Of course my wife's Toshiba 5105 s607 laptop would have issues after the warranty has expired.

The problem seems to be the geforce4 440 go video card. The problem is that it will randomly start having video artifacts and corruption.

After ripping apart the laptop and troubleshooting the problem, it seems that if I flex the laptop, type in the area that is above the graphics card or wiggle the external vga port, I can reproduce the video corruption.

If I hook up a usb keyboard and leave the laptop on a flat surface, I don't see any issues.

I'm almost confident with my testing, that it must be either the video card itself or the connection between the video card the system board.

I'm curious if anyone out there might have a 5105 series laptop video card or know where I can find a reasonably priced one.

I've bought a geforce2 version on Ebay but it didn't work on my 5105. Heck, if anyone needs a geforce2 video card for a Toshiba 5005 or 5105 let me know

Thanks for any help!
Dan

Wow. Like deja vu. I seem to be having the same problem currently with my Toshiba 5105 -S501 laptop. When ever I type, move the screen or even touch the left side of the laptop firmly, the screen starts to turn differnt colors and verticle strips appear.

I'm pretty sure its a loose connection, but I dont know how to lift the top off of the laptop. I unscrewed everything, but theres that one connection (white strip) that no matter which way I look at cannot be disconnected.

any help would be much appreciated
Usman

hey Usman,

your problem sounds EXACTLY like mine.

yeah, i've taken that thing apart so many times because of the video issue. i checked out all the connection and video connector and nothing I do works.

in any case, to answer your question. first there are some "hidden" screws. there is a screw under the NIC and modem plug. there's also one for the the dvd/cdrom drive.

all the data strips including the white data cable strip (is that what you mean?) should be found under the center metal protector under the keyboard. make sure you unscrew the 4 screws that hold down the metal protector, then unplug all the data cable strips.

let me know if you still are having problems.

I've come to the realization that there is nothing wrong with my geforce video card. in fact, i think it is the fan. it doesn't work anymore and everything heats up, thus causing other things (video card to fail).

this might be your problem as well.

Hi

I have the exact same problem with my Toshiba 5105-S501. I've monkeyed with it scores of times with no results. Though it has the Nvidia goforce4 440, I ordered and installed an older version but it wouldn't even start up. I may have bent one of the pins on the white connector (or it may have come that way). I also noticed that the fan might be the culprit; it seems to rarely run but since sometimes the laptop has the problem when it starts cold in the morning, I wonder if heat can be a factor.

I wonder if ANYONE has ever corrected the garbled video on this model.

(I called Toshiba, but I got the old "send it in with a few hundred bucks and if we can't fix it, we'll send some of it back to ya" routine.)

-mark

mark!

it looks like we're all in the same boat. i'm not quite convinced it's the fan since like you if i wiggle the vga jack or type hard on the keyboard above the video card i can get the garbage.

like you also, i've bought on ebay an older geforce2 and it won't post. putting back the old geforce4 440 works fine.

i've called toshiba and they have their lame a** pay $150 up front no matter if they fix it or not.

ultimately, i think we need to compile a list of people and send it into toshiba and tell them that it's bad engineering that is to blame not something that their customers are doing wrong.

usman,

the fan does have a lot of dust contamination but it does spin up. perhaps it doesn't spin up right away? in any case, my fan next to the cpu and video card does work.

hmmm

The Toshiba guy told me to send almost 400 up front. The local repair guy said that he can't get the Nvidia geforce4 440 card. He said to try ebay.

I never play games on the thing, but a couple days before the problem occurred, I loaded Need for Speed 2. I probably ran that for an hour or so.


-mark

my fan doesnt work at all. i dont know why. im gonna have to get a new fan from somehwere - though the fans are like 80 bucks. does anyone know where i can get one for cheap? the dimensions are 60x60x10 mm i believe.

i think i saw an nvidia card on ebay today. i'll try to look for the link

im sure its the fan cause i put my laptop over my AC which was blowing really cold air out. the laptop ran for the longest time in weeks, usually it shuts off in like 5 minutes and the screen gets garbages/all black...

make sure this isnt the problem before you spring for an expensive video cards.

also, does anyone know how I can check if my fan is in fact broken or its something else thats wrong?

to check the fan get this cool little prog:
http://www.buzzard.org.uk/toshiba/fan.exe
it allows you to force the fan on any time you like. do it while the computer is cold so you can hear when the fan comes on. It won't let you force the fan off ->that would be stupid, but it's good if you want to avoid having the fan come on noisily just at the quiet dramatic moment of a movie!

your video problems sound similar to mine, except i get horizontal garbage lines on screen, and it hardly ever happens, mainly when playing new DX9 games. I read somewhere (compuserve toshiba laptop forum?) that vertical banding on a laptop screen often means a flaky power supply connection to the screens backlight. Thats pretty easy/cheap to fix!

I also get a funny noise (like the fan hitting something as it spins) then garbled video, then BSOD when I put pressure or the shiny panel above the keyboard, to the left of the power button. The fan, CPU and GPU are directly below this right? (i haven't pulled it apart to check?)

I ponied up the $100 for 'best buy' to take a look at it. They gave it back unfixed saying 'part not available' and they wouldn't even tell me what part it was. I'm pretty sure my video card is the problem. something to do with how this old DirectX7 GPU emulates newer DX9 instructions seems to be what causes the crashing. I can run DX7 games at 1600x1200 w/4xFSAA -> that should use all the video memory so thats not it.

oh and 1 other thing that might help...
http://www.hmonitor.com/
this program can read the temperature sensor on your CPU. Check what temp your comp crashes at. Maybe its not heat-related after all.
I don't know of a prog that can tell the temp of the GF4go440 tho, or even if there is a sensor in it.

cheers,
Jeff

I tried a temp readout program on mine, but I see no correlation between temp and crash.

After a few minutes of vertical bar (sometimes worse) video, I get a device failure messsage and it goes to huge 4 bit mode.

- Mark

I've noticed several postings where others outside this forum are experiencing the same or similar Toshiba video problems.

Maybe soon there will be enough of us to cause Toshiba or Nvidia to come up with a solution.

Just hoping,

-Mark

I'm also having a similar problem with my 5105-S501. It's been doing this for about a year now - the video becomes "corrupted" (hope I'm using the term correctly; you know, lines and garbage on the screen) and then the screen freezes for a moment, and the screen goes to 640x480x16 colors until I restart. It seems to especially do this when I take it somewhere in my backpack. So maybe something get's joggled around.

If anyone comes up with a solutions, please post it! Also, if you know of any place that can just replace the graphics card (for < $500 total), I'd appreciate the tip.