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    New (refurb) M60 - DVD ram problem?

    Discussion in 'Toshiba' started by Cheffy, Oct 13, 2006.

  1. Cheffy

    Cheffy Notebook Evangelist

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    Hello all!

    I just picked up a refurb M60 for a song and a dance, with:

    Pentium M750
    512 MB ram (pc4200)
    100 GB hd (only 4200 rpm)
    Feforce Go 128 mb 6600 (sweet)
    17" sweet looking screen, no dead pixels and minimal washout (way better than the HP dv 8305 I returned)
    etc

    So after loading it up for the first time, I tried loading a cd to test the audio. Well, it wouldn't seem to recognise it. So I opened it and tried again. Again. Again. Finally, it opened up the window that gave me the option to listen to it with WMP. It played fine. I opened and closed it several times afterwards to find it would not recognise it most of the time. Manually selecting the dvd drive from my computer gave a i/o device error msg.

    After checking under device manager secondary ide channel, it was set to DMA if Available, but actually running PIO. I set it to run PIO only and it seemed to consistently recognise the device, but slowly.

    So I restarted and tried a game disk. It recognised it quickly. I checked the sceondary channel and found it running under DMA 2 now.

    Now I know that if com errors are present it will default to the next lowest DMA setting until it hits PIO. Restarting apparently "fixed" the problem, but I'm concerned that this may be a hardware issue (refurb model and all). Should I be concerned? I'll test it out over the weekend, but Bestbuy.ca is nearly out of these and will certainly be out by the end of the weekend.

    Any other things I should look for in particular with this model? Keyboard is stiff but seems fine - except that the right-hand alt key does not open the menus at the top when pressed, but does work for other purposes. Left-alt opens menus fine.

    Thanks all, I'm excited about this notebook, been looking for a while and this is the third one I've tried out.

    Chef
     
    Cheffy, Oct 13, 2006
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  2. Cheffy

    Cheffy Notebook Evangelist

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    Well after running this notebook for the weekend, I have had no more problems with the drive or in any other way. Briefly played neverwinter nights and recorded much better frame rates than on the HP with the 200m (of course). Getting used to the keyboard - definitely a bit off kilter, especially due to the very small right shift and period keys. Bit of excessive backlighting along the base a a bit up top, but still much better than the HP screen it replaced. Gets pretty warm against my right wrist, but not uncomfortably - might be nice in the winter. Also need to find a way to shut off the touchpad when typing.

    Cheffy
     
    Cheffy, Oct 15, 2006
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