Errorcode 161 163 Help!
Jonas Larsson
Help me with my Christmas
I have a IBM PS/2 mod 60 (tower model) standing for a long time in my
house.
Suddenly it stopped being bootable. The message shows 161 163 with two
beeps afterwards.
I have the tried to boot it with the reference disk I got it from the
IBM site, I have tried to connect a new battery. Nothing works. I still
get the same error code. The PC was supposed to be a Christmas present
for my 78 years old father to use for simple word-processing. He has
promised to write the exciting history of his life if I gave him an old
PC.
Can anyone save my Christmas.
Jonas
ken
161 and 163 are empty CMOS config and date and time not set and are always
associated with a dead battery. did you run autoconfig and still get 163?
what happened when you used the ref disk? Feel free to e-mail me.
duk...@earthlink.net
If your just getting 161 and 163 it should be simple or something being
overlooked.
A blank screen and no sound ,Now that's problems!
I know what's like to give a PS/2 as a present so I can understand your
apprehension
--
Sincerly,
Ken
Steve Price
In article <32B838...@stockholm.mail.telia.com>, Jonas Larsson
<larsson...@stockholm.mail.telia.com> writes
161 and 163 almost always mean a flat battery.
Change the battery, boot from a reference disk and run auto config.
Leave the referce disk in the drive. Press F10 to accept and save the
changes. Let the machine boot from the reference disk again and change
the system date and time.
Remove the reference disk and the machine should reboot properly with no
error codes.
I hope this has saved you Christmas. If you feel like giving any more
computers away, you can put me on your christmas list. :-)
--
Steve Price
gfschef
Jonas Larsson wrote:
>
> Help me with my Christmas
>
> I have a IBM PS/2 mod 60 (tower model) standing for a long time in my
> house.
> Suddenly it stopped being bootable. The message shows 161 163 with two
> beeps afterwards.
> I have the tried to boot it with the reference disk I got it from the
> IBM site, I have tried to connect a new battery. Nothing works. I still
> get the same error code. The PC was supposed to be a Christmas present
> for my 78 years old father to use for simple word-processing. He has
> promised to write the exciting history of his life if I gave him an old
> PC.
>
> Can anyone save my Christmas.
>
thing to do is get a new battery from a camera or electronic store. Open
the side of the PS/2 (left side) by unscrewing the two large silver
screws on the side cover. Down on the bottom near the front is the
speaker asm ant the battery. Take it with you to the store to get anew
one. It normally last about 5 years but depends on how long the PS/2 is
unplugged. Install the new battery, insert the Ref. disk into the A-Drive
and power uup the PS/2. It will still post the 161-Dead battery, and the
163-Options not set, errors. It will continue past them and proceed to
the blue Reference Screen. Follow the instruction to do an automatic
configuration and also you must go to the "Set Features" selection to set
the Time and Date. There is an option also on that Ref Screen to backup
the setup, which I suggest you also do. Now you are done until that
battery dies again. The only problem you could run into is if you have an
adapter card in the PS/2 which is not included in the normal ADF files on
the Ref Disk. If that is the case you will need to identify the adapter
and locate the ADF and DGS files for it from IBM, the manufacturer or
some who already has the files. George Scheffer
Martin
The elementary school where I provide computer support has
recently received a number of surplused PS/2's from the federal
government. Having worked with PS/2's for many years,
I volunteered to work on each machine to get them into workable
shape. While the machines had definitely seen better days, most
of them were able to boot into DOS and or Windows 95 when I first
powered them on. Others had various cards and adapters removed
before they were surplused, so I would get a 165 error on them.
In other circumstances, I've had to add/remove memory and or
adapters on the "working" machines and subsequently they would
come up with the 165 error.
Since the government didn't provide any backup reference diskettes
when the machines were donated, I went out to IBM's ftp site and
grabbed their most current reference diskettes for the various
PS/2 models that we received.
I'm now at the point where a strange problem has emerged --
after running automatic configuration, I can't get many of the
machines to boot from the hard disk -- all that I get is a blinking
cursor in the upper left hand corner. However, if I boot from a
floppy drive, I can do whatever I want on the hard disk. I've loaded
many different versions of DOS (IBM DOS 6.1, MS-DOS 6.21 and 6.22),
run FDISK numerous times, and run SYS C: countless times, all
with the same result. While I can definitely build a floppy
boot disk and then use the SHELL and COMSPEC statements to load
the command processor from the C: drive, I'd rather avoid this route.
I've now had this problem bite me on a PS/2 55SX, 95, 60 and 70,
and I'm really stumped. Any suggestions on a reasonable approach to take ?
Thanks -- Martin
KS
Martin,
I understand your frustration. Check the machines for Virus'.
I have had this problem before with the STELBOO and th FORMS virus.
Most all of the Anit Virus products will detect and clean these 2.
Good luck!
Ken
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