PowerBook Model: 5300/5300 (c,ce and cs) - A.K.A M2

Began: 8/1995

Terminated: 1996 Late

Original Price: $2,300 (5300), $2,900 for the 100 Mhz 5300cs 8/500, $3,700 for the 100 Mhz 5300cs 16/750, $3,900 (5300c 100 mhz 8/500), $4,700 for the 5300c 100 Mhz 16/750 & finally the 5300ce 117 Mhz 32/1.1 GB was $6,800

Specs

• 603e PowerPC @ 100 Mhz (5300, 5300c & 5300cs) or 117 Mhz (5300ce)
• Integrated FPU & PMMU
• Memory: 8 or 16 MB RAM on Logic Board. Max. RAM 64 MB @ min. speed of 70 ns with 1 available slot
• 32K L1 Cache & n/a L2 Cache
• Data Path: 64-bit @ 33.3 Mhz bus
• Gestalt ID: 128
• ROM size: 4 MB
• Ports/inputs/outputs: 2 Type II or 1 Type III PC Card slot, 1 HDI-30 SCSI port, 1 serial port, 1 ADB port, 1 opt. 1.44 MB SuperDrive, 1 built in mono microphone, 1 microphone port (16-bit mono), 1 16-bit stereo speaker port, 1 IRDA wireless transfer window & 1 built in mono speaker
• Shipped with a 500 MB HD (5300c, cs), 750 MB HD (5300c, cs) & a 1.1 GB HD (5300ce)
• LCD screen 9.5" Passive Matrix 4-bit (16 greys) 640 x 480 (5300), 10.4" dual scan 8-bit (256 colors) 640 x 480 (5300cs), 10.4" Active Matrix 16-bit (thousands of colors) 640 x 400 or 8-bit (256 colors) 640 x 480 (5300c) & a 10.4" Active Matrix 16-bit (thousands of colors) 800 x 600 (5300ce). All models except the 5300c 16/750 and the 5300ce (1 MB VRAM) have 512K VRAM upgradeable via 3rd party replacement card. Virtual Desktop supported on External Monitor.
• Electrical: 45 watts max. Type III NiMh battery.
• 5.9 lbs (5300), 6.2 Ibs (5300cs, c & ce) @ 2.2" H x 11.5" W x 8.5" D
• OS 7.5.2 through to 9.1*

* According to Apple Computers Inc®. Earlier and/or later operating systems may be supported.

Please note: The batteries were changed later on in production to NiMh Type III.

1. Processor Upgrades?

Yes. 1 processor upgrade card was made for the PowerBook 5300 by Powerlogix which was a 135mhz PowerPC® chip at $179. The cache is NA and the chip never actually made it to market. Try overclocking the stock chip by 17 MHz. Click here to find out how or here if that link no longer works.

2. HD Upgrades?

Since the PowerBook 5300 series uses an IDE HD interface, upgrading is easy. You could get large IDE drives (up to 8.2 GB with OS 7.5.5 required), and fast ones too (7200 rpm), for your PowerBook 5300 series over the original 4000 rpm drives. Any 2.5" x up to 17 mm will work. One nice thing about having a large hard drive is you can use your PowerBook as a backup for files or as a server, for example. Normally, nothing larger than an 8.2 GB IDE HD will work with the PowerBook 5300 series (OS 7.5.5 or later required to recognize such a drive). However, the solution is: (1) partition a larger drive with volumes less than 8.2 GB. (2) Run 8.6 or 9.x, which might erradicate the need to partition larger HD's, as these OS' support the EIDE controllers that are found on this machine. Check OWC for HD upgrades. With these larger drives installed, you may encounter problems using SCSI DIsk Mode.

VST Expansion Bay HD: VST made a 1.4 and 1.6 GB DMA (Direct Access Memory - note that the 5300 and 190 series do not take advantage of DMA) bootable/hot swappable expansion bay drives that work with the 5300/190/3400/Kanga models. These drives are faster than the original 4000 rpm 5300 series HD's. You could put in a larger drive into the VST expansion bay casing to increase storage (10 GB or more?).

3. Other upgrade options?

Max out the physical RAM. Try The PowerBook Guy to find RAM for your PowerBook. The PB 5300 series can house 64MB of RAM (70ns speed RAM cards or higher).

RAM Charger 8.x: RC uses a technology called Dynamic Memory Allocation.  In short, it enables your trusty PowerBook (or any mac) to allocate whatever amount of ram a program needs “on the fly.”  The result is that you do not have to worry about reserving a specific amount of ram avalaible for programs.  Whatever the program needs, RAM charger will feed it, providing of course, you do not run out of available RAM for use. Please note: The use of OS 8.6 or later, particularly with VM enabled, might preclude the use of RC. Check the RAM Charger link for further details.

Stack RAM charger with Connectixs’ RAM Doubler 8.x or 9.x in order to get more available RAM out of your machine. RAM Doubler works like VM, only it is faster and more efficient. Furthermore, RAM Charger and RAM Doubler are fully compatible. RAM Doubler can actually increase your RAM by 3x, depending on the users wishes. RAM Doubler requires at least 8 MB physical RAM and a 68030 processor. I suggest using RAM Doubler over Macintoshs’ Virtual memory feature; the latter is extremely slow on older machines. Try downloading the Ram Doubler installer to be found out there somewhere.

Connectix Speed Doubler 8.x: SD 8.x (requires at least a 68030 processor, 12 MB of physical RAM and system 7.5.5 or later) will help make your PowrBook soar by speeding up many common finder operations, such as: scrolling menu’s, opening folders, copying files, etc. Speed Doubler replaces the Mac OS disk cache with its own disk cache system, resulting in an improved (speedier) cache memory system. SD 8.x speeds up the read/write process by storing frequently used HD data in RAM, rather than on the HD. Try downloading the Speed Doubler installer to be found out there somewhere. Please note: The use of OS 8.6 or later precludes the use of SD.
 
RAM Disk: Load the operating system onto a Ram disk (bootable) to increase both the speed and efficiency of your PowerBook 5300 series computer.  It also results in longer battery life (25% more), as the hard drive is not constantly spinning.  Check the help section within your Operating System for instructions on setting up a RAM Disk. RAM disks are particularly important to have in case your computer crashes. Upon restart, it will boot from the RAM Disk and you can diagnose problems with the HD from there, provided you included both a system folder and a copy of Norton Disk Doctor on it.

Add a Compact Flash Card: Compact flash cards are used in order for owners of digital camera’s to load their files onto their computers. However, as these cards insert into the pcmcia slot (pc card slot), they can also act as a second hard drive. Flash cards come in sizes of 6 MB to 1 GB and higher. 128 MB card goes for about $50US. Also, Compact flash cards, acting like a hard drive in your computer, can be used to increase the amount of available ram that your computer has (using VM). In addition, store a system folder on it and boot from it. The benefits of the latter are silent operation, longer battery life (no hard drive spinning) and a faster computer. (Please note, with the speed of newer laptop hard drives reaching 5400 rpm’s, a flash card might actually slow the computer down. However, on older laptops, this is not the case, as the original hard drives in these machines are significantly slower than the newer, faster drives). You will need: (1) Compact Flash Card (2) A PC card slot or USB (3) An adapter for the Compact Flash Card if necessary. Flash card speeds peak at about 4.2 Mbps and write at about 2.2 Mbps. Make sure to get one of the faster cards.
 
Battery Information: Replace the battery via BTI (upgrade the Type III NiMh to a Lithium Ion battery produced after the 5300 series came to market via Apple and third party vendor's). Need more power on the road? Download this program (Emmpathy) in order to recondition your PB 5300 series battery if it is not charging properly or if it is dead. Further, buy more batteries as spares or try an external 7.2 volt NiCad battery pack (approx 5 hours running time under heavy usage).  Try Lind to purchase one.  In order to avoid the low voltage warnings that are characteristic of using an external battery pack with the PB 5300 series, download the program Threshold.  Want even more portable power or don’t want to use a battery?  Try a solar panel called the “Sun Catcher Professional” made by Power Quest.  You must have your PB plugged in to boot, however.

You can also try a program called amnesia to help recover a non-chargeable NiCad or NiMh battery.

Lastly, try to reset the Power Manager to help your battery charge if you are having charging problems, your ac adapter is not recognized, your computer will not wake from sleep, and the like. Go here for instructions on how to reset the Power Manager.

3.5" Expansion Bay Options: (1) VST HD as noted above (faster than original drive). (2) Internal power block made by VST. Eliminates the need for an external power block, something the present writer hates to lug around. (3) Expansion bay floppy 1.44 drive made by Apple. (4) Fijitsu 230 MB HD (magneto optical drive). (5) VST zip drive compatible with Iomega zip disks and all other 3rd party zip disks. One nice thing about these zip disks is that they can be booted off of. Thus, similar action can be taken on these zips as with a RAM disk (see RAM disk section). (6) Car cigarette lighter power supply made by, once again, VST. Expansion bay modules are both bootable and hot swappable. Expansion bay devices are interchangeable with the 190(cs)/3400c/Kanga (3500c). Please note that the 3400c/Kanga CD-ROM drive is not compatible with the 190(cs) and the 5300 series.

PC Card Slot (PCMCIA): Ethernet cards and modem cards will work as well as a compact flash card (see above). Please note that ethernet performance via the PC Card method is about 25% slower than the PB 540(c)'s internal Ethernet, for example, due to the PC Card slots 16-bit bus. Please note that the PCMCIA card cage is not Card Bus compliant, which means no firewire, USB cards and the like.

More Powerful AC adapter: Try a higher wattage ac adapter to speed up battery charging, like a 45 watt ac adapter as used on the PowerBook Wallstreet for example. However, you may decrease the life of your battery by undertaking the latter method.

Screen Upgrade: Any 5300 will take a 5300ce screen with its 800x600 1000's of colors screen. There is one stipulation, however. The machine being upgraded must have 1 MB VRAM to support the screen. Thus, owners of the 5300, 5300cs and 5300c (8/500) must upgrade the VRAM chip to 1 MB. Soildering required. Also, install a 5300c screen on a 5300 or 5300cs without needing the 1 MB VRAM upgrade. Please note: to get thousands of colors displayed on the 5300c 8/500 configuration (512K VRAM), hold down the option key while in the monitors control panel (limited to 640 x 400).

Video Monitor Card Upgrade: For those that need to work with 16-bit color on external monitors (stock 5300's display 8-bit color - 256 colors - on screens as large as 20" up to 824 x 632) can try focus enhancements 16-bit video/ethernet combo card. There are mixed reports, however (i.e. ethernet problems, software incompatibility, etc.). With the card, a 5300 series computer can display 16-bit color on monitors up to 17". In addition, via a DB15 adapter, one can enable their 5300 series to display 4-bit color at 1024 x 768. This adapter also supports a variety of VGA/SVGA monitors at 800 x 600.

Goodies to Add on: The PowerBook 5300 series is ready to be furnished with all sorts of peripheral devices and will also support external monitors. 
 
The PB 5300 series will support external zip drives, scanners, printers, cd-roms, cd-r's, floppy drives, etc.  Most plug into the SCSI port - HDI-30 SCSI adapter required. Use an HDI-30 SCSI peripheral cable when connecting your PowerBook to external SCSI devices of the aforementioned sort. Laserwriters may use the serial port for a Localtalk connection. 

Internet/Networking
 
Add an internal or External Modem: See the tips section on speeding up browsing to improve the PB 5300 series' Internet performance (or any Mac for that matter). External modems can be used via the serial port (try US Robotics 19.2 external modem for reliability).  Note: the serial port on the PowerBook 5300 series has a data transfer rate ceiling of 57.6 kbps. Internal modems can be installed via the PC card slot (try a 56k). Go for a Global Village combo Ethernet/modem. Some even support cell phones in addition to being combo cards.
 
PowerBook 5300 series and Ethernet/Networking:  It is possible to connect a PB 5300 series to an Ethernet network.  To achieve the latter, try one of the following: (1) Use a pc ethernet card and insert it into one of your PC card bays. Simply connect the ethernet cord to another ethernet equipped Mac or ethernet network. (2) Buy a Local-talk-Ethernet-Bridge adapter made by Asante, Focus or Farallon.  Etherwave by Farallon is a popular one which attaches to the serial port (printer/modem port) on the PB 5300 series. The result of the latter is a serial port converted to a standard RJ-45 Ethernet port.  Furthermore, the driver supplied with the Etherwave boosts the serial port speed by 5x (5x 230.4 kbps). 
 
Try Etherwaves “Multi Printer Adapter” which allows multiple devices to be connected to the PB 5300 series at any given time (i.e. printer, scanner, Ethernet, etc.) (3) Dayna and Asante make SCSI-Ethernet adapters (RJ-45 connectors).  (4) Use another macintosh to connect to an Ethernet network and then connect the PB 5300 series to the latter computer. To connect to another computer via Asante's SCSI-Ethernet method, make sure you have the required Asante driver. You will also need the following files on your system 7.x folder:

*Asante EN/SC - driver for the EN/SC
*AppleShare
*AppleSharePrep
*AppleTalk Control Panel
*EtherTalk Phase 2
*Network
*Responder

Get the above files here

(5) One can also connect to another SCSI equipped mac by using a SCSI HDI-30 docking cable. (6) Newer macs, like an imac for example, can be connected to older PowerBooks as well. To acheive the latter, try Asante's USB-to-local talk adapter (will not talk to printers) or an ethernet-to-local talk adapter. (7) Furthermore, use a printer cable to connect to another compatible macintosh computer or, (8) if the 5300 series has a modem, connect to another computer via the modem cable. (9) Use the wireless transfer window to connect to other wireless equipped computers and share files over Appletalk. Connecting to another Mac is also useful if you want to install software from a CD but your PowerBook lacks a CD-ROM. Simply connect to another CD-ROM equipped Mac by trying one of the aforementioned ways , mount the disc image on your PowerBooks desktop, and install the software.

4. Best OS?

Avoid anything earlier than OS 8.5 (have at least 32 MB RAM installed), as only 54% of OS 8.5 is PPC native. Earlier OS', like 7.5.5, are written in 68000 assembly language, meaning every 68K instruction requires the emulator to translate 68K instructions into PPC instructions and back again, slowing the computer down. If you have no OS on disk or you need to use 7.x, try OS 7.5.3 (upgrade it to 7.5.5 once installed) as it is a free download from Apple.

Recommended List of Compatible Software (non-exhaustive list)

Any low resource demanding PPC software will work with the 5300 series. Here are some examples:

*MS Office 98
*QuarkXpress
*Pagemaker
*Eudora Pro
*Toast Cd burning software
*Internet: Try Opera
*Netscape 4.0 or 4.5
*ICab

Click here for a list of more useful software/utilities for older macs.

5. Any Defects?

Logic board failures, melting batteries, casing problems, power connector problems, broken trackpad buttons - to mention a few. Be careful with 5300's, they are prone to fail in many respects. One common problem on early 5300's is that it would lock up when the power on keys and reset button was pressed. The solution: press the power on keys and the reset button again.

6. Buying Advice.

Aside from the 25% slower ethernet performance on the 5300 series compared to PowerBooks with built in ethernet, the 5300 series has many good points beside its name (bad ones too). It is about 50-100% faster than the 500 series PowerBooks that preceeded it, with a PPC chip that can handle graphics programs as well as moderate to heavy web surfing. Look for 5300's that have been through the Repair Extension Programme (REP). In order to ascertain whether a 5300 series PowerBook has been through the latter program, look at the serial number. If "AA" is found printed after the serial number, then it has been through the program. Also, it may have a dated ink stamp inside the battery bay as well, accompanying the serial number modification or just on its own. Furthermore, when choosing betwen models, the 5300ce would be my first choice (awsome 800 x 600 AM 1000's of colors screen). However, the 5300 greyscale is the fastest of all the 5300 models due to its low processor demands accomplished by its greyscale screen.