Andy’s PowerBook Problem

[AndyO]

It did indeed cold start without the power adapter - even though I was sure I'd plugged it back in, I actually hadn't. And, once I shut it down after the battery warnings, it didn't boot itself when I connected the power adapter. It does appear that the PRAM battery has some life in it.

Ironically, when I saw this PB on eBay, it was a 3400 or Kanga I was actually looking for, not least as a result of your 3400 find. This 5300 is really excellent though, and being a 97-build for the extended repair program, I hope will be a tiny bit more reliable than the original production run was!

 

[AndyO]

Other parts of The Problem...
Three of my 100-series PowerBooks. There's another one at work that didn't want to be associated with these, because it's an active matrix 180.

My 145B, not looking its best, and two 165 models. The bottom one is the parts machine, though it does actually work just fine.

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

It did indeed cold start without the power adapter - even though I was sure I'd plugged it back in, I actually hadn't. And, once I shut it down after the battery warnings, it didn't boot itself when I connected the power adapter. It does appear that the PRAM battery has some life in it.

Ironically, when I saw this PB on eBay, it was a 3400 or Kanga I was actually looking for, not least as a result of your 3400 find. This 5300 is really excellent though, and being a 97-build for the extended repair program, I hope will be a tiny bit more reliable than the original production run was!

Hah, good luck finding yourself a 3400/kanga! They‘re built better than the 5300 and they‘re much faster, I love mine! Now if only I could find a 2400… I’m not sure whether the 5300‘s PRAM battery is rechargeable or not. It’s Lithium which makes it unlikely to leak (though I have heard of it happening once to a minor degree, both of mine are fine but dead). If it is a rechargeable, than it may have just been flat from 25 years in storage the first time you plugged it in.

As for reliability, both of my 5300s (original ce model that I got last year and then the VCF c model parts machine I picked up after tearing the display ribbon on the ce) have been rock solid reliable, even more so after I recapped the DC Power Board. It’s the power adapters that let them down. My first one failed after a few months and I suspect #2 may be on its way out. The 1st one 100% died due to bad caps so at this point I’ll probably bust it open and recap it but I absolutely hate the idea of damaging the housing, even though it’s inevitable.

 

[AndyO]

Strictly speaking, not a PowerBook, but I think it counts towards The Problem...

Clamshell SE. Amongst my least favorite computers ever, but I didn't know that until I had one! I used to see these in my local Seers (no Apple presence in my area at all for many years) and drool over them.

 

[AndyO]

To offset that though, obtained from a seller who was very apologetic about it not being a newer model, one of my favorites - a Ge iBook 600... hopefully not about to self destruct.

The battery holds a charge, it's pretty cute, and the screen is excellent. Amongst the least-bad of the post-PDQ keyboards too.



See, I really do have a problem... and I've nowhere near finished with my 'collection' yet!

 

[AndyO]

And this one... this is the better of the two PDQs. In fact is near-new condition, sold as untested for $29. It's one of the great computers of all time... according to me. Great performance, excellent screen, good keyboard, even a working floppy drive.

And yes, that is the back end of a G4 iMac you can see at the top there, but not being a PowerBook, it doesn't really belong here.

 

[AndyO]

Hah, good luck finding yourself a 3400/kanga! They‘re built better than the 5300 and they‘re much faster, I love mine! Now if only I could find a 2400… I’m not sure whether the 5300‘s PRAM battery is rechargeable or not. It’s Lithium which makes it unlikely to leak (though I have heard of it happening once to a minor degree, both of mine are fine but dead). If it is a rechargeable, than it may have just been flat from 25 years in storage the first time you plugged it in.

As for reliability, both of my 5300s (original ce model that I got last year and then the VCF c model parts machine I picked up after tearing the display ribbon on the ce) have been rock solid reliable, even more so after I recapped the DC Power Board. It’s the power adapters that let them down. My first one failed after a few months and I suspect #2 may be on its way out. The 1st one 100% died due to bad caps so at this point I’ll probably bust it open and recap it but I absolutely hate the idea of damaging the housing, even though it’s inevitable.

I have a new-build power adapter for the 5300s, which I've been testing on my 190, and is so far working well, and not getting even warm. I'm always a bit suspicious of these kind of things since they seem to all come out of China, and at $15 plus about $9 shipping, seemed too good to be true, but the same company does an excellent replacement for the original 2amp PB 100-series adapter, and I've been using two of them for a while with no problems at all.

I can wait for a 3400 or Kanga... or both. I doubt I'll be s lucky as you were with that one, but I think I've used all the luck I've deserved just on this 5300! Still, I'll be looking, just in case something turns up!

A 2400 though... Ah, best not get me started on something else!

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Where on earth did you find a compatible 3rd party adapter for the 190/5300?!?! I thought the barrel jack was too weird to be standard. How standard the 100 series chargers are are the only reason I assume they’re still being made.

Did I really get that lucky on my 3400 though? With shipping and tax I ended up paying around $180 for it, which is only $50 off what they typically go for and it wasn’t the 240MHz model nor did it have maxed RAM or anything. The batteries were super lucky though. No one’s figured out how to rebuild them yet. Your 5300cs was way luckier! Not that I’m complaining though.

 

[AndyO]

It was https://uspoweradapter.com/ which despite the name is obviously not in the US. I don't have a good feel for these folk, but mine arrived after a couple of weeks, and works apparently pretty well. That said, it uses an adapter from a larger barrel jack to the 190/5300 smaller one, so it's not exactly a revolutionary product, but it does seem to work.

I'm talking the original 5300 to work on Monday and will try the adapter with it then, but it's been running the 190 for well over a week with zero issues.

I think you did get lucky with your 3400 - I believe I saw that and was thinking about it, but you beat me to it! They are way more reliable and better designed than the 5300s, but slightly larger front to back, and marginally heavier. I was looking for the PPC edition of the 190, which I really liked, so the 3400 wasn't at the top of my agenda. Next time though....!

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Hah! Glad I found it myself when I did then. I had been looking for months but up until then everyone wanted $300+ for them

I‘m not sure they’re any more reliable than the 5300s though, maybe back in the day but now not so much. The DC power boards seem to be a pretty common failure, although perhaps there are way more dead 3400s due to the stupid NiMH PRAM battery causing havoc. Who can really say.

I searched that website for PowerBook adapters and could only find genuine ones. After my past experience with those I’m not exactly eager to try for a third if I can help it. If they do sell a generic one (which at this point I’d trust more, I’ve used a bunch of generic bricks with my PC laptops and I’ve never had one die) it isn’t showing up in their search.

You’ve got some nice laptops in your collection! That PDQ looks real nice, mine works fine and is in good shape but the hinges are shot
I do wonder why you hate the clamshells so much, I can’t say I agree.

 

[AndyO]

I think rather disingenously they list their own supplies as Apple models, even though they're not. When it arrived, I was more than a little dubious, but the connector is right, the voltage and current is correct, and it measured right on my meter. I decided to chance it and it worked on the 1i90 perfectly well. Not tried it on the 5300 of course but there's no reason to think it will be deficient.

The 'happylinda@gmail.com' isn't awe inspiring, but I did actually email them after a few days, and got a response.

I know from internal docs I saw at the time that Apple were stung by the 5300 design criticisms, but to what degree they impacted the next designs I don't know. At the time, I was in their Higher Ed consortium in the UK and we weren't really buying laptops so it didn't matter much, but the 3400 certainly had better plastics, even if the electronics weren't much improved. That said, the G3 iBook that came a while after seems to prove they lacked much of a clue!

 

[3lectr1cPPC]

Yeah, that whole site is fishy, everything claims to have 2018 units in stock and the claims of the adapter being genuine when they’re not is a downright scam, even though I’m looking for an aftermarket one.

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uspoweradapter.com

 

[AndyO]

That's the one I saw, and because I had a 190 and 5300, but only one PSU, I thought I'd chance it at the price. Right the way up to it arriving, I expected it to be a scam, but it actually doesn't seem to be. Well, except it is certainly not a genuine Apple part as they show it or imply. I used PayPal to ensure they had no access to my accounts, just in case.

As I say, what I got was a fairly generic looking rectangular adapter with a barrel jack, fitted with an adapter to step down to the correct size. Voltage is correct, and claims 45w in line with the official Apple PSU. Under load it delivers sufficient at least for my 190.

I really don't like feeding scammers, but I thought it worth a go since known-good PSUs for these are really hard to find.

 

[joshc]

Sorry if you mentioned it and I missed it, but have you had any issues with the vinegar effect? What do you do with batteries, rebuild them or just run off the adapters?

P.S. This thread is getting dangerous - actually making me want to start a PB collection again... Yours look really nice!

 

[CC_333]

P.S. This thread is getting dangerous - actually making me want to start a PB collection again... Yours look really nice!

Indeed!

It's almost ... ALMOST ... making me want to get my numerous PowerBooks and iBooks out again, if only to inventory what I have and see what I can do without (I have a few duplicate laptops that just take up space that I could sell for money to buy other things I do want).

What good is a collection if it's too large for its curator to enjoy?

Ask me how I know....

c

 

[AndyO]

I have not seen the vinegar effect on any of my PowerBooks - except maybe that's what had affected my now-broken 540c. It had an odd discoloration around the edges of the screen, almost as if rusty water seeped in, but there was no smell, and the screen worked normally otherwise. Sadly, I broke the machine when I switched keyboards, and it now won't boot. The only screen I have amongst all these with any issues is the 180 with tunneling, but even that isn't too bad since it takes well over an hour to begin.

I leave batteries as they are, though remove them from the 100-series PowerBooks. I may try rebuilding some, but my prior experience with battery packs years ago doesn't encourage me to have a go again!

Part of the reason this 'collection' of PowerBooks exists at all is every time I get one, I learn something new about what I like/want/need in the next one! That and the fact I have to have two of whatever it is, because I work at home and at the office, and portable as laptops are, these really aren't so much! But also most of them were quite inexpensive.

 

[LaPorta]

My experience with 1400 battery rebuilding was good. I’d rebuilt three packs so far, and it’s been pretty straightforward.

 

[AndyO]

My experience with 1400 battery rebuilding was good. I’d rebuilt three packs so far, and it’s been pretty straightforward.

You guys sometimes make things look so easy! When I try and copy, what I get is a table covered in pieces that when reassembled look more like a bunch of cats having a fight, and where there are several parts left over that don't fit anywhere. And, a computer that won't work!

I mean, I broke a reasonably nice, working, 540c just by trying to replace its keyboard because random keys were too stiff. I also seemed to have killed a working floppy drive in my 145B, by adding a 4Mb RAM card, and I can't even begin to work out how I did that!

 

[LaPorta]

I can’t speak to the machines themselves (I’ve only rebuilt 1400s), but the battery packs weren’t bad once I got newly assembled cells from a battery store. All it was was aligning things, transferring electronics, and soldering.

 

[AndyO]

I can’t speak to the machines themselves (I’ve only rebuilt 1400s), but the battery packs weren’t bad once I got newly assembled cells from a battery store. All it was was aligning things, transferring electronics, and soldering.

My 1400 is one of the few of my PBs I don't really like or get on well with, despite the fact it has always just worked when I have wanted to use it. Or nearly, there was one time it lit up the green sleep light and did nothing else, but one tantrum in 24 years is less than I've had.

I really ought to take it more seriously, and perhaps a battery rebuild might be a good start. It might be good to get a second battery pack and work on that perhaps. I was also planning on getting a CD module for it - though the SCSI2SD, now it's working, probably makes that a bit moot.

See, you're talking me around!