Have a thinkpad 600E here that was assumed to be dead, but is actually OK - or at least will be once it gets a new battery.

Now it asked me for the date & time when I first booted it. Is the cpu/memory battery an easy thing to replace generally?

not in a laptop no, you will need to totally disassemble the machine to get at the motherboard.

you maybe lucky and its a rechargable one that just needs a good charge.

http://www.mdsbattery.co.uk/shop/productprofile.asp?ProductGroupID=863&source=base

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/26782-20-thinkpad-600e-cmos-battery-replacement

Was lucky. It was not rechargeable, but thankfully it was just a panel to remove to expose the memory and the cmos clock was connected in good view so was easy to remove. Trouble is my adapted 2 x 1.5v battery replacement for it cannot be verified as the whole laptop seems to be dead to the world again.

Erm you might have just cooked the bios chip.

I've never seen anything anything but a lithium button cell or a rechargeable cell to do the cmos battery.

It seems to be working a bit now, so I am going to ensure I get the right battery.

It seems to be working a bit now, so I am going to ensure I get the right battery.

Have a look in Asda - they've got a range of Lithiums( like cr2032 -common memory battery) at not a bad price and some of the cut price stores ( like INSTORE ) sell a card full of the common sizes for about £1

Got a pair of Energizer ones in the end from Tesco for £3.49. And one is currently keeping the time on the old beast and it seems to be "reliable" again.

TWO vagcom laptops now. (although the new HP one is not set up yet)