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Repairability of a specific Mac Portable

SuperSVGA

Well-known member
In the meantime, while waiting for the machine to arrive, does anyone have experience and can suggest a source for capacitors? Ideally a pre-made kit so I do not mess up? Is the m5120 and m5126 identical capacitor-wise? Ideally in the EU?
So far I found kit for m5126 (https://recapamac.com.au/) and for m5120 (console5)
The M5120 is similar to the M5126, but differs slightly. So if you end up buying a kit for the M5120 for you would be missing the 4.7uF capacitor and would have some extras of other values.

I'm sure you've already found this list, but here are the capacitors for the M5126:
SMD Electrolytic:
  • 4x 1uF 50V
  • 1x 4.7uF 25V
  • 2x 10uF 16V
  • 4x 47uF 16V
Radial Electrolytic:
  • 4x 100uF 25V
  • 1x 220uF 25V
Axial Electrolytic:
  • 2x 470uF 25V
Regarding the power supply, I found the capacitor values but no kit.
I'm not certain if you can recap the power adapter. I suppose it's possible but I've never done it.
 

moldy

Well-known member
I'm not certain if you can recap the power adapter. I suppose it's possible but I've never done it.
You can and actually you should - I saw some Portable/early PB adapters with a very unstable voltage and very leaky caps.
The only tricky part is cracking it open, I used the "vice+pencils" method which was described somewhere here.
 

SuperSVGA

Well-known member
You can and actually you should - I saw some Portable/early PB adapters with a very unstable voltage and very leaky caps.
The only tricky part is cracking it open, I used the "vice+pencils" method which was described somewhere here.
Interesting. I'll have to try that with one of mine. I'll admit, I've never actually tested either of mine because I wasn't sure if they were any good, so I just tossed them aside with the original Portable batteries.
 

Andrew

Well-known member
Well, the portable arrived and I have some good news and some bad news. The portable initially did not power on, just like the seller said, even with a refurbished battery that I prepared. It showed different sad mac codes. The motherboard was clean, no signs of corrosion or evidence of any other repairs.
So the good news: After I washed the motherboard inside the dishwasher it worked right away! It booted every time, backlight works etc.
Bad news:
a) The sound did not work at all. No chime etc. When playing an audio through the sound control panel, the mac would freeze for a few seconds. You might say it needs recapping. I recapped it just yesterday - high quality parts from mouser. After recapping it sometimes tries to chime but then throws a sad mac code (rom error), other times it won't chime and continue booting. Any thoughts?
b) Unfortunately it has the tunneled vision syndrome. It starts after about an hour. It is really bad, The black and white actually get inverted in the corners.
c) one dead pixel
d) the ram expansion is 4mb, the seller had it listed for 8

I would really appreciate your input on the sound problem.

edit: By the way, there is a method to power on the motherboard without the keyboard, by shorting two pins on the IO connector. Do you know which ones they are?
 

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