anyone have a toshiba 5105 'spare' geforce4 440 video card? - Page 7

I'll join the club.

I have an 5105-S501. Same thing everyone else says. I gave it to the geek squad at Best Buy and they wanted to replace the motherboard for $588. Never said anything about the video card. Glad I told them no.

One thing to add is that I was able to get it to minimally function by (I guess) bypassing the videocard in software. By fooling around with the safe mode options after it was warmed up and malfunctioning, I saw it locking up on file called "agp440.sys" so I just deleted it. When it booted back up and couldn't load the nvidia drivers, I used the Windows generic VGA software driver. The thing seems like it works fine like that except for the obvious limitations of not having a video card. There were still some minor screen artifacts, but it was usable. When I get it back from Best Buy, I'll play around with it some more.

Ok, so looks like if I disable AGP, the sound gets wacked. I'm no expert. So what I did was just go to device manager and disabled the video card. When XP boots up it uses the generic VGA and works fine. Though no video hardware so DVD's don't play and any game that needs the card won't work. Other than that it's useable for anything else and the display actually looks decent. I ran it all day, tapped on it, flexed it around and no problems. I ran a burn in program on it for four hours, and it was fine. Soon as I re-enable the card it immediately whacks out again. BTW, this is with a clean format/restore from the original software and drivers that came with it.

Can anyone else make yours work like this? If not, I'm wondering if mine has the same problem.

thats what i've done to mine - disable the nvidia card thru device mgr. it doesn't crash now but the screen still has those nasty white vertical stripes.

Just a quick note to say that this seems to be a very widespread problem- though nobody's yet worked out a solution. Members might like to check out a thread on "geeks to go" that's trying to deal with the same issue:
http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/Nvidi...ng-t49116.html

I disabled the driver on my machine, and so am staring at a duff screen with vertical stripes. Don't know whether to give up and replace this 3y old S5100 501, or whether to try changing the fan's operation or even clean the thing out first .

I'm reluctant to do anything unless it's really likely to improve things... any help appreciated.

Ive seen this lap top sell for 500-600 on ebay, thats prolly the best way let some oen else use it for parts LOL... anyone want mine? 500? shipped? lol...

Mine with the alum tape.. worked for a while, but it still craps out once in a while... just shuts itself off... after screen goes bonkers...

It is time some one starts a class action suit... I think its well beyond that point.
I dont know how.. or I would lol.

Another TIP:
I made the mistake of formating a few times, due to file errors on the HD...
DO NOT DUMP YOUR HD, its still good, just reboot... the file errors are not realy corrupt data on the HD, its corrupt data in the processor.. that gives a bad HD error... so your data is still there (unless your prob is different).
I was getting all sorts of errors

Just proves its HARDWARE ISSUE not software... its a lemon..flawed.. etc...

Unfortunately my 5105-S607 has just joined the bad video club, after 3.5 years of operation. I read this entire thread and there is some excellent info in there especially from richk.

Question: has any 607 owner replaced their video board with a 64M version and had it work correctly?

richk reported that a 64M version of the video board did not work in his 607. The root cause was not determined - could have been a bad board. Hitek146 reported "I'm almost absolutely positive that a 64MB card will work in a machine that originally came with a 32MB card", but no final proof. panahi
reported the a replacement 64M card worked but a PCMCIA slot didn't and eventually he got a new machine before a final root cause could be determined. Also panahi's machine is a 501.

I haven't learned any more. I would expect that the 501 would work with 64MB, because it uses the same BIOS image as the 64MB models. I have no idea why the 607/608 models use a different BIOS. The problem I had in trying to figure out what was wrong is that when I tried to boot with the 64MB card, I had every other character display on the startup screen and then the machine crashed when windows started. Those would be the symptoms if one of the 2 memory chips was bad or if there was a broken trace to one of the chips. Those would also be the symptoms if the video routine from the BIOS fetched from the wrong chip because he didn't expect 64MB of memory.

There is guy on eBay who offers to repair the cards for $320, which is expensive, but may be better than throwing the machine away. There are also cards for sale there from time to time, but I would guess that some are broken and the machine is being parted out after a dealer tells a customer that he needs a new mother board. (dealers always say it is a mother board when they cannot or don't want to fix a machine) I have no idea if he really has the skill and equipment (infared oven) to fix it, but a rebuilt card should be as good as a new one. I was able to get a card that was rebuilt by Toshiba from a dealer I knew who just happened to have one. One suggestion, if you do get the machine fixed, is to use an external keyboard and mouse whenever possible. I speculate that many or most of the problems are caused from flexing the card by pressing on the top, especially when the machine is hot. If you need to use the built-in keyboard or the touchpad, press lightly. The left side of the keyboard is right over the video card.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Repair-Service-T...QQcmdZViewItem

The same guy has a used card for sale for $400.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Toshiba-Sattelit...QQcmdZViewItem

The club is growing...

Chalk up another. I have the Canadian model 5100 (PS511C-01046P) and it came with the 64 MB card. Same symptoms. Spending most of the day on the Internet, I:
1) came across this thread; terrific info & thanks to everyone
2) couldn't find the 64 MB card for less than USD350. For that price, I have to accept that it's a doorstop.
3) used up a rainy Sunday.

What is the latest suggestion for obtaining the 64 MB card? All of ebay's used computers look like they probably have the 32 MB.

Thanks!

Because of this thread I'm having nightmares. I've got a S501 that's the right age to crap out.

Of course, though, if its not one thing, its another. My backlight died a week ago. I'm using an external monitor, so it still works fine, minus the portable aspect. But if and (knock on wood) when the video card goes, that means I'll lose the external connectivity, even if I disable the card itself, right? Or would an external still be usable?

Either way, I'm starting to count pennies for a replacement.

Thanks for the extra info, richk. Do you know any of the details of the what when into rebuilding your card? Were ICs replaced? Was the GPU reflowed? Were other SM packages resoldered? Someone up the thread (hitek146) speculated that the failure was board traces breaking which would be quite difficult to fix reliably. e.g. there might be several iffy connections of which only one has currently broken. My fear is landing in the same boat with a "refurbished" board that hasn't quite failed yet. Of course there is no other choice except to scrap the laptop which I would rather not do.

I have no idea what was done - it came in a Toshiba box that said refurbished. I assume it was put into an infared oven to quickly melt the traces, repairing all cracks. I wouldn't be surprised if they replaced defective memory, but threw away any that had other bad chips. They might throw away cards with bad memory also. At that point, traces would be as good as new. My card old broken card certainly had cracked traces that were sensitive to heat. I could turn the machine on with the keyboard off and touch the card with a toothpick. Junk would appear on the screan. In any case, the machine would crash after a few minutes. It would stay on longer if I forced the fan to be on. Have you opened the machine yet? Mine had discoloration on the inside of the case, under the keyboard, right above the GPU. The whole design seems strange with the keyboard right above the video with little support.

I have disassembled my machine. My initial throught was that it was the blower not turning so I wired the blower to be always on by jumpering the 8103 FET. This had no effect on the failure which makes sense since the blower does not directly cool the graphics card. The blower just draws air down and blows it over the heat pipe connected to the processor and out the back vent. Now my machine runs with the blower on high which is loud but cool.

The graphics card is cooled by contact with the copper sheet, through the case plastic, and onto the metal base of the keyboard. The keyboard gets warm durring normal operation as it acts as a heat sink for the graphics card. I don't think any of that heat is the processsor which is sitting in the far back left corner. I can understand why the plastic would get discolored with the heat running through it. Mine was not discolored, but then I don't usually run a lot of heavy graphics stuff.

I'm not following you about the trace cracks. There is the possibility of solder joints cracking if they were initially mismanufactured. In that case reheating the board would melt the solder and improve the solder connection. However if the copper traces themselves were broken, it would not be possible to heat the board enough to melt the copper and even if you could it doesn't seem likely that traces could be repaired that way.

Sorry. I typed too fast and didn't read what I wrote. Obviously, the copper cannot be melted in an oven, without cooking everything. I believe the solder cracks when the board is flexed. When the board heats up, it expands slightly, and the cracks become open and cause the problems. The copper is much more flexible. I just mentioned the discoloration because I was surprised that the card would get that hot, considering there was no direct cooling of the graphics card

After two months of waiting through backorders, I finally recieved a replacement video card (the 32mb version) for my 5105-S607... and it works!!! So far it's been a week, and no signs of video errors. I'll keep this board posted if things change, but I'm hopeful so far. I am also cautious since I am running the fan whenever the system is on.

yes, and here another one! My 5105 S701 gave up on me while I was working in PhotoDraw. I had 2 people look at it here in the UK and both told me it was the motherboard. I decided to buy another one. (Acer TravelMate 4000 which I don't really like). Therefore this morning I thought I try it again to see how it would be. What a joke after about 5 minutes the lines started to appear again. I ran a search and found this site, at least I know what is wrong now and... there is not too much hope. Anyone interested in buying my 5105 for parts? (It is in the UK) Guess this is the best thing to do with it. (or the famous door stop you all have been talking about). Any other suggestions are of course welcome as well!!!

I called Toshiba today and got the run around and was transferred to the supposed Toshiba Customer Relations manager, who basically said "she was as high as I could go, when it came to complaining." This lady was rude and CONSTANTLY talked over me and told me I was wrong. She told me no lawyer would take on my case (I didn't even mention lawsuits) because my computer is 2 years out of warranty (one year out of CompUSA's warranty). I mentioned the lawsuit involving the 5005 series and she changed the subject. I've actually had video components replaced twice (the ATL inverter and I believe the actual graphics card itself, not sure) and the lady asked me what I felt should be done about my problem. I said replacement and she basically told me it will never happen and that I shouldn't believe anything I read on the internet . I think we should do SOMETHING about this, if we're all having the SAME problem isn't this a design flaw on Toshiba's part? Do we have grounds for a class action lawsuit?

I have found a solution!

Fix for 5105-S701 video board artifacting problem. Repaired part FMC2G1. I am sure that this also applies to the other 5105 series machines with the Philippines manufactured GeForce 4 video boards.

To fix the artifacting video, you must repair video memory solder joints on the video board. Not a project for the faint of heart, but you don’t have much to loose (you’re only alternative is to buy a new card that will likely go awry after a few months).

So, I pinned the problem down to the video card, and more specifically, the video memory on the video card.

After my second video card failed, I decided that there was nothing left to lose, so I tore the laptop apart, pulled out the video card, and visually checked all the SMDs for dry joints. The only thing left was to clamp the memory down and use a heat gun melt the solder on the underside of the Samsung SMD memory modules. Then let it cool off (making a nice solid solder joint). I repeated with all the VRAM, and threw the card back into the laptop.

Note: though it would take a considerable amount of heat to damage the RAM, it is hard to control the solder once it becomes mobile. Be careful not to bump the board while the solder is heated. Several things can happen if you are not careful; the molten solder can bridge connections or bubble out the holes on the opposite side of the board. If you heat up the board too much, the surface mount components on the other side could become mobile, which is not pleasant to deal with if you don’t have the proper tooling.

For whatever reason, Toshiba’s manufacturing facilities were not making solid solder joints on the underside of the video RAM. These boards fail under normal conditions (not dropped, bumped, or twisted; they even fail in units that have always been stationary). The problem is obviously caused by a manufacturer defect, and Toshiba should be held accountable.

Toshiba gives their customers the runaround before telling them to go f*** themselves in a closet. It’s vile business behavior, and I am no longer a Toshiba loyal because of it.

I would have shared this earlier, but couldn't register because I had a free e-mail address, and then I forgot about it.

In any case; after 6 months of twisting, bumping, and using the machine, there are no video glitches. So, good luck to the rest of you

White vertical stripes sound more like an LCD connection problem than a video card issue. Consider openning up the machine (fortunately, you only need to remove the keyboard to get to the LCD connectors). It will be the wide white and green connectors on the left side. Push them into place with a good amount of force, and it might fix the vertical striping.

You still have the other problems ith the card though

I believe you can also get the vertical stripes with a bad VRAM chip (or a bad solder joint to a chip). When I was dealing with a bad card, I had evenly spaced white vertical lines. I think that the video routines paint the screen using every other byte from 2 banks of video memory. It looked to me like one bank had all the bits on. I got white stripes at startup until windows was loaded, then the machine crashed.

Ken: Your heat gun was going to be the next thing I tried, but I happened to find a dealer who had a card in stock that he had ordered for someone else who turned out to have a motherboard problem. I got the card very cheap. When you heated the chips, did you apply heat until the existing solder got shiny? I was worried about how to support the card to make sure nothing fell off or moved on the other side.

I don't remember Toshiba ever mentioning that the machines were "liquid cooled." The copper pipe that you see is a "heat pipe." It doesn't contain any liquid, it is just solid copper, which transfers the heat from the CPU to the radiator where the fan is.

This system actually works pretty well (one of the few functional systems in the 5xxx series Satellites). However, Toshiba screwed up with the mounting and used cheap heatsink compount (the "thermal grease" that goes between the heatsink and the CPU). Over time, an air gap or general poor heat conductivity can occur between the CPU and the heatsink, causing the radiator to blow cold or only moderately warm air.

When your fan kicks in, scorching hot air should be blown out. The area around the radiator should always be hot too; if its not, it means that there's something wrong.

To make sure that your machine is properly cooled, you'll have to take apart your machine, and remove the radiator+heatsink. Clean off the old thermal compound, and then, apply a small amount of new thermal compound. I recommend Arctic Silver's performance ceramic compound, the actual silver paste is better, but a bit messy and takes quite a few thermal cycles to really settle in. Use a razor blade to spread the new thermal compound as thin as you can over the core.

Remember, thermal compound is only there to fill the gaps that would otherwise be filled with air. Thermal compound doesn't conduct heat as well as direct metal-metal or metal-silicon contact.

Screw the radiator and heatsink back in place, and test it by powering the system on (the video card must be into to power the system on). The radiator should quickly get pretty hot (nearly too hot to touch)... The hotter the radiator gets, the better a job you have done (it means that it's transfering more heat away from the CPU).

Put everything back together, and your cooling fan should kick in less often, and for shorter periods of time. This may also increase your performance if your machine was blowing out cold air, because the CPU no longer steps back performance to lower thermal output.