anyone have a toshiba 5105 'spare' geforce4 440 video card? - Page 9

When I plug it in: the power light and charging light come on.
When I hit the on/off switch: the on/off light comes on, the separate front backlight for the LCD for the CD ROM comes on, and the CD ROM light comes on.
But then nothing else happens. The hard drive light doesn't come on and it doesn't boot or make any other sound.
I've messed with the ribbons a few times, I believe they are making good connections.
To get the on/off light to go off, I have to unplug it and remove the battery.

I haven't seen a case where the card would fail completely causing the problem you describe, but I had the same symptoms in a desktop when the video card wasn't completely seated. Put in a bootable CD and see if the problem is the hard disk. If it is, the machine will boot from the CD. I assume you have held down the power button for 5 seconds to make sure it shuts off completely. After you turn it on, be sure to let it sit for long enough for the hard disk to timeout. I think that takes a full minute.

I didn't know about holding down the power switch for 5 seconds. It does turn off the I/O LED when I do that.
It doesn't appear to even be getting to the BIOS or attempting the boot sequence.
When I stated that the CD ROM LED comes on, I was referring to the CD ROM indicator light on the front panel. The activity LED on the CD ROM itself never lights. I can't open the CD ROM with the power light on or off, I had to do it manually with a paper clip.
I inserted a bootable CD (Windows XP Home) and let it sit for over a minute with the power on but nothing happens.
It is interesting that the front CD ROM LED stays on the entire time when I hit the power switch even though there is no activity at the CD ROM itself. Does this indicate anything?

The first thing I would check is whether of not the HDD and the CD are completely plugged in. With this symptom, my first guess is that the BIOS is set to boot from the CD first and the drive is not correctly connected. I also am assuming that you didn't change the HDD or do anything with the jumper on the back. Do you have a high-speed connection? If so, send me a private message with your email address.

Time for action

I have the same problem with my 5105-S607. My understanding is that all these video problems are being caused by a faulty connection between the video card and mother board. It stems from a poor design and cannot be permanently fixed. I have researched this quite a bit and am pretty upset with having such an expensive computer do this.
We can talk ourselves to death about this or take action to get Toshiba to fess up to the defect. I see that there are about 50 people here who have this problem. I would like to propose getting a lawyer involved and thinking about a class action suit. I'm sure we have good grounds, its just getting it presented in the right way.
Does anyone here know a good, qualified, blood-sucking lawyer???

you cannot talk about the use of legal action on these forums.... just a suggestion since its in the rules and all...

I just found this thread today and read it entirely. I have a 5105-s701 that certainly has the same problems, but with a few peculiarities that might help us sort the problems into a few categories.

I only receive video artifacts/corruption/noise (basically something that shouldn't be there if the machine were functioning properly) at two distinct moments during the past three months:

1. at boot-up. when xp or linux is "starting-up" video garbage can be everywhere. remarkably, when i move the panel (screen) the video garbage seems to increase and move.

2. only one other time is video garbage viewable. when firefox cannot connect to the internet, a small white vertical line appears through the "cancel" button.

my solution thus far:

each time i receive video garbage at boot-up, i simply shut the machine off immediately turn it back on. for the first two months of my problem, every time at the second boot-up, the boot-up screen displayed correctly and the session continued with no visible problems (save number 2, which is constant). this past month, the problem has gotten worse. sometimes, i have to turn the machine 2-4 times before i get a clean boot-up screen, which insures me of a clean session (save number 2).

what this may imply:

i only boot-up in the mornings, and it's cold in pennsylvania. my problem doesn't seem to be heat related. in fact, the more warm my computer is, the less problems i have booting up. (for example, if i shut down after an hour or so, and immediately re-boot, i rarely have video garbage at boot-up unlike on a cold morning after the machine has been off for a night).

i'm not running at an extreme temperature (i keep it at roughly 45 C with Sensors Applet 1.5.2 (linux)). i'm not a gamer, basically use internet, office software, music.

it's common knowledge that these machines have a heat problem (it was told to me when i bought it), and that they were marketed as a desktop/video dream in a laptop case (read high temperature). so i'm not ruling out heat just yet.

but my question to some of the more experienced of this list (rich, etc.). what explains the problem when it's cold? wear and tear from previously hot sessions?

i have traveled with it a lot. maybe something's loose. i'm taking it to a laptop repair guy around here. 40 bucks for diagnostics. ladies and gents, this is my only recommendation: find a good local mechanic. these bestbuy/compusa service centers (and from several readings on this list also the toshiba mail-in service center) is over-priced and sometimes yields wrong service. i'll let you all know how the diagnostics go. btw-i'm printing out this thread and bringing him a copy.

I work with Toshiba's daily, the video card is bad, not the connection. The NVidia chip goes bad because of heat, it is not an issue of any loose contact, I have reheated the nvidia chips and ram chips on the card to no effect, but replacing the nvidia chip fixes the problem. Of course you need a bga machine to do that. I have a few spare video cards, but I have got as much as $225.00 for them on eBay. I'll take offers though (2 available).

I had seen many different 5105's, S501, 607, 701, 901, although they're supposed to have 32 and 64MB, I have not seen any physical difference in the two, same as part number, FMC2G1, how do you tell them apart? I have 2 good ones right now and I couldn't even tell you whether they're 32 or 64MB just by looking at them.

There are 2 ID numbers. They both are identified as FMC2G1. The 32MB card also says P000341430. I believe that the number on the 64MB card is P000349220. The same BIOS image is used in many of the models that use 32MB cards and most or all the models that have 64MB cards, so it is possible that either card will work. Ths S607 and S608 models (which come with 32MB) have a separate BIOS image. I tried a 64MB card in one of those and it didn't work, although I had no way to test if the card was bad. If you look at the 64MB cards, if I remember correctly, you can see 2 of the 32MB memory chips.

The PXXX number is not on the card itself, it does have a A5A000100010T number on it though. The 607 and 608 are more picky and do have different motherboards, although all the part numbers seem to be the same. I have used 64MB in various models, although I can't remember whether it was 501 or 607. Each card has 4 memory chips (2 on each side)

I cannot remember. I don't have a card here to look at. I have a machine here with a 32MB card, but I don't feel like taking off the cover to look at the card. I do remember that the 64MB card looked a little different. I think I was able to tell from the memory chips. If you say there are 4 chips, I won't argue. I may have looked up the chip part numbers. I now remember that the PXXX number didn't appear, but I remember that there was some difference. It may just have been the script on the Nvidia chip.

Are you guys saying that there's a chance I might be able to install a 64MB card on my Satellite 5000 (presently have the 32).?

5005 and 5105 video cards are NOT interchangable!

I too have a Toshiba 5105-S607 with a failed NVidia card. I used it for months in VGA mode, but recently found a solution. I bought a Sony VAIO.

I have a desktop NVidia AGP 32 Mb video card in an HP (ASUS manufactured card) which shows an identical failure.

Some good information in this thread, I will try the memory solder trick and post the results.

Moving ahead with a lawsuit

Dear friends,

I'm posting here after quite some gap. I've moved on to a Dell 9300 after giving up on my 5105-s701.

Some of you may know that sometime ago, satellite 5005 users got a settlement. Just this week satellite 6100 users got a settlement for basically the same type of display problems that we've been experiencing.

While its great to continue sharing some of the ingenious ideas of reviving our 5105 laptops, I think we should simulataneously look into a class action suit.

I know this is not the place for legal talk, but I just wanted to make you guys aware that I'm in touch with a lawyer and will be posting all my updates over at http://groups.msn.com/TOSHIBA5105DISPLAYPROBLEM

As we continue to discuss the technical issues here, do sign up there so that we can organize ourselves and move ahead with a lawsuit.

Thanks and good luck guys.

Vij

I just found this thread today, and have been in the same boat as all of you for the past 6+ months.

The first problem I had with the Toshiba 5105-S607 was a failure on one of the two PCMCIA slots (mentioned by another user as well)

Later I started noticing slight artifacts that would get worse and worse.

Eventually the whole screen would go corrupt after being on for only 30seconds. I too discovered the VGA mode work around by disabling the Nvidia card in the device manager. But that mode too eventually resulted in artifacts.

Since the notebook was out of warranty and I figured I was one of the only ones with this problem... I called a few repair shops and got repair quotes of 400-600. No way I was going to spend this much on a 2+ year old notebook.

I went to ebay and looked for replacement video cards, only to find they are going for $250+...

What a ripoff. Why would I spend that much for something that will probably fail again after sometime, or even be defective on delivery.

So alas, I joined the MSN group mentioned above in the hopes that we can get some sort of resolution from Toshiba.

Good luck to all.

Another one ... *grr*

Hello everybody. I bought a satellite S5100 501 on June 2002 and I used it for about 8 hours a day for software developing with VisualStudio and SQLServer... so using much cpu resources (i.e. much heat). OS is Win2K Server with AD.

I had no problems till some days ago (i.e. it worked fine for 3.5 years). Suddently the monitor showed strange lines and the PC hung. I rebooted, but after the initial win boot, when swithing to 1600x1200 the screen went black and the PC hung. I waited some hours (PC was cold) and I tried to boot again. Same problem. So I came to google and I found this site.

I understand that my 5100 worked very much (about 8000 hours) but it's a real pity because I didn't need another PC : it worked VERY fine for my needs.

*I am nervous*

alex

p.s. thank you for all your posts. I've just read it all and I see what the problem may be

Taking action

The best way to deal with this is to group together. Go to this site:


http://groups.msn.com/TOSHIBA5105DISPLAYPROBLEM



Sign up here and we will be able to move forward with this.

Promoting the site and getting people to join together is the only chance we have for resolution.

Geforce 2?

I, as all of you, also have this video problem on my 5105-S501. I was told by someone that the Geforce 2 from the 5005 series would work on my 5105. Does anyone know anything about this? Can you use the 5005 GeForce card on the 5105? Please le me know.