[ltp] battery-less BIOS upgrade on 600E?

[wes schreiner]

André Wyrwa wrote:

>Hei,
>
>i want to upgrade the BIOS in my 600E. The on in it is quite old.
>
>Trouble is that the battery is totally gone, removing power immediately
>makes the notebook switch off.
>
>So now, when using the BIOS update diskette, it states that it won't
>update because the battery is not charged. Argl.
>
>Does anyone have a hint how to fool the update utility into thinking
>it's charged or how to make it not check at all?
>
>André.
>
>  
>
I don't think you are going to be able to fool it, and it might be fatal 
to your 600E if you do.  It's been a while since I flashed the BIOS on 
my 600E, but it might be that it has to go on battery power for a bit 
while the power management part of the BIOS is flashed.  If you somehow 
fool it yet there is no battery then the flashing will fail, and you 
will be left with a nonbootable doorstop. 

The battery pack has four contacts.  Two are plus and minus for the 10.8 
volts from the Li-Ion cells, but the other two are connected to some 
circuitry in the battery pack.  You could connect some other DC voltage 
source adjusted to 10.8 volts to the plus and minus terminals, but you 
won't be able to fool the laptop without also giving the correct signals 
on those other two terminals.  So you have a choice, open your dead 
battery pack and reverse engineer the circuitry there, or buy a new or 
rebuilt battery pack and do things the right way.  I think getting a 
working battery is easier, perhaps you can find someone else with a 600E 
and borrow their battery pack.

You could also just live with the BIOS version you have, but the final 
version is the one you want because of the bugs in the earlier 
versions.  Good luck.

wes