Toshiba A100 SK9

[alex218c]

Specs

Processor - Intel Core Duo T2500 2.0 GHz
Data Bus Speed - 667 MHz
RAM - 1 GB DDR2 (max)
HDD - 120GB 5400rpm
GPU - Geforce 7600go 256mb PCI express x16
Driver Version - 84.68
Windows Vista compatible

So i far i only benchmarked it once and i got a score of 3377 with 3dmarks05.
(I had "some" background applications running) I can play doom3, WoW, HL2, and CS:S on High setting with out AA or AF on and it has no problem. Havent tried F.E.A.R yet.

No heat problems, it gets bit more than warm few times when playing games but doesnt downclock or shutdown by itself.

its a great gaming laptop and it doesn't cost alot. $1499.99 Canadian

Ill put up more scores i get later.

[Brainhunter]

Alex, where did you purchase this laptop in Canada? I'm in Canada as well, and I've been struggling to find this model for that kind of price. I know it was on sale at FutureShop, but now the price has shot up to 200$ once again....

[alex218c]

i got it at futureshop right before the day they reduced the price. -_- But i got the difference back the day after :P i live in calgary AB.
i dont think the nearest futureshop has the sk9 right now. i looked up on their site but couldnt find it. try staples or bestbuy.

[Brainhunter]

Well, purchased it from CompuSmart. Now I need to wait for their call to ask me to pick it up at their retail store (they only carry it at their warehouse because they considered it too "high-end" to be displayed at the boutique) 2 days from now...Darn, waiting certainly kills the person when you know you've got one heck of a powerful laptop stalling their in a box for ya >.< Hope I'll enjoy the product. I wonder if it can run Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 at relatively high resolutions and settings?

[alex218c]

yea its hella powerful laptop. and yea u can run doom3 on highest setting possible. i tried it on doom3 and its sweeeeeeeeeeeet. :p
hey when u get ur laptop, can u check the monitor for any unbalanced colors? cause mine is a little darker on the top if i look at the screen slightly below the center. or is that normal for all glossy LCD laptops? also when i look at solid black colors, it looks white-ish black.
can you check for those when you get urs? thnx

[Brainhunter]

OmG cool! When you say highest settings, do you mean at least 1280*800 widescreen resolution (native resolution, can it go higher?) and 4xAA and 8xAF? I'll surely check out the unbalanced colours you mentioned. Hope it isn't too disruptive for viewing movies / playing games on it. I'll post my results here, and I'll benchmark the notebook with 3dmark 2006 once I get it. First I gotta do a clean install (install my own copy of WinXP Pro), then partition it, that way already all the bloatware that comes with Toshiba laptops will be wiped out, freeing space and noticeably improving overall performance. I'll run 3mark 06 with GeForce Go 7600 at stock settings, I'll then overclock it, and repost the score with the new clock settings. I gotta wait until at least Wednesday before I can do those tests, and I wouldn't be able to post them until Friday (school off, got lots of labs this week >.<). Until then, await my coming results...

[alex218c]

i tried f.e.a.r combat and it runs pretty good. not on highest setting thouhgh. also i tried to install omega drivers to see if i would get higher benchmark score, but it didnt work. it went through the installation process, but after the restart my laptop didnt recognize the omega driver. so i tried to install a nvidia driver but it didnt let me. dont know whats wrong with it..... when i run system restore, it keeps saying something like system restore failed or something... so i think i just have to format it...

[Brainhunter]

I shall pick up my laptop in 3 hours from now, and I'll do a clean OS install on it, reinstall only the "necessary" drivers to make the laptop run optimally, I'll then install the latest Nvidia driver for mobility cards, and run 3dmark06. However, I have the full version of 3dmark, and many settings can be adjusted. Will score be affected by changing the resolution etc? Or can it pretty much calculate an approximate amount (for the scoring) whichever settings you set 3dmark06 at?

[Brainhunter]

3dMark 2006 score : 2136
Graphics Card Settings : Stock

Awesome score, I wiped out the HardDrive, repartitioned it, installed WindowsXP and all the necessary drivers for the Toshiba A100-SK9. I then updated the GeForce Go 7600 with the latest driver from the Toshiba website, and ran 3dmark2006 at 1280 resolution, everything else at default. I'll be testing frame rates with HL2 and Doom3 and F.E.A.R. so wait up for my results on this!

[alex218c]

i havent used 3dmark06 before so i have no clue if thats a good mark :P
have u tested with 05? thats the only one i tested mine with. hows the screen of ur LCD? is the top half a little bit darker than the bottom if u look at it on an vertical angle? try looking at it with a dark background

[Brainhunter]

If you would take the time to look at this link:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html

The website provides various benchmarks using different versions of 3dmark and on different mobility video cards. Compare yours with their statistics and if it is on par with their specifications. I have achieved on my stock Nvidia card a raw score of 2136, over 236 points above the score calculated by notebookcheck. This may be due to the different in the notebooks they and I used. I would believe you should have approximately the same score as mine, somewhere easily above 3600 points in 3dmark05, if my estimations are correct.

About the dark top screen, I do not seem to notice it, even when playing in a completely dark room. Yours might be the only one having this issue I would believe.