Powerbook 5300cs with corrosion

[John Gibbs]

Hello all!

I picked up a PB5300cs over the weekend, an eBay find. I should have taken "before" photos but didn't - the battery either leaked or there was some sort of electrolytic reaction as a good half of the case was covered in what looked like copper sulfate. Luckily, the motherboard and RAM card, HDD, video out card all seem unscathed except for some CuS on the metal shields. You can still see some that vinegar/lemon juice didn't get.

Pre-cleaning, the unit gave a reassuring PPC startup bong when power was connected and responded to control-option-power to reboot but the HDD didn't spin up and there was no other life.

So I disassembled and washed with lemon juice/vinegar, rinsed with de-ionized water and have allowed it to dry fully. The result is the same as before - bong but no other life. There is some white corrosion around where the battery/power daughterboard connector is, on the daugherboard (see photo) and I am awaiting delivery of PCB cleaner to try to shift that. All the capacitors seem OK. The PSU is putting out 24V (well, 23.8) so that seems OK. My theory is that the corrosion on the power board is causing the rest of the system to not get enough power... thoughts?

Any other tips as this is my first vintage Mac rescue? Does it matter if I have the PRAM battery connected and if it's dead?

Thanks!

John

 

[Tugboat]

John,

Looking forward to the responses as I have a 5300ce with the exact same symptoms.  I did order a new battery as I have read that it might make a difference.  Will let you know if it does.

Mike

 

[Tugboat]

John,

I neglected to mention, after seeing that this is your first post here, the folks here are grand and very generous with their advice.

Mike

 

[John Gibbs]

Awesome Mike, thx! Is that a new PRAM battery or the actual PB battery? Where did you get it?

Cheers

John

 

[bibilit]

Not sure a 100 % but the dautherboard (next the battery) is on the second picture.

Capacitors are bulging.

If those capacitors are bad, the Powerbook won't be able to boot (when they are really bad, the 5300 will not boot at all or only be able to go to sleep mode)

So replace those first if anything else fails.

Mine was a 100% worse than yours in corrosion terms, and still able to boot..

 

[Tugboat]

John,

It is the actual PB battery, but it is not cheap, i.e. $149.  I ordered it from laptopbatteryexpress.com.  The website explains that these are new, not used, batteries.  Will write more when I receive it.

Mike

 

[John Gibbs]

Thanks both. Mike, let me know how you get on. $159 is over twice what I paid for the laptop but if it works

Bibilit, the caps look worse in the photo but a few are SLIGHTLY bulging on the top, barely... I can't see how to unsolder them though if I wanted to replace.

The good news is my PCB cleaner arrived today and I cleaned off the daughterboard. Bad news is still just the startup beep. I will continue over the weekend as I haven't fully reassembled it yet.

Cheers all!

JG

 

[Tugboat]

Well, phooey.  Stripped my 5300ce down for the first time in 10 or 15 years to: 1) check out the stability of the power connector (good); 2) check the logic board - no signs of corrosion or bulging capacitors (but I am a neophyte); and whether reseating everything would give me more than the "bong and grey screen but no more" that John and I have both been getting.  Much to my dismay I didn't even get the bong or the grey screen.  All I got was the little light on the top right hand of the screen, which I had not gotten before.  I had done some work on the display, swapping out an old bezel so I may not have reconnected things properly.  Any thoughts greatly appreciated.

 

[John Gibbs]

Oh no!

So I picked up a working PB190 that arrived today - I understand there's a lot of commonality between parts. I might try the power daughtercard from the 190 in the 5300.

Sadly the battery from the 190, while not as bad as the one from the 5300, is also toast.

Mike, if the power daughtercard swap  works (when I'm brave enough to try!), then possibly something like that might resurrect yours.

Incidentally the 5300 has an 8MB memory card and the 190 has 4 - are they swappable?

Cheers

JG

 

[bibilit]

Nope,

IIRC there is no dautherboard in the PB190, parts are included in the Logic board, so no swap here.

 

[CC_333]

Yeah, and other than the logic board, some branding (specifically, the nameplate on the display bezel), and the LCD (in some models, the 5300 has an active matrix 640x480 (5300c) or 800x600 (5300ce) LCD), the two machines are identical.

c

 

[John Gibbs]

Thx for the info, all. . So the memory board from the 5300 gives me the chimes of death in the 190 so I assume it’s toast. Still the 190 works so moving to that for my primary project for now.  I’ve hot a 3com Ethernet card arriving soon and will be setting up Netatalk 2 in My Linux server. Will keep the community informed!

 

[bibilit]

So the memory board from the 5300 gives me the chimes of death in the 190 so I assume it’s toast.

Probably not, always been told that memory speaking those two models are not a 100% compatible, memory can work fine in the 190 and not in the 5300.