Well, I guess I should pipe up to concur with Dave. I am on my second Toshiba, but the third in my family - my sister and I got identical ones a couple years ago.
My old one (Satellite A-15, I think) had an issue with the screen - you know how old tvs would have vertical bright colored lines when testing emergency signals? Yeah, it did that. At first, just the bottom third of the screen or so, but it migrated up. Fortunately, it was still under warranty and they fixed it.
Then the fan died. Made nasty sounds and overheated and shut down. Of course, I was in France and couldn't just go back to the store. :-P So my dad got me a replacement fan and I put it in all by myself. Was quite proud of myself. Then when my sister's had the same problem, we knew what we were doing.
Then I got another Toshiba this summer (another satellite, but a smaller newer one...U205? I think...) and it's driving me batty. It overheats and the screen freezes - my only clue is that *as* it freezes, the fan starts whirring like crazy. No warning, no chance to cool it down before it freezes. The only option is to turn it off manually and restart. I took it in and they said yup, it's the fan, but it also fried your CPU. So I got a new fan, CPU and motherboard. And less than two weeks later...started doing it again. I have an external fan that plugs into the usb port and it has overheated and frozen *while* on the fan.
Tuesday, when I haven't got class, I'm going to take it back to the repair shop, because this is ridiculous.
Funny thing is, other than Dave, everyone I know with a Toshiba loves it! I figure three times for me, though, is enough and so I'm never getting one again.
Bethy
