5300c revival

[MacUp72]

Yesterday I got another 5300c, this machine already was on ebay one time, as I could recall it's photos.
was well packaged, sold as defect..came in a nice laptop bag full of goodies like an Apple HDI-30 cable, an PCMCIA Ethernet card with dongle, a modem card, all their complete discs and documentaries.
The bottom sticker says it is an AA model, but I expected the battery dead or worse because..well 5300..
I wasn't dissapointed. lol.

nice blue gunk.. yummy..so the first thing was to get the stuck battery out and do a quick cleaning job..

 

[MacUp72]

board out, looks good, no electrolyte spill on it



powerboard has a little corrosion but cleaned up ok..also the old battery



wonderful turquoise colored gunk, looks like artwork. lol.

 

[MacUp72]

after some more scratching and cleaning reassemble time and first test boot..





has 8.1 on it and MS Office but wait..maxed out 64 MB RAM, a surprise..
at least something to speed up the cacheless 1995 wonder a bit.



I put in a 64GB SD card, copied 8.6 on the first partition and after that a copy of 7.6.1 on the second one, via SCSI from the 540c.
7.6.1 boots quicker of course.

 

[MacUp72]

I'll try to to speed up the PPC chip up to 117 Mhz via 38 Mhz crystal or resistor re-arranging.
from here ( https://alksoft.com/5300_overclock.html)






the way via the resistors is free( no parts ordering) but..they are TINY..I mean really tiny.
and finding a matching 38 Mhz four pin quarz is another thing.

 

[Hopfenholz]

How is the screen quality?

 

[MacUp72]

How is the screen quality?

it looks ok, could use a recap of course but it still is bright and clear

 

[Hopfenholz]

Is it me, or is your 540c black rather than "powerbook grey". Looks really cool

 

[MacUp72]

I think the later revisions of the 5300 had darker colored plastics than the earlier ones?

 

[MacUp72]

try to identify the original quarz, I'm not sure what the specs are, 3V or 5V.. it seems to be a vintage Epson part?
but the small label on it is also on Seiko crystals ( of course the package size and footprint are different)

original quarz



Epson


Seiko

 

[MacUp72]

Is it me, or is your 540c black rather than "powerbook grey". Looks really cool

Oh, the 540c, I misread, sorry, I thought you meant the 5300.
On the 540c I did a repaint job, it‘s a 540c black coffee edition now

 

[Hopfenholz]

Oh yes I remember that project now. Super cool