I Am Officially Done With Toshiba. Worst Company Ever. - Blu-ray Forum

OrlandoEastwood · 02-09-2009, 10:37 PM

This is long, so bare with me or go to another thread. I got a Toshiba A205-S8516 laptop as a graduation present from my folks for college and business use since I'm also a filmmaker and I am using it for screenwriting purposes. The laptop was purchased on July 22, 2008 and when August rolled around I left for the big island of Hawaii and it all seemed good and such. I had got some DVDs from Wal-Mart (US, R1, NTSC) and also ordered some DVDs and VCDs from Thailand off eThaiCD.com (Thai, R0/3, NTSC/PAL) as birthday presents.

The US R1 DVDs were Alone in the Dark Director's Cut, Clerks II, House of the Dead Director's Cut, Rodan/War of the Gargantuas, and Seed. I know that most of those are Uwe Boll films but I enjoy them for the mindless violence that they are. The Thai DVDs were Always: Sunset on Third Street, Always 2: Sunset on Third Street, Confession of Pain, Dolls, Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters, Godzilla Vs. Biollante, Godzilla: Final Wars, Horton Hears A Who! (English Language VCD), I Am Omega, and Speed Racer (English Language VCD). I got the Wal-Mart DVDs first.

I put Seed in first because it was one I had not seen. As the disc loads up this loud, scary as hell, whirling, spinning noise is heard. I mean this is LOUD. So I push down as hard as I can on the power button to shut it off. So as confused as to what happened, I turned the power on and quickly pressed the eject button on the disc slot to get the disc out.

I then try War of the Gargantuas, it played fine. I thought it was odd that the Seed DVD did that. So I try House of the Dead Unrated Director's Cut, same loud as hell scary noise. So I was like "What the hell?" Alone in the Dark Unrated Director's Cut, SAME GD THING!!! Clerks II, fine. So I tried the Thai VCDs and DVDs, the VCDs worked fine. So I tried Dolls, played fine. Always: Sunset on Third Street, LOUD NOISE. I tried the three Godzilla DVDs, fine. Confession of Pain, fine. I Am Omega, fine. So the last DVD in my set was Always 2: Sunset on Third Street, LOUD SCARY NOISE!!!

So I called Toshiba's technicians from India or where they might be in Asia and they had me delete an upper and lower filter in a driver folder and then to restart the laptop and to try the DVDs in question that were not working. I throw Always 2: Sunset on Third Street because the opening of the film has Godzilla in it and I've been wanting to see it desperately. I put it in and the noise is a million times worse and to make matter even worse is that right as I hold down on the power button to shut it off, the laptop will not shut off!!! I had to hear this loud, horrifying noise for over a minute. So I break down and loose it while talking to this Toshiba technician because he made it worse. I mean the DVD screwed up Windows and I had to reformat the system. So I take it to a repair shop called The Computer Store here in Hilo, nice people who are Toshiba approved to fix their products operate here.

I take it out there on my birthday to get it analyzed. Their diagnosis says that the laptop is perfectly fine but they go ahead any way and have the disc drive replaced. They call Toshiba to order a new drive and it takes me almost the whole month of October to get the laptop repaired. I take the DVD for Seed and the new drive DOES THE EXACT SAME THING! The guy told me that it's the disc and take it back. It's been the 30 days, I cannot return it now.

A few nights later the people who live beside me want to watch some movies because I was talking to them when I had gotten my package from Thailand and told them it was movies. So they saw the DVD copy I had for Seed and they were all wanting to watch it. We played the DVD on an XBOX, not a 360 but a regular XBOX and the disc loaded right up. I was amazed. So I finally got to watch the movie. And a week later I had left for Honolulu and took back all of the DVDs I got. The one's the did not work loaded right up on my desktop computer I have at my parents house. They worked on my mom's computer and worked on all the DVD players in the house. This damn laptop is cursed by the devil, Satan, himself.

November rolls around and one day when I wake up on a Saturday, I turn the laptop on and go to take a shower. I come back to my laptop after I got done and dressed and noticed it was turned off. I touch the laptop and it is HOT AS HELL! It was on for no more than ten minutes and it over heated. I was like "What the hell!" I called Toshiba concerned as hell about this because this thing is now a ticking time bomb. So I was asked to remove the battery which helped kinda but it's still overheating and shutting off.

And I decided to get a Blu-Ray external drive for Christmas and I had called a Toshiba technician and asked in advanced if this laptop can play Blu-Ray discs from an external drive. They told me "Yes". WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! I ran a diganostic from Cyberlink BD Advisor and I am nowhere even close to having this thing play a Blu-Ray disc and the only three Blu-Ray discs that work are Black Mask, Constantine, and I Am Legend. The other 4 I have with those do not work properly or at all.

Then these past couple of weeks I noticed that the DVD disc drive has been acting up and just making the loud noise with any of the DVDs that I have been putting in it. So Disc Drive #2 is shot and I've been using my external BD drive to play DVDs. And I called Toshiba and there ain't jack to do about replacing this laptop so I devised a strategy of calling them everyday until they give in and replace my laptop. I've had it fixed once but I am not going through that hell again. I want to be rid of this laptop COMPLETELY.

Marquoz · 02-09-2009, 11:28 PM

About the only thing I can comment on is the heat issue. Toshiba's laptops run notoriously hot, mine vents on the left hand side UNDERNEATH the laptop. If you have it directly on something you will block the venting and it will overheat in no time. This can and will cause Hard Drive damage very quickly. I just hang it off the side of something and it vents fine and it doesn't shut off.

hc666 · 02-10-2009, 12:47 AM

Mine is fine.

I love Toshiba's stuff, their TVs rock!

You can turn this argument on any company, we have all dealt with a lemon.

Myself, I think Samsung is total crap.

Beta Man · 02-10-2009, 12:50 AM

My Toshiba DVD player from 1997 is still running like a top........ Never had one of their laptops though

EDIT:

Surviving college etc.... that DVD player has more hours logged onto it than I can even imagine.......

Marine Mike · 02-10-2009, 12:56 AM

I've had a Toshiba laptop with insane amount of heat issues that eventually fried the motherboard.

However, it lasted throughout college, lol.

Excalibur-king · 02-10-2009, 12:57 AM

I have never bought a Toshiba product in my life and for good reason, thank god.

hd dvd was a complete waste and a pathetic joke..

hc666 · 02-10-2009, 01:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shaka

I have never bought a Toshiba product in my life and for good reason, thank god.

hd dvd was a complete waste and a pathetic joke..

If you own a PS3 you own a joint Sony-Toshiba product.

SHines-IT · 02-10-2009, 01:08 AM

I had a Toshiba Laptop, had nothing but problems. To the point I got so pissed off, I through it though my wall. Yes, thhhhhhrouugh the wall. I want another laptop, I may try Toshiba Business line or IBM. But may go with an Apple laptop.

Marine Mike · 02-10-2009, 01:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hc666

If you own a PS3 you own a joint Sony-Toshiba product.

hc666 · 02-10-2009, 01:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SHines-IT

I had a Toshiba Laptop, had nothing but problems. To the point I got so pissed off, I through it though my wall. Yes, thhhhhhrouugh the wall. I want another laptop, I may try Toshiba Business line or IBM. But may go with an Apple laptop.

I have owned 4 different brands.... toshiba, dell, hp and averatec for laptops...

Toshiba was the nicest and has the least problems. Very slick design and ran pretty darn good for me.

HP was junk, felt cheap and loaded with tons-o-crap which drives me nuts!

Dell, for some reason it wouldn't like to turn off most times and did some quirky things.

Averatec... got what i paid for... garbage lol

SHines-IT · 02-10-2009, 01:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hc666

I have owned 4 different brands.... toshiba, dell, hp and averatec for laptops...

Toshiba was the nicest and has the least problems. Very slick design and ran pretty darn good for me.

HP was junk, felt cheap and loaded with tons-o-crap which drives me nuts!

Dell, for some reason it wouldn't like to turn off most times and did some quirky things.

Averatec... got what i paid for... garbage lol

I had a few problems with HP, mainly the motherboard went out have 14 months. Well that's the only problem, pretty major I guess.

Forrestandjen07 · 02-10-2009, 01:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hc666

Mine is fine.

I love Toshiba's stuff, their TVs rock!

You can turn this argument on any company, we have all dealt with a lemon.

.

+1

OrlandoEastwood · 02-10-2009, 09:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Beta Man

My Toshiba DVD player from 1997 is still running like a top........ Never had one of their laptops though

EDIT:

Surviving college etc.... that DVD player has more hours logged onto it than I can even imagine.......

Word of advice, DO NOT BUY A TOSHIBA LAPTOP! I usually watch at least one movie a day if I can find time. Usually the weekend is when I use it the most. I have an iPod and I discovered how to connect my iPod to a TV. So when I took the laptop to get fixed in October, I bought a TV for $20 and it has the RCA plug in on the front and hooked up my iPod to it to keep me calm because looking at a small ass screen will drive me crazy for hours on end.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marine Mike

I've had a Toshiba laptop with insane amount of heat issues that eventually fried the motherboard.

However, it lasted throughout college, lol.

The overheating on mine is on the left side where the CAT-V internet cable connects to the laptop.

Quote:

Originally Posted by shaka

I have never bought a Toshiba product in my life and for good reason, thank god.

hd dvd was a complete waste and a pathetic joke..

I'm happy that Wal-Mart sold out of HD-DVD players when they were $98 on Black Friday 2007. I was on the HD-DVD side because I had read that the German HD-DVD for Silent Hill was better than the US Blu-Ray.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SHines-IT

I had a Toshiba Laptop, had nothing but problems. To the point I got so pissed off, I through it though my wall. Yes, thhhhhhrouugh the wall. I want another laptop, I may try Toshiba Business line or IBM. But may go with an Apple laptop.

You don't know how many times doing that has occurred in my mind. I wanted to throw it had against the brick walls of this dorm. My mom did ask me before going out and buying the laptop which kind I wanted and I showed her online the Sony laptop that had a Blu-Ray drive in it. Then she just ignored me and bought the Toshiba. You know, it worked fine until September. When I got those DVDs for my birthday that's when it hit the fan.

SleeperAgent · 02-10-2009, 10:42 AM

Yeah, they're satelite laptops are horrible in my experience. Through regular use I fried 4 hard drives, a mother board, and 2 dvd burners in less than one year. At the one year mark when warranty expired I realized the laptop had spent more time with them than with me. So I set it on the ground and beat the hell out of it.

Marquoz · 02-10-2009, 11:12 AM

Funniest thing is, my Satellite for all it's quibbles is a solid laptop. It's been through being hozed in fabreeze, gingerale, dropped constantly, overheated to the point it fried a couple RAM sticks, crossed wires on the power cord that fried the battery, and it still works beautifully.

I really wouldn't trade it for any other laptop, because I know exactly what this one has been through, and for it to still work is very impressive.

paperthrower2000 · 02-10-2009, 11:46 AM

I have two Toshiba satellites and love them ,I bought a cooling fan for one that runs by a usb port for cooling.

OrlandoEastwood · 02-10-2009, 11:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheSoviet

Yeah, they're satelite laptops are horrible in my experience. Through regular use I fried 4 hard drives, a mother board, and 2 dvd burners in less than one year. At the one year mark when warranty expired I realized the laptop had spent more time with them than with me. So I set it on the ground and beat the hell out of it.

I'm getting DVD Burner #3 installed after this Friday when I take it back to The Computer Store Inc. here in Hilo.

I spent an hour and a half ranting at the customer service technician from India. I feel sorry for ranting at him but at the same time, it's his company's fault so I he's collateral damage.

Bigdog · 02-10-2009, 12:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by OrlandoEastwood

I'm getting DVD Burner #3 installed after this Friday when I take it back to The Computer Store Inc. here in Hilo.

I spent an hour and a half ranting at the customer service technician from India. I feel sorry for ranting at him but at the same time, it's his company's fault so I he's collateral damage.

Are you using power dvd, and if so im betting 99% of it being a software problem more then a hardware. Drives being loud on lappys is normal, when it's reading a disc at 20x+ speed you will hear it as laptop drives are open and not enclosed like a desktop unit. It is loud on certain disk's because it is having trouble reading it through the software imo, and the fact that certain disk do play in it make me think there is nothing wrong with your drive.

Just my opinion but many of the free and included dvd playback software is crap and buggy as hell. The heat issue is no biggie as im willing to bet your video card is right in the spot were it feels the hottest. My dell has been on for about 15 minutes and already has about 99* heat blowing out of the exhaust fan.

OrlandoEastwood · 02-10-2009, 12:52 PM

PowerDVD was non-existant until I got the External Blu-Ray drive back at Christmas. I was using the Toshiba DVD Player application and VLC player.

jkwest · 02-10-2009, 03:15 PM

Here's your problem...the DVD's you bought oversees are pirated....Look at any of them...they will all have their serial numbers scratched off...I'm surprised no one mentioned this to you...they use crappy thai discs that aren't balanced...I have seen many that are "wobbly".
You have been barking about Tosh and its really the bootlegs that you bought...put the same discs into any other player and it will make the same noise...THEY ARE UNBALANCED....

You've been punked and you don't even know it yet.

02-09-2009, 10:37 PM	#1
OrlandoEastwood Blu-ray Champion Top contributor Member since:Jun 2008 Location:R-Point Blu-ray reviews:86 Trading Score:24	I Am Officially Done With Toshiba. Worst Company Ever. This is long, so bare with me or go to another thread. I got a Toshiba A205-S8516 laptop as a graduation present from my folks for college and business use since I'm also a filmmaker and I am using it for screenwriting purposes. The laptop was purchased on July 22, 2008 and when August rolled around I left for the big island of Hawaii and it all seemed good and such. I had got some DVDs from Wal-Mart (US, R1, NTSC) and also ordered some DVDs and VCDs from Thailand off eThaiCD.com (Thai, R0/3, NTSC/PAL) as birthday presents. The US R1 DVDs were Alone in the Dark Director's Cut, Clerks II, House of the Dead Director's Cut, Rodan/War of the Gargantuas, and Seed. I know that most of those are Uwe Boll films but I enjoy them for the mindless violence that they are. The Thai DVDs were Always: Sunset on Third Street, Always 2: Sunset on Third Street, Confession of Pain, Dolls, Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters, Godzilla Vs. Biollante, Godzilla: Final Wars, Horton Hears A Who! (English Language VCD), I Am Omega, and Speed Racer (English Language VCD). I got the Wal-Mart DVDs first. I put Seed in first because it was one I had not seen. As the disc loads up this loud, scary as hell, whirling, spinning noise is heard. I mean this is LOUD. So I push down as hard as I can on the power button to shut it off. So as confused as to what happened, I turned the power on and quickly pressed the eject button on the disc slot to get the disc out. I then try War of the Gargantuas, it played fine. I thought it was odd that the Seed DVD did that. So I try House of the Dead Unrated Director's Cut, same loud as hell scary noise. So I was like "What the hell?" Alone in the Dark Unrated Director's Cut, SAME GD THING!!! Clerks II, fine. So I tried the Thai VCDs and DVDs, the VCDs worked fine. So I tried Dolls, played fine. Always: Sunset on Third Street, LOUD NOISE. I tried the three Godzilla DVDs, fine. Confession of Pain, fine. I Am Omega, fine. So the last DVD in my set was Always 2: Sunset on Third Street, LOUD SCARY NOISE!!! So I called Toshiba's technicians from India or where they might be in Asia and they had me delete an upper and lower filter in a driver folder and then to restart the laptop and to try the DVDs in question that were not working. I throw Always 2: Sunset on Third Street because the opening of the film has Godzilla in it and I've been wanting to see it desperately. I put it in and the noise is a million times worse and to make matter even worse is that right as I hold down on the power button to shut it off, the laptop will not shut off!!! I had to hear this loud, horrifying noise for over a minute. So I break down and loose it while talking to this Toshiba technician because he made it worse. I mean the DVD screwed up Windows and I had to reformat the system. So I take it to a repair shop called The Computer Store here in Hilo, nice people who are Toshiba approved to fix their products operate here. I take it out there on my birthday to get it analyzed. Their diagnosis says that the laptop is perfectly fine but they go ahead any way and have the disc drive replaced. They call Toshiba to order a new drive and it takes me almost the whole month of October to get the laptop repaired. I take the DVD for Seed and the new drive DOES THE EXACT SAME THING! The guy told me that it's the disc and take it back. It's been the 30 days, I cannot return it now. A few nights later the people who live beside me want to watch some movies because I was talking to them when I had gotten my package from Thailand and told them it was movies. So they saw the DVD copy I had for Seed and they were all wanting to watch it. We played the DVD on an XBOX, not a 360 but a regular XBOX and the disc loaded right up. I was amazed. So I finally got to watch the movie. And a week later I had left for Honolulu and took back all of the DVDs I got. The one's the did not work loaded right up on my desktop computer I have at my parents house. They worked on my mom's computer and worked on all the DVD players in the house. This damn laptop is cursed by the devil, Satan, himself. November rolls around and one day when I wake up on a Saturday, I turn the laptop on and go to take a shower. I come back to my laptop after I got done and dressed and noticed it was turned off. I touch the laptop and it is HOT AS HELL! It was on for no more than ten minutes and it over heated. I was like "What the hell!" I called Toshiba concerned as hell about this because this thing is now a ticking time bomb. So I was asked to remove the battery which helped kinda but it's still overheating and shutting off. And I decided to get a Blu-Ray external drive for Christmas and I had called a Toshiba technician and asked in advanced if this laptop can play Blu-Ray discs from an external drive. They told me "Yes". WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! I ran a diganostic from Cyberlink BD Advisor and I am nowhere even close to having this thing play a Blu-Ray disc and the only three Blu-Ray discs that work are Black Mask, Constantine, and I Am Legend. The other 4 I have with those do not work properly or at all. Then these past couple of weeks I noticed that the DVD disc drive has been acting up and just making the loud noise with any of the DVDs that I have been putting in it. So Disc Drive #2 is shot and I've been using my external BD drive to play DVDs. And I called Toshiba and there ain't jack to do about replacing this laptop so I devised a strategy of calling them everyday until they give in and replace my laptop. I've had it fixed once but I am not going through that hell again. I want to be rid of this laptop COMPLETELY.

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02-09-2009, 11:28 PM	#2
Marquoz Blu-ray Samurai Member since:Jan 2008 Location:New Orleans Home Theater Gallery:4 Blu-ray collection:167 Trading Score:2	About the only thing I can comment on is the heat issue. Toshiba's laptops run notoriously hot, mine vents on the left hand side UNDERNEATH the laptop. If you have it directly on something you will block the venting and it will overheat in no time. This can and will cause Hard Drive damage very quickly. I just hang it off the side of something and it vents fine and it doesn't shut off.

02-10-2009, 12:47 AM	#3
hc666 Blu-ray Guru Member since:Nov 2007 Home Theater Gallery:7 Blu-ray collection:100 Blu-ray reviews: 26	Mine is fine. I love Toshiba's stuff, their TVs rock! You can turn this argument on any company, we have all dealt with a lemon. Myself, I think Samsung is total crap.

02-10-2009, 12:50 AM	#4
Beta Man Moderator Top contributor Member since:Jan 2008 Location:Juuuuuuuust A Bit Outside.... Home Theater Gallery:4 Blu-ray collection:268 Blu-ray reviews: 18 Trading Score:25	My Toshiba DVD player from 1997 is still running like a top........ Never had one of their laptops though EDIT: Surviving college etc.... that DVD player has more hours logged onto it than I can even imagine.......

02-10-2009, 12:56 AM	#5
Marine Mike The Busey Member since:Apr 2008 Location:Ohio Home Theater Gallery:10 Blu-ray collection:120 Blu-ray reviews:4 Trading Score:4	I've had a Toshiba laptop with insane amount of heat issues that eventually fried the motherboard. However, it lasted throughout college, lol.

02-10-2009, 12:57 AM	#6
Excalibur-king Senior Member Member since:May 2006 Location:Amerika. Blu-ray collection:49	I have never bought a Toshiba product in my life and for good reason, thank god. hd dvd was a complete waste and a pathetic joke..

02-10-2009, 01:08 AM	#8
SHines-IT Special Member Member since:Dec 2008 Location:Eustis, FL Blu-ray collection:19 Trading Score:3	I had a Toshiba Laptop, had nothing but problems. To the point I got so pissed off, I through it though my wall. Yes, thhhhhhrouugh the wall. I want another laptop, I may try Toshiba Business line or IBM. But may go with an Apple laptop.

02-10-2009, 10:42 AM	#14
SleeperAgent Banned Member since:Nov 2008 Location:Plateau of Leng 4K collection:19 Blu-ray collection:22 Trading Score:289	Yeah, they're satelite laptops are horrible in my experience. Through regular use I fried 4 hard drives, a mother board, and 2 dvd burners in less than one year. At the one year mark when warranty expired I realized the laptop had spent more time with them than with me. So I set it on the ground and beat the hell out of it.

02-10-2009, 11:12 AM	#15
Marquoz Blu-ray Samurai Member since:Jan 2008 Location:New Orleans Home Theater Gallery:4 Blu-ray collection:167 Trading Score:2	Funniest thing is, my Satellite for all it's quibbles is a solid laptop. It's been through being hozed in fabreeze, gingerale, dropped constantly, overheated to the point it fried a couple RAM sticks, crossed wires on the power cord that fried the battery, and it still works beautifully. I really wouldn't trade it for any other laptop, because I know exactly what this one has been through, and for it to still work is very impressive.

02-10-2009, 11:46 AM	#16
paperthrower2000 Special Member Member since:Jan 2009 Location:Atlantic Canada Home Theater Gallery:1 Blu-ray collection:1382 Blu-ray reviews:10	I have two Toshiba satellites and love them ,I bought a cooling fan for one that runs by a usb port for cooling.

02-10-2009, 12:52 PM	#19
OrlandoEastwood Blu-ray Champion Top contributor Member since:Jun 2008 Location:R-Point Blu-ray reviews:86 Trading Score:24	PowerDVD was non-existant until I got the External Blu-Ray drive back at Christmas. I was using the Toshiba DVD Player application and VLC player.

02-10-2009, 03:15 PM	#20
jkwest Off-Topic King Member since:Jul 2007 Location:Northern California PSN Id: jkwest5 Blu-ray reviews:1 Trading Score:20	Here's your problem...the DVD's you bought oversees are pirated....Look at any of them...they will all have their serial numbers scratched off...I'm surprised no one mentioned this to you...they use crappy thai discs that aren't balanced...I have seen many that are "wobbly". You have been barking about Tosh and its really the bootlegs that you bought...put the same discs into any other player and it will make the same noise...THEY ARE UNBALANCED.... You've been punked and you don't even know it yet.

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