Things about Toshiba Laptops that annoy you...

Common people, lets make a list. I got a few things that irritate me to no end. I'll start off with 2 simple ones that could easily be fixed with patches(they have been around for more then a year though, so its clear toshiba wont be fixing them)

1.Toshiba controls only work with windows media player, and(in my case) rarely work.

2.The 'toshiba quick play' that was made specifically for DVD movies and CD music, still runs the disc drive at max speed. Why does it not throttle down the speed to conserve energy and make a LOT less noise? Who, other then toshiba, knows!

Seriously, I owned a Thinkpad before this, and i was a lot happier with minimalist controls it offered, then all the cluttered junk on my M70. Maybe if i could at least control the buttons, i wouldnt be so bitter.

So common people, post your complaints, in the hopes that someone from toshiba will actually do something about it. Dont hold your breath though....

 

Most of the time, I am using Microsoft Media Player to watch movies and it is not a concern to me at all.
My only complain is that my Portege M500 had a **** DVD/CD writer that could not even burn any disc at all (had tried Verbatim and Imation CD-R)!
I think I am going to ask them for a replacement!

 

It's interesting that you're limited to the media controls on Windows because I can get them to work nicely in Linux. Perhaps, a driver hack is needed?

 

i hate the ghost restore cd. grrr.

 

the keyboard, definately the keyboard... and also the never working Toshiba Power Saver software.

 

For me, very poor M/a/t/s/h/i/t/a DVDRW in old Satellite M45/M55 series and Toshiba comes with small cell li-ion battery(my friend's M45 has only 3cell battery).

 

Oh yeah, I forgot that, my Mat****a drive stopped burning CDs after weeks and couldn't be fixed any more, that's when I retired my CDs and once and for all switched to DVD-Rs.

 

Definitely the keyboard. The squished keys on the right side (e.g. shift, etc) due to the numeric keyboard REALLY irritate me, and after 6 weeks I'm still not used to them. No other 17" with a numeric keypad seems to have this issue.

The speakers on the front of the notebook are covered by my hands when I type, muffling any music I might be playing. They'd be much better off near the screen. But they do sound good, and the SRS trusurround really does give surround when playing games I find!

A 4200 rpm HD on what was originally a $2300 computer is unacceptable. Will be upgrading to a 7200 soon though.

Too much bloatware, took a while to get it all off. But not as bad as some companies.

Overall though I love my M60 though. The screen is fantastic, and the go 6600 is no 7900, but does the trick just fine.

 

Yeah, i forgot to mention the keyboard. If I actually type at my normal typing speed(as i would with desktop keyboard) i get strange whistling sounds comming out of the keys, from how they are arranged. Sounds kinda like a hydrolic lift. The last laptop i owned was a T23 which was, imo, the best built thinkpad, so i was really spoiled.

 

My L100 has no external volume control, only the software one in windows! Other than that I have no real complaints.

 

Definitely the keyboard layout!
Why they still using such out of stand layout???

Regards.

 

Im on a toshiba equium at the minute belonging to my sister ans the thing that is annoying me most is the fact that that the toupad has no indication whatsover that the right hand side of it scrolls the page up and down and also the stupid switch windows thing thsat comes up everytime your that tiny bit too slow scrolling the page. Definately too many parts to the touchpad, it leaves m e with about 1 cm squared left to actually move the mouse around the page.

 

Are you aware that you can configure the size of the corner hotspots in the Synaptics configuration tool.

You can also assign what function each corner performs. You can even set the corner to do nothing. I love it!

 

There is only 1 major thing that bugs me with my Satellite P100 - PSPA6A-028017 and that is there is no power saving module/software other than the windoze crap one. Have searched in vain to find on the toshiba web-sites and is not there.

Other than that I love it. Great screen, great sound, quick etc.

 

Here's a link to download Toshiba Power Saver but it's off the link for my L100 on the Toshiba website, I have no idea if it'll work on your P100 and I take no responsibility for it f*cking up if you try it!

 

Where do I find the Synaptics configuration tool?

 

You should see a square icon in the System Tray and double clicking it will bting up the Mouse Properties Panel. If not, go to the Mouse icon in the control Panel.

Click the Device Settings Tab and then the Settings Button which will give you a Navigation bar with all of the TouchPad functions. It is very configurable and IMO excellent!

 

I brought that up, but there is no Device Settings Tab there. Only a Touchpad on/off tab. This is a Toshiba M-55 if that makes any difference.

 

You could try updating the driver with this one from the Synaptics site:
http://www.synaptics.com/support/index.cfm

Usual caveats apply..... you do so at your own risk etc..

 

I think I'm getting confused now. I looked in the add/remove programs and it says I have an Alps touchpad driver. Is Alps the name of a company? Sorry, I hijacked this thread, guys. Didn't mean to.

 

The penny drops..... . Alps is an alternative manufacturer of Touchpads so the Synaptics Driver will not work for you. Bad luck!

THe Alps device is also used on Dell and Sony Vaio laptops and is similarly configurable. You will need to search the Toshiba site for updates for your model. Alternatively, there is always Google ... but most of the hits were for Linux drivers when I searched.

 

Yeah, I googled last night with no luck. I use a mouse, but I was just curious on the config tool. Plus it's a moot point anyway as I can't get my touchpad to work anyway. Thanks for the help.

 

so back on the theme of things i hate about *my* Toshiba
I have a Portege M200, and it was one of those thin & light models, that came w/o an optical drive.

The only supported drives for booting from cd rom are Toshiba's expensive (circa $300) usb cdrom drives
or some equally expensive Targus drives.

By the luck of the draw some tablet owners have come across some drives which miraculously boot but these either fall into the category of expensive or obsolete or both.

Toshiba has known about this issue, and has absolutely no interest in offering a bios update or some solution that will enable this machine to boot to any usb optical drive.

my next gripe, the screen mask, which breaks if you breathe on it too hard. I had mine for 4 months, and if i'd mishandled it i'd have noone but myself to blame. But i just opened my tablet one day to find that it had cracked.
To replace the mask $145. fun

Its not covered under Toshiba's warranty & many m200 users have had the same experience.

3rd gripe, they're tech supports knowledge of actual comuters is dubious. Had an issue where the computer would black screen after booting...tech support had no clue what could have caused it, and Toshiba wanted me to return it to them to have a look @ it. Talked to a friend in IT, and he was like "oh...you need to fix your mbr [master boot record], thats simple, just use your Windows XP CD"....which brings me back to my first gripe...can't boot to cd ..oh & i did buy one of the targus drives...only to find out it didn't have the right cable to boot, it apparently needs a 16 bit pcmcia card...will it ever end.

In the shortened version of this story, after putting my hd in a friends notebook, i had to turn to DOS, to get the mbr fixed.

and no, XP boot disks/Bart PE don't work either...they have the fun feature of bluescreening around the 5th or so disk.

 

I own the Satellite A70. My complaints are very clear and simple:
- the processor alone heats my room
- the fans are always on full blast, it sounds like a hair dryer

 

that is weird, oh i just notices you had a P4, but still.... the processor heating up the whole room


My complaint:
once in a while the fan will randomly start on high for like 2 seconds.... it like wtf. Guess i can fix that but it doesn't matter much
also my itunes skips songs sometimes, i don't know if its just itunes probably is, but i am still complaining
The fact that I can't use the remote control but they gave it to me anyway

 

The fact that mine has no external volume control is incredibly annoying. Also the Toshiba logo on the lid isn't attatched properly!

 

Some of the complaints have already been fixed.

1) Toshiba now uses a DVD drive acoustic silencer that throttles down the drive speed.

2) Fan blast (seemingly random) actually does a good job of maintaining the right temp. I'd rather have it only coming on once in a while in 1 second bursts than being constantly on especially during gameplay or video encoding.

3) Keyboard layout looks weird at first, but actually have never been an issue. I learned to type on an old fashioned typewriter, so I'm kinda surprised the mini keys have never been a problem.

Maybe the most annoying thing is the control and indicator labels. They're so small on the P100 that you need a GPS to locate them. I wish the labels looked more like that on the HP DV9000.

 

The wobbly screen when you type (no matter soft or hard). The other is the dim screen that doesn't compare to the competition (HP, Acer, Sony, ASUS).

 

Lets see:
No external volume control.

 

Mine has an external volume control.

 

Issues with my s4084:

1. DVD drive is sh!te... UJ-841s, it will be replaced.
2. Casing is squeaky, not solidly built (right below mousepad on lip)
3. Keyboard layout does stink.
4. Pre-loaded software is HORRIBLE. I'm going to have to reformat this thing tonight after a few months, its just too much... too bad the website doesnt have a clear way of DL'ing the drivers like dell...
5. When going to TV out and back to notebook LCD, the reduced resolution gets locked, and you have to reboot
6. Battery life, but thats iffy considering im coming from an e1405 with about 6hrs plus... i do like the screen more on this one though

 

Hello,

What's your model?
Almost all Toshiba has an external volume control.

Regards.

 

my DVD drive stopped burning, I took it to the Tech Center to replace it.
mobo died too.
LCD panel got white dots everywhere, and they said this is normal.

The quality got worst, my next laptop should be from HP, with Nvidia GPU.

 

I hate the layout of the keyboard, I bought one and then I decided to return because of the stup** keyboard!

 

I can't get an HP PSC 1510 printer to work with my lapto. The printer works
great on an old HP desktop running Windows 98 SE.
Wayne