Toshiba Sucks

 

Johnny bought me a Toshiba Satellite C75-D laptop in December. As most of you know, the 17′ screen, HD display, 8 gigs of memory and 500 gig hard-drive would be handy and fast enough for me to follow my photography passion. And it did. I loved it.

Then. On the advice of friends, I bought an external hard drive  to copy the images to. That way, if there is a hard-drive failure, I won’t lose my work. And, image files are large, so if they are stored on the external, it won’t bog down the surprisingly slow laptop.  Handy little 3T stand alone. Toshiba as well. I backed up the majority of the images on the laptop in one fell swoop. About 300 gigs, give or take. Worked flawlessly. And fast. I loved it. Back up the laptop onto a lil black box I could store and not have to wait for a zillion pics to load every time I looked for something. Beautiful.

I went to go look for some beach images on the 3T a month or so later. Plugged it in. And nothing. Checked the drive. Not showing up at all. OMG! My images that I backed up to be on the safe side are now gone.You have got to be kidding me!!!!!  AAARRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!

I tried the blue tipped usb in another port. Nope. Only one 3.0 port. Wont fit in the 2.0 O.K. I picked up a usb hub and tried that. Nope. . Went to search Toshiba T3 issues. Nothing. I mean it. Nothing. Keyboard is now NOT doing what a keyboard is supposed to do.  TYPE…..   NO KEYBOARD. Restart the computer. Nothing. When it rebooted and I had to use the on-screen keyboard, that should have been a sign. It was, I just missed it. Ran every diagnostic I could find to do and nothing. The on-screen keyboard proved useful, but not really user-friendly.  At least the touchpad still worked. For a little while.

I hate shopping. Walmart, Staples, Target. Any and all of them. I would rather clean a Florida attic in August than go shopping.Ugh.

Which is why I didn’t go get a keyboard. Right away.

I was asking the brainiacs at work what they thought mite be wrong, To double check, I brought in my 3.0 cable just to see if it worked on their stuff. It did not. Under a magnifying glass, the answer was bent prongs and broken plastic. OHhhhhhhhhh. Now i GET IT.  ok. I borrowed one of their 3.0 cables just to see if it was the 3T or the laptop. Thankfully, the borrowed cable powered THE 3T up. WHEW!!!

Ok. One usb port.Dead. The keyboard. Dead. Took it to the shop down the road to see what they had to say. The 3.0 usb is soldered to the motherboard. So its not like you can pop out the bad one and plug in a new one. Oh. And he mentioned Motherboards cost $300-350. You must be kidding.?!?!?!?!?!?!?!  Oh. And $50 to check it to see if the usb shorted out the keyboard, because if it did, it would be futile to order the $40 keyboard if it was connected to the motherboard issue.And he is not comfortable soldering the motherboard. But he has a computer shop. It says so on the sign in the parking lot. So I just assumed he could solder. But he can’t. Nor will he. And to be honest, it doesnt seem like he cares one iota that I am jammed up.

I try very hard to hold back on sarcasm as I thank him for his time. I didn’t even say. “It was sooooo nice to meet you and thank you for taking the time to diagnose my $400 laptop with a $300-$350 repair estimate that you are not capable or willing to perform”  And I didn’t say “I hope you dislike your mother in law as much I dislike you right now, and I hope when you get home, your wife announces that her mother is going to move in this weekend and stay with you UNTIL SHE DIES.”.

Restraint. It’s all about restraint.

I HATE COMPUTERS!. I HATE THAT I DEPEND ON COMPUTERS! I HATE THAT I DID NOT TAKE MOTHERBOARD SOLDERING CLASSES!!!!!!!.

Defeated, I went to Staples today to look for a new 3.0 cable. I found one For $38. It’s still there. I did bring home an external wireless keyboard that was on sale for $28. The onscreen keyboard is just too much. Still getting used to it, but the sound of keys clacking as I type is somehow comforting at this point.

My last attempt of salvaging the nightmare came when I got home. I made the call. That’s right. The BIG T. TOSHIBA.  The mother of this slowly dyeing electronic device that, at this point is time,  would be nothing more than a good target for a rifle that needs to be sighted in. Soon, despair emerged

800 numbers are never fun. Especially if ENGLISH is your primary way to communicate or express yourself. I am in that category, and realize I am in the minority when it comes to 800 numbers. I HATE 800 numbers.

What I found out 2 hours after I placed the call was that I need to go get that $38 3.0 cable, transfer and back up everything off the laptop over to the little black 3T. Then, call Toshiba back, and they will remote access the laptop, do a factory reset, and see if that fixes any or everything.If that does not work, I have to box it up and send it to its birthplace, where someone will try to see if I broke, spilled liquid or did anything to it that would defeat the alleged warranty that is so boldly touted. The shipping will not be reimbursed by the way, and after two to three weeks, they will notify me of the expected repairs, and costs, if any. This laptop is 6 months old.

I give up. Its not worth the fight. I dont love this computer. Not even a little bit. TOSHIBA anything is not ever on my buy list. EVER AGAIN.

I just got a phone call from Ari, who works for Toshiba. He did try to do everything he could to help me today. He even offered free shipping, and told me they have a data backup unit for a fee. I am just over the whole thing at this point, and instead of being without a computer for two to three weeks, and risk having to pay more out of pocket, Im just going to look for another one.