Toshiba Laptops and Traktor - Cautionary information

We've been tracking a number of users in recent weeks with a Variety of late model Toshiba Core2Duo laptop who are experiencing significant audio difficulties dropouts, pops and clicks when playing using Traktor and several other pro or realtime audio applications. A number of users have delved into their problems and the combined consensus is that the root cause of the issue is the Fan controller for the laptop. Several users have reported workarounds with varying degrees of success most notably changing the Computer type in Windows Device Manager to Multiprocessor with results in complete loss of ACPI control but forces the fan to run always. This _could_ lead to other problems so proceeed with caution.

Toshiba are aware of the issue and several attempts to ellicit guidance and help were ignored or rebuffed by totally disinterested engineers who were totally unwilling to make any attempt at help at all. There presently is no fix from Toshiba for the problem and recent BIOS fixes released by Toshiba do NOT address this issue, as reported by actual users. It affects both Windows XP and Vista users.

This problem affects a number of different models of the Toshiba Laptop line, A complete list is not available but if you have a laptop you know to be affected by this issue please post your model number to this thread. One that is known to be an issue is Toshiba A135-S4407.

In the meantime if you have just purchased a Toshiba laptop with the intent of using it for Traktor then you should immediately ascertain whether you laptop is one that is affected and you should consider returning it to obtain a laptop that is not affected. As stated there is no help from Toshiba forthcoming and no guidance at all on when / if a fix is coming.

If you are presently contemplating a new laptop purchase and want to avoid these problems then you should not include Toshiba in your list of candidate brands, at least until this issue is fully resloved.

Other Laptop brands that have yielded execllent results of Late

Lenovo
Dell
HP
Acer
ASUS
Alienware
Sony
Fujitsu
Apple

(As a qualifier for this: Until about 3 weeks ago Toshiba was in my top 3 laptop brands I recommended, I now actively discourage all potential buyers from purchasing Toshiba for this very reason. On average I would recommend 25-30 brand / models a month to people.)

More Info:
http://forums.computers.toshiba-europe.com/jive3/thread.jspa?threadID=18631&start=0
http://forums.computers.toshiba-europe.com/jive3/thread.jspa?threadID=22582

 

Add Toshiba Satellite A105-S4254 to the list.....Normally sold at Office Depot...........Hate to throw office depot name out there because I purchase alot of supplies from them and hope that will not reflect on them.....but I think you can only purchase this model from them.

 

Add Toshiba Satellite A100-912 (PSAA9E-0R301SGE)

Odysseas

 

Good call Cap'n Phil. My first lappy was a Toshiba, and I've never been more dissatisfied with a company's tech support than I've been with them. :angry:

 

This problem doesn't affect imo only new models. I made the same experience the other day when I bought my satellite 1130 end of 2003. I could solve the problem in installing windows in standard-pc mode. I never had issues then again (except of forgetting about it when reinstalling a fresh windows from time to time ;-)

 

yeah some my friends had this problem

 

I bought an old Toshiba Tecra 9000 on e-bay (cheap) and I have no problems at all. I'm running Traktor 3 with Final Scratch 2 and it run smooth. Here the specs:
Pentium 4 M - 1.8 Ghz
512 RAM
40 GB HD

 

Still using my 3 year old Satellite A30 (called A33 or A35 in some countries) and it runs fine even with Traktor 3.3. Fast enough for 3.3 even on the "reduced speed" setting but it can use extra ram and bigger HD.


Some of the older Toshibas like this one had a problem using the Echo "Indigo DJ" soundcard because of the ENE PCMCIA chip but that was fixed long ago by an Echo update.

Most important XP tweaks are to disable the drivers for Wireless Network Adapter and ACPI Battery when DJing, to prevent occasional audio burps caused by latency.

 

The issue seams to affect mainly the newer Toshiba models coming with Core2Duo CPUs.
I had such laptop a few months ago and I had a really hard time to try every possible tweak / optimization / workaround to resolve my audio drop out problem. After of some weeks of frustration I returned my Laptop. The full story can be found here.

Odysseas

 

Just a very quick thank you 4 this information.

I was looking at the new Toshiba laptops and have owned a 5205 Toshiba complete with sub-woofer since 2001. But having tested the Tractor demo (without external interface on XP) and having read the relevant threads I'm off to buy a mac.

You have saved me, time, energy and frustration.

Thanks again.

Closet Geek (Fulltime DJ/Producer/Remixer)

 

I have a new Toshiba and I run on 3.5ms w/out any pops or dropouts. maybe cause i have AMD X2 instead of core2?

 

add this one too: 2006 Toshiba A105 S4014 1.8GHZ 2GB RAM
It pops and drops also

 

Well I just switched out my Toshiba with my Sony Vaio VGN-220E. The Sony only has a 1.5GHZ proccessor, 1GB of ram, and a 13" screen... but there are no pops or drops! YEA! I will be using my Toshiba for school and email.

 

Toshiba Satellite Pro A200-00H

Hi guys,

Yesterday I got my new notebook (Toshiba Satellite Pro A200-00H C2D T7200 2GHz 1024 Mb and so on) and unfortunately I read this post per chance and yeah really got nervous about Toshiba and a possible bad choice.

Also the posts @ Toshibas site do not show up any reaction from Toshiba. Anyhow, in a few words no problems so far anymore at least for this model.

In some more words:

Everbody knows that factory pre setups suck a lot because they come around with plenty unnecessairy software and other crap that slow down your system. And also 1gig ram isn't quite much to operate vista. (I'll upgrade the ram anyhow) So this is the best test scenario I can get. - A factory default f***ed up low mem Toshiba book. This is sick - I know! ;-)
I am running traktor with an M-Audio Firewire Audiophile. Every Vista/Traktor/M-Audio User will know that M-ADUIO's driver support is.... what support? Ok, there are some beta drivers for Vista 32 bit.
To make my decision in returning my notebook or not I've installed M-audio's beta vista 32 bit driver, installed traktor (didn't activate on this machine 'cause I gotta reinstall anyway), put in 10 trax and started messing around with 256MB cache (on deck a&b) and a sound card latency with 2,5ms. I used FX on booth decks at the same time did some fading and no glitch no drops except when switching to a new FX. (This "bug" I already knew - no Toshiba issue) Finally I increased latency to 10ms and set cache to 128mb and everything went fine.
The fan was spinning up and down all the time but not interfering with sound. I also disconnect power supply to see what happens when using the battery. No difference!

So from my point of view - everything is fine!


My next steps will be reinstalling and creating my productive environment. If there will happen something strange I am going to tell you it. What should happen when improving and setting up a clean system?

I hope this helps any or some of you - but still be cautious because it's only about the pro a200 new version....

Greetings from Vienna

Wolfgang

 

Add: Toshiba A210 15y
Clicks and Dropouts

 

i think it would be very appropriate to add this information
to the front page of the traktor information on the website.
i highly dought many people considering to buy traktor
would check closely in these forums for information when
making a purchase decision.

 

1 sec fan related Drop out

on my Satellite A100 88 ( Intel Core 2)
..:-(

 

My Toshiba works fine.

 

hey phill,

i have bought a new laptop acer 5720G and i have dropouts and pops. i have downloaded the new driver for audio 8 dj and also traktor 3.3.2 win update and its not working. dont know what to do. i have windows vista.
would be great if you can give me some tips.

regards from germany

/n/

 

I have a Satelite P100-108 (18 months old) with the same problem (i'm a new Traktor user). The latest BIOS upgrade did help a little bit, only the wave display on the laptop monitor is stuttering, the soundstream seems to be continious, but i lose to often connection between the Hercules console and Tractor 3.