Service Forum

[Raybies]

Hi I bought an old IBM 600 at a garage sale and I'm getting the old run around with the password, It shows me error 161 and 163 and refer to manual. I cannot get into the bios to update the time and date. I have replaced the backup battery, held F1 while powering on, tried to clear the password by shorting out the password pad while powering on. No luck.
Why would anyone bother with such an old laptop you ask???? Stubborn I guess, or nuts!!!!
Anyway I,m now trying to read the eeprom but the only thing I can find that might be the eeprom is a chip that has ee embossed on it and the numbers 62032 871. Can anyone tell me if thats it? Its a Type 2645-51A 600.
Thinkpad 600 S98-3801-2.
Any help gratefully accepted.
Cheers
Raybies

[victor]

600 has 2401 eeprom located near the the big "PCIbus" made by Texas Instruments, it is an 8 pin eeprom.

To read it, use the driven programmer based on MAX232 and R24C01 that comes included into the R24RF08 kit. I saw some 600 that comes with the 600e boards, those are using 24RF08 eeproms.
You may read the tutorial here:
http://www.allservice.ro/forum/viewtopic.php?t=47&start=0
The procedure applies to the 2401 too, only the software is different.

Our pal Ray Kawakami shared his experience with the 600e based on 24RF08 and linked in the Practice section, or here:
http://www.rkawakami.net/ibm_600x/bios_pass/

Have fun.
_________________
Victor Voinea
ALLservice HQ, Romania.

[Raybies]

Hi Victor
I have got someone to build a simple interface (no batteries). I have located the eeprom next to the Texas instruments bus. I have loaded the r24co1 onto my working thinkpad.
With the motherboard out of the ibm 600 and no power to it I have started up the working thinkpad, gone to C:\, attached the wires to the eeprom and then run r24c01 dump.bin,
I get the following message
"initialising timer...4551 ok
error: circuit not found or bus error"
Do I need to build the powered interface to read the eeprom?
Thanks
Ray

[victor]

It's always better to use the driven one because the SIPROG depends too much on the serial port "strength". Also, the 600 model has a lower impedance on SMbus than the others and the driven is the best choice. I hope is the 2401 model and not the 24RF08, right?

Apart from that, it could be an interface problem, from my experience, this happens in more than 50% cases.
_________________
Victor Voinea
ALLservice HQ, Romania.

[Raybies]

Definitely r24c01, I will double check interface.
Thanks

[richk]

Victor knows more about this than I do, but I think the inportant thing in your post is you don't have the keyboard and power applied to your 600. You need to start the machine and hit F1 to get into the BIOS. It is awkward out of the case, but it can be done. You need to do this whether you use the powered or unpowered interface.

[Raybies]

I thought that might be the case. OK I think I will have to solder some wires on and then partly reassemble the laptop with the wires poking out to attached to the interface. With the laptop assembled I have not been able to get to the bios, will this matter.
Thanks again

[Raybies]

OK soldered wires on. partly reassembled laptop, turned on working laptop and got to r24c01, then turned on IBM600 holding down F1 key, it went to the Password symbol. I then executed r24c01 and got the message
Base address set to AEh, (although the A was more a funny symbol.)
When I tried again I got the
Error EEPROM not available.

Any ideas about the first message?
Tahnks

[victor]

Bad connection to eeprom pins, bad ground or interface problem.
Just as a test, open r24c01.ini and set the base address $00. This will instruct the program to search for the eeprom, but anyway the address shoud be 0xAE ($AE in ini file).
_________________
Victor Voinea
ALLservice HQ, Romania.

[Raybies]

Hi Victor
No good news, I soldered the wires to the eeprom and since then I cannot get the laptop to power up. Just a flash of the orange disk led when I hit the power on button. Also when I plug in the charger I dont get any lights showing power on. I think I must have busted it some how. Pulled it apart and checked my soldering, looked OK.
The switch that is activated when you close the lid has broken off, I tried closing the circuit on each of the 3 metal tabs when turning it on but made not difference. Checked the voltage of the charger that was OK, check the battery power, that was OK. I only had one screw left over when I put it back together so I'm pretty sure I did it right. I think I've killed the motherboard.

[victor]

Just soldering the wires is not gonna damage anything. Well, if they are connected to the proper pins and not to the other part of eeprom where is the Vcc.