Toshiba Horror

I know this an older posting but here was my horror story about ny recently deceased 5105-S901 that I bought about a year ago,

About 3 weeks ago I spilt a high protein chocolate drink on the keyboard while it was on, it just blacked out and refused to reboot after an hour or so of me using every method I could think of including compressed air to try and clean it up.

So supposedly I had this extended warranty that Compusa insisted I buy at time of purchase might help, no way they said, so it was sent to GSS and returned two weeks later un-repaired with an estimate of over $1450.00 and with no guanrantee it would fix everything. I was really pissed, told them it was about to be used for target practice in their parking lot!

I did learn that Toshiba has some kind of take a chance repair program, they get to guess whats bad and replace just "one" item of their chioice for $300, so I took chance and sent it out just last week, no word yet on if it is repaired.

So in the meantime I made bids on ebay or I should say E-PREY of severak P25 series plus an identical 5105-S901, most closed above what I was willing to pay.

Lots of weird ads of sellers in other countries selling $3000 laptops for $500, need cash immediately, buyer identity kept secret, etc. So no way I'll buy a high end laptop on ebay unless its a reputable seller.

And then I found this curious world of Sagernist's (LOL) The Toshiba of mine most likely is gonna cost too much to repair, it will never be picked up at Compusa, left abandoned by an owner duped into thinking it had warranty coverage by a large Computer store that cares less and less once you leave the store, never will I buy from them ESPECIALLY when I originally came into the store after a long hard day crawling all over heavy equipment smelling like diesel fuel and definately not looking like a computer user, I was totally ignored for almost an hour by at least 4 salesman, they all were more interested in office types of clientele. Me I'm ready to buy right then and there, had over $3,000 in cash in my pocket and thats about what I paid for it!

Never again! Sager looks better with everyday I read about it, though I can by the best one immediately now I am waiting a little bit for more news on the latest 17".

My advice to whoever reads this, don't get involved with a Toshiba unless its a christmas gift, and if it breaks down gut it out of any useable parts or sell it on Ebay, many folks need Toshiba parts anyway!

Sorry to hear about that but I gotta say that I have never had a problem with Toshiba and their notebooks. My last notebook I spilled some pop in the keyboard and it blacked out very similiar to what yours sounds like. I called Toshiba and they told me to send it in, a month or so later I got my laptop back and it was in brand new condition. They replaced the keyboard, system board, and a bunch of other stuff and I all paid for was the shipping. Mind you it was under warranty but I give nothing but props to Toshiba for they way they handled it. And things like this have happened to me more than once and they never failed to amaze me.

Well I certainly hope Toshiba cares enough for its customers to do the same for me. I kept getting the impression from Compusa that my Toshiba was beyond repair at what could be bought (from them) a newer model. I bet if I do get a free repair from Toshiba Compusa will still charge me $300, after all they said they would, kinda sounds like a neat racket to me.

All for Nothing

I got word that the GSS in Texas wants a minimum $450 to replace the mobo and keypad, I told them to send it back to me and do nothing, I'm parting it out. perhaps a mobo is available by itself on the internet, I'll do it myself, I know keyboards are available.

Never will I buy from Compusa again and definately no Toshiba for me ever again, poor service, poor support, poor product.

And I still think Compusa is just shuffling me around telling me its unrepairable because they keep suggesting to me to buy the 17" Dell.

How mant millions has Dell spent on product bribng? Their laptops look like garbage.

So what did CompUSA say about their extended warranty being no good? This seems odd, and I'd pursue that. Unless you told them you spilled your drink on it (doh!). I would have just brought it in and said it stopped working and I'd like to activate the extended coverage I paid dearly for.

Of course, truth be told, extended warranties are usually not any good, unless you are a squeaky wheel.

-myrkat

I say, get your laptop back from compusa, take it home and hose it down to get rid of the spill, then let dry over night. Then take the laptop to another compusa somewhere far away and tell them I just moved here and blah blah blah. They should honor the extended bend over warranty then, right?

I may very well do that about the extended warranty elsewhere, unfortunately their is only ONE ****usa in Alaska. But I am flying down to Orlando for a vacation from jan 3rd- jan 31st and yes thats an excellant idea except I'm sure there is a record of attempted repairs on it.

It really just needs to be used as target practice and forgotten about, the really hurting part was the comments made by a Compusa salesman was that the extended warranty only covered "manufacturing defects" and a cracked screen and he told me the policies at the store were to always sell the warranty, if it wasn't included in the sale they lost a sizable portion of the commision if any went to the salesman. And he remarked that the store also dragged its feet on repairs because a puter did basically become obsolete in a years time they were only interested in getting the customer to buy a new one, and steered into buying a Dell cause Dell gives out personal commissions to salesman.

The whole things a big scam and Dell is behind a lot of it he said, I asked him why he was telling me this and he said he was quitting soon because he couldn't lie in front of people any more about what the buyer was interested in.

If the extended warranty is so limited in scope then whats the point in spending $400 for it when it still costs as much as a newer model replacement to get the broken one fixed?

And anybody have similar tales of Dells influence upon retail merchants? I vividly remenber when CNET used to be a good website, and then they started having financila woes and often shut down, and then about last year I think they were resurrected and everytime I did review searches up pops an ad for a Dell, and always it had higher ratings than say a Toshiba, its gotta be a big scam.

Myself never again to buy from a walkin puter store, especially one mentioned above, and NO WAY EVER will I consider a Dell.

Dell I had one. I would NEVER again in my life buy a Dell.
I bought a P25-S607 in late October. So far so good. The salesman was really pushing hard to sell the extended warranty. I did not buy as I live in far away in another country and it would not be worth shipping it to get fixed. The first time I looked at the P25 they pushed the extended warranty saying the battery alone would cover it since it cost $100. The second time I looked they pushed the extended warranty saying the battery cost $200. Then the last time I was in there they were saying the extended warranty would pay off since a replacement battery would cost $250. What crooks the salesmen, the exagerations kept getting bigger with each visit.
Anyway I love my Toshiba so far...lets hope it stays that way. In my country's money it cost over 5 grand. That is the average wage of many for 5 years.
I use mine a lot in my bar....I better watch out for spills from what I read.

@ Daniel

Daniel, seems like the problem you have is with Compusa and not with Toshiba. Toshiba has their own warranty and frankly between Compusa and Toshiba, I would pick Toshiba's.

I would suggest to do this: check out what your Compusa warranty really says. If they are of the "if you break the LCd, no problem, kwe'll replace it" which sometimes they sell, RAISE HELL to them. But make sure the warranty you bought does indeed cover that or else I am afraid you are just screwed.

- Raist

I meant to pick it up at COMPUSA in Anchorage, AK but that was three weeks ago and currently I'm vacationing in Orlando, I'm hoping it gets stolen and then they have to replace it, LOL

Ive dealt with electronics getting wet before and so far i think Charliebox is giving some good advice. I had a friend who spilled juice on his lappie and it shut down too. He tried everything to start it but nothing worked. Finally I suggested to take it apart as much as possile and clean out the juice that had become sticky. Long story short; we spent an hour disasembling it and cleaning and let it dry overnight. When he went to turn it on it worked! A lot of the time the spill is just short circuiting the system, and when you flush it out and let it dry, it should work fine. (If it didnt fry any components when you spilled.) :P
give it a try if you feel lucky.

I'd just like to chip in with my own Satellite story.

I've had my 5105-S501 for a year and a half. Thing works great. However, about nine months ago it just quit working. Just, *blink*, dead. Tech support wasn't any help, so I made use of their lovely mail-it-in-and-wait-a-month-for-repairs thing. I sent it in with a description of what happened. When I got it back the repair slip says they replaced the system board and updated the BIOS. Well, lovely. I turned it on, started working, and *blink*, dead. Same thing. I go through the same process. Second time I get it back, with a new system board and BIOS.... *blink*, dead. Sent it in a third time, same result. Fourth time, same result.
After three and a half months of this I'd just about had it. After a looong talk with tech support they told me to send it in one more time. They ended up wiping the HD in addition to sticking a new system board in and installing a new BIOS (which rendered my lovely little remote useless). It seems to be working fine, and has been since the fifth trip to the shop. I managed to get an extra year of warrenty out of Toshiba, though I wonder if it will be honored, considering they didn't even have the previous repair attempts on record when I talked with them.

From what I've read it seems I'm not the only one to suffer from horrible repair support.

Sadly my $3000 5105-S901 is just a doorstop, iIhave no intention of ever sending it out for repair, an expensive and sad story on my part and a permanently scarred customer that most likely won't buy another laptop unless its a cheap disposable type and would never consider another purchase from CompUSA unless its components for the AMD64 bit desktop I'm building. Which also tends to re-direct me to other forums than here since I'm going back to a conventional desktop and this tends to be a more of a laptop forum, laptops are just a luxury and a status symbol.

I owned a p20 (P25) Toshiba for a while and it worked like a charm, left it on 24/7 until I realized it was too freaking big and that the video card just can't cut it for games

Mr. Ramsey, i'm very sorry about your poor experience with the Technology Assurance Program at CompUSA. I myself am a CompUSA employee and I heartily reccommend our two or three year service plans on any notebook. They cover your screen no matter what (which is the most fragile and expensive part of the laptop), and you get free battery replacements. Most of the time, they're quite willing to bend the rules on TAP. Unfortunately, the ONE thing that they will almost never cover is liquid damage. I myself am about to buy a M35 (which is what brought me to this forum) and i'm paying full price for the three year service on it. I see many customers every day who are satisfied with the service we give them. Dell doesn't bribe us, though I can tell you AOL sure as hell does.

Before I started working here I was convinced that all so-called "extended warranties" are worthless and pure cash-cows for the companies who sell them, but very soon upon working there I discovered exactly the opposite. First of all, we don't sell any extended-warranties at CompUSA. We sell service plans (which are specifically contracts for services and not extensions of the manufacturers warranty, which is pretty well worthless to begin with), and replacement plans. I might be able to see why someone might not get a service plan, though most people need one despite what they think, but the replacement plans are never a bad idea. Basically when you get the replacement plan you could even break your item on purpose and come back and get all your credit back, and then purchase an upgrade. Us employees buy TAP on absolutely everything except consumables because we just know how good of a program it is. Trust me, your experience with TAP is one in a million and almost all of the experiences are good. If you have any questions about it i'll be happy to answer them, because I really, honestly do believe in them and have demonstrated that by purchasing them myself many times.

Its still dead, its not worth repairing because for the estimate quoted I can get a faster newer machine, I was screwed on this dryly and even though I'm just one person I have the right to chose.

I chose to NOT buy Toshiba products, any products.

I chose to not buy from Compusa any laptop at all.

And the rollover effect has given me bad feelings about ever buying a laptop again.

My family is still upset at me because they had to wait 2 years to go back to Disneyworld because I spent the vacation money on a laptop, that lasted less than a year.

And its terribly funny when I see many here on the board waiting and waiting for the latest Sager, thats dumb, just buy whats currently out, they get outdated after a year anyway, makes no sense to wait 6 months for something that gonna probably cost at least $2.500 when a few months later the same thing is only worth $1.500.

Did I say the Toshiba laptop I have is STILL dead?

I'm gonna just throw it in a Gooodwill drop off box before I get more into debt on it, or give it to my 1 year old grandaughter to play with, she can color the screen with crayons.

I'm off to build a 64bit AMD desktop with an ATI 9800 and other top end goodies.

I wish that I could stop everyone from buying any computer from from re-seller stores like Walmart, Kmart, Circuit City, Best Buy, CompUSA, and the like. My experience with buying computers and computer equipment from such stores has been horrible. They always stock 2nd or 3rd grade components at inflated prices, or 1st rate products at even more inflated prices. I always see these stores stock computers that only the absolutly ignorant or desparate people would/should buy. I don't like HP, Compaq, Toshiba, or Emachines, but the models typically stocked are the extreme low end models priced at insane prices. I got a VPR Matix 2050 from Best Buy. The build quality was (now altered) very low, the components 2nd rate, and the tech support sucked. The DVD drive died after a year of use, and the warrenty covered its replacement. The order was placed for a replacement and 1 month later some out-sourced company called saying that the part had arrived and sent someone over to replace the part. They replaced it with a model so obsolete, it wouldn't even play half my DVD collection or read some of my burned DVD's. So one month of no DVD player and a defective part equals my having to buy a new dvd drive anyway. Gee, I sure have learned my lesson. Components are worse. I love paying $200 for an ATI 9600 card with a mail in rebate for $30, and then having to wait 3 months for the $30 check to arrive. Why not give me the discount now? Three months for $30 is a waste of time. 3 months will mean at least three more paychecks for me.