5300s

[System7]

Well I finally got to testing the 5300s I conquested in the huge powerbook lot a few months ago, and the failure rate of apples first PPC and its 68k brother, is quite high. Only 2 out of the 5 work. The best condition one is a 5300c, with 40mb RAM and a 500mb HD, it has a plain 8.5 install. The second good one is a 5300cs with 32mb RAM and 7.5.2 with a few random apps.

Now then, here are the faulty ones. The second 5300c, has a bad LCD. It sequels, and sometimes the back-light does not come on. Both 190cs have bad logic boards and bad LCDs. And one 5300cs was totally dead due to lacking the power board.

I have noticed that failures in the 5300 series are mainly caused by the electronics, not the plastics as so hyped. The plastics are not brittle, surprisingly as it is a spindler product. One of the 5300 has a manufacture date of 1998 however.

 

[System7]

The 5300cs that works just died in an odd way. It cant even play death chimes right. I will post a video.

 

[joshc]

5300s have a reputation for being unreliable because they are unreliable. My 5300 oddly powered itself off at the most annoying of times (such as when I had almost completed Oregon Trail...). I opened it up and couldn't find anything wrong, so I don't really know what was causing that. I have since sold the floppy drive module so its not really useful anymore, and I have much better Macs in my collection to spend time/money on.

 

[Mars478]

Aw that sucks! I'd like to see the video, the death chimes really scare me.

 

[Strimkind]

Owning a 5300 and 2 190s I would have to agree that they are both pretty bad. The 5300c works for the amount I have tested it but I have not noticed any failure issue yet. I have 1 dead 190cs probably bad logic board or bad power socket...I am not sure what. The other works fine generally but often it will not start back up after going to sleep and requires a PMU reset to work again. It also resets its networks preferences for no apparent reason. Finally, the trackpad is the most flimsy thing I have ever used.

Now if only I could find a 5xx series powerbook to get away from the instability.

 

[LCGuy]

I often think to myself that I'd like to get a 5300 or a 190 just to play around with. Then my common sense gets the better of me and I realise that there's nothing I could really do with one that I can't already do on my 1400, which is a much better machine than either in just about every single way.

 

[System6+Vista]

Today while I was doing some stuffit-expanding on my 5300cs, I went for a game of Maelstrom. I turned it off before I lost a life. That's how horrible the screen is.

 

[System7]

Well I diagnosed the problem with the other Powerbook5300C, I will need to ask more about the issue however.