Comments on: Toshiba Sucks

By: Kyle Keller

Kyle Keller — Sat, 24 May 2008 17:18:46 +0000

I have owned a Toshiba Satellite A65 for two years - and the same fault occurred. Onboard memory failure sucks; however, the Toshiba Satellite A65 is a bit outdated so I figured it just gave me an excuse to buy another notebook anyway. I can tell you that after owning Toshiba notebooks, they do have so many issues I am surprised that they can stay in business. I spent a little more on my new Dell XPS M1530 at approx. $2,200 including tax. It runs much better than the Toshiba, and I had Dell install it with 4GB of internal memory to insure its memory will not propose any future issues. 2.4GHz processor, and a 250GB 5400 RPM SATA hard drive disc. It also has 256MB NVIDIA graphics/video card to help take on the load of memory demanding programs; and with Microsoft WIndows Vista running on it, my system uses a great deal of memory and video card space.

By: Silly Boy

Silly Boy — Sat, 24 May 2008 03:46:09 +0000

am going to tell you somehing never, never try to install alcohol
120% in Vista that will kill you re computer in my case my laptop toshiba satellite p105 it become damage by this software the vista lock up and restart simultaneusly, so i have to reisntall the os but guest what the store does not have the laptop disk i have to install a pirated version of the os very beautifull now am fuck up.

By: Mick

Mick — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:06:47 +0000

Hi, I have a toshiba laptop, a200 series…
After the week of the purchase, I noticed a small crack on the left speaker. They have covered the speaker box with a transparent bright plastic that goes from left to right speaker. I didnt pay much attention but then it started to get bigger and now I do have a noticable crack on the left side of my speaker after three weeks time… I am in Uk now and bought the laptop from US, therefore can’t ask for a warranty here…

My question is, is this a part where it can be replaced by the toshiba service - it looks like it is attached to the chasis but could they replace this with or without money if I ship this to them? any help would be appreciated, thnks

By: Dale

Dale — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 20:25:46 +0000

Thanks for stopping by with that excellent advice, Paul.

I actually did dig the laptop out of the attic a few weeks ago and it is currently sitting on a table in my home office area.

Not sure when I will get to it, but it is on my “to do” list.

By: Paul

Paul — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 19:30:36 +0000

Oh, and BTW, if you can stand the heat, A litlle program called ATITool will actually let you overclock the chipset/CPU, although memory clocking seems to be locked/flaky. I’ve gone from 183MHz to 235MHz, and it’s almost snappy, even wioth only 256MB memory.

You’ll need to go into settings and select the right ‘device’ (which gives some realistic clock speeds)

Also, the 4200RPM drive in the A65 by default is slow, alow, slow…even a 5400RPM drive is noticeably faster.

By: Paul

Paul — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 19:23:57 +0000

Use a dremel or serrated knife, cut the pins on one side as close to the chip(s) as you can, bend the other side off (repeat 8 times)…now, Use a small soldering iron to remove the pins left behind (Scrape towards the middle, clean often)

Big thing: There’s a metal finger that comes up from the bottom case. It tousches right where you just unsoldered, but only when you put everything together again. Pull it loose (it was used to try to help cool the onboard memory is my guess, use a screwdriver to flatten the ‘brad’ area, and you’re good to go.

Make sure ya grab the ‘Chipset AGP IDE’ update from Toshibas website. Not only is it a heckuva lot faster, you can use advanced video properties -> Frame Buffer to bump the mem used by graphics down to 32MB (from 64) which, along with turning off services and autoruns, makes XP usable, if not actually speedy.
GL, feel free to contact me if you sdecide to ‘fix’ the laptop, and if anyone else needs help, feel free to give em my email. (I’m not looking for anyone to send me their laptop, just offering a hand)

By: Howard

Howard — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 23:33:16 +0000

We have 2. My sons died in 13 months. Good thing I took the extended waranty from Circuit City. It needed a new motherboard. They sent a box out and we sent back in. Within 2 weeks was back and running. Good thing took the warranty or would have been trash.

By: Joe

Joe — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 10:38:06 +0000

I bought a Toshiba Satellite M40-231 that just died. Funny how the 2 year warranty just lapsed 2 months ago. The repair shop points to a motherboard replacement to the tune of 370 Euros. I’ve owned Dell and Compaq without a problem, they still work in fact - but I needed an upgrade and am sorry to have picked Toshiba. The company should make the repairs cheaper if they want to inspire confidence. I will not buy Toshiba again.

By: Dale

Dale — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 04:21:47 +0000

Thanks for the tip, Greg.

I just may do that since it really isn’t doing me much good sitting up in the back storage room.

By: Greg

Greg — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 01:31:55 +0000

You should dig that laptop back out of storage. The defective onboard memory can be unsoldered from the motherboard–leaving the use of the expansion memory slot. There are 8 surface mount IC’s that, with a steady hand and a soldering iron, can be taken off.