M35-S456 First Impressions

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by sclui56

 

Venombite


I was hopeful that you were right b/c I really wanted the IR port That would have eliminated the differnet cables I carry around for my PPC's & Treo 600. Now how much do you suppose Toshiba saved?

Thanks.

 

Well, thanks vanombite for your answer. I wonder if there is a way to make my fan working a little more quiet. Any thougts?

 

You know Oliver, now that you mentioned it to me, its does switch on rather often. The heat under the laptop is also a bit worrying, or is it me being paranoid?

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by sclui56

 

Venombite

Thanks for the info, what the heck, I'm already carrying a BT plug

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by sclui56

 

The CPU is not that bad, it's just because of the speed of the HDD itself. It only rotates at 4200rpm. 5400rpm should be the minimum these days and 7200rpm is ideal. You may want to look into a new HDD replacement, this will help with boot times.

The speakers are generally poor, mainly because they're notebook speakers (very small). But one thing I do have to ask, did you try max'ing the volume knob on the unit or did you just adjust the volume via software (mixer & DVD player)? There's a hardware volume knob either on the side or front of the unit. Try increasing this if you haven't already.

The reason the fan blows more when connected to AC is because the CPU is running at full speed. When you switch to battery, the power management kicks in and drops the CPU speed to save battery. You can adjust the CPU performance by adjusting the power management settings in the Control Panel. Setting it to Always On makes the CPU run at full speed on battery or AC.

-Vb-

 

I just got my M35 from Amazon. It has great features and the screen is great. The two things that suprised me was the boot speed and the quality of the speakers. I would have expected more out of this cpu. Also, you need to max the volume on the speakers to hear dvd's.

As for the heat problem, when on battery, it's not a problem but when on AC, the fan blows major hot air out the vent.

 

I think the quality on the s456 is not there. the computer seems way more laggy than other 1.7 centrinos. I compared it to a190 sony 1.7 and the sony was way faster. also I notice that there are some multi-tasking issues on the toshibas. has anyone tried installing doom 3 and find that if they do not keep the install window open during the copying process that the comp will just sit there and not install. u do cntl alt del and find that there is nothing wrong indicated.

I tried the same thing on the a190 no problem installing. the problem always arose on the 2nd doom disk so after it starts copying I opened up a lot of internet explorers. on the sony, I tried overloading it but no problem.

also on the s456 with serial numbers starting with 6... they have lcd screen problems same as people with 3 years old toshibas where the screen goes blank from time to time and when they look closely they find that it just went dark. it switches from this dark mode to regular mode. my friend bought a display model at circuit city and this is what was the case. I also check out one on diplay at compusa and it had the same issue. the funny thing is that it usually happens when u re-start it instead of turning off the comp in the start-menu. and also when u do full screen watching dvds.


I also read that some of the other toshiba latops had some quality issue with cpu over heating and they just tried to cover it up with updted bios. I seriously am doubting the build quality of toshibas.


I think on the s456 there is some issue of it overheating. the performance lag is noticible when u have been using the comp for a while and have installed extra progs. one thing that happened all of a sudden was that the text being typed in word was freezing up for few seconds. u hear the fan kick in and then it shows on the screen the text you had typed. and when this is happening, dvd playback suffers same type of temporary freezes. After I restored the comp it was normal again. the strange thing is that this has happened on more than one s456. I'm not sure if this is the cpu or what actually is causing this. anyone have these issues I mentioned?

 

When I first saw the laptop, it looked great and felt sturdy. I guess I did not have the opportunity to test it out as thoroughly as many of you. But from all the comments, I am starting to doubt this laptop. I bought this laptop thinking the Toshiba brand had good build quality and reliability. Most of the comments / complaints mentioned through this forum have now become clear to me. The problems did not appear to be "problems" at the time. I guess its all about perception. The question is, will this laptop hold its own for some time to come?
In reply to your problem with the sound being way low, I downloaded a program called Slains-MKV. This uses Media Player really, but its almost an upgrade of it. It seems as if the InterActual Player software that comes shipped with the notebook does not quite do the job as well. The sound quanlity is very low rom this software package, and using Slains, it definitely improved. I initially thought it was the laptop being faulty.

 

Has anyone upgraded to XP Pro on this laptop? I have been getting errors after I have done the upgrade. The one error occurs at bootup, saying that it could not find an entry point for a msdart.dll. Anyone heard of this before? Any help would be appreciated.

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by rodfok

 

Thanks Vb. This seems to have done the trick!!

 

My M35-S359 has always had the fan running more than I'm used to -- owned an IBM laptop previously -- but I haven't had any real problems until recently. The fan has started to "chug." And because my computer model/serial turned up on the list for chip replacement, that will have to be dealt with as well. Has anyone else had either experience (chip and/or fan)?