving that these Thinkpads are both durable and maintainable (even if they are totally slow now).
Worked great. Just replaced the battery in an IBM Thinkpad 600X that i’m using as a serial console
Worked on a 600x! Thanks for the tip!
Thanks! I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to share this information. It helped me quickly fix an old IBM Thinkpad 600 for my dad. I’m loading it up now w/ Ubuntu & will get an external video/tv card so he can use it on on the big screen t.v.