Slashdot Mirror
Toshiba Pursues Copyright Claim Against Laptop Manual Site
An anonymous reader writes "I'm sure most Slashdot readers have had occasion to suffer through a hardware manufacturer's terrible website in search of product documentation. It's often hidden away in submenus of submenus, and if your product is more than a couple years old, you probably have to wade through broken links. One guy has been helping to change that; he runs a site called Tim's Laptop Service Manuals, where he collects by hand materials from many different companies and hosts them together in one spot. Now Toshiba has become aware of his project, and helpfully forced him to remove all of their manuals under a copyright claim."
But I'm sure we'll now see a flood of posts from the clueless about how Toshiba "has to defend their patent or lose it".
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
it's a shame, i was under the impression that toshiba made decent machines
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
And let them know why. I'm not as anti-copyright as most around here, but this is just stupid. It's not like it's costing them sales; probably saving them money at the end of the day.
My present laptop is a Toshiba. Now I know to avoid them when buying my next. There's such a big selection these days, I love it when a company makes my life easier!
Clearly, Toshiba does not want anybody to use their products any more.
I understand copyright law, and that what this guy is doing is pretty clearly in violation of it, however:
1) the manuals are useless unless you have already bought Toshiba products, so people downloading the manuals are mostly likely your paying customers anyway
2) support is an important aspect of my purchasing decisions, and having easy access to technical manuals makes a big difference, especially for laptops, where getting into them to replace parts or fix things is particularly tricky
3) if people need to resort to a 3rd-party website to get the manual, then you need to fix YOUR site
4) why not get together with other laptop computer manufacturers and SUPPORT the guy in his efforts, rather than discouraging him?
Unless Toshiba's objection is that if people lose their manuals and cannot easily replace them (on account of a difficult to navigate website), then they might be inclined to more expediently purchase replacement equipment than they otherwise would if people could hold onto their increasingly obsolete equipment because they still have a resource available that gives them all the particulars of operating it, I really have absolutely no idea what Toshiba's problem with this is, unless Toshiba already charges for manuals in the first place.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
My daughter got a Toshiba laptop as a graduation gift from her grandparents, and a few months into her ownership the keyboard died completely. Toshiba would not allow the device to be returned for repair/replacement under their warranty without first paying a phone "technician" $49 for a "repair consultation". The "tech" was a completely clueless English-as-a-second-language phone center guy. They offered to "refund" the $49 if their phone service did not help (hint - their phone procedures were useless with a broken keyboard). They then offered a $29 box to use to send them the laptop for repair/replacement. This company is pure garbage - they want $78 to replace a laptop keyboard that probably costs $5 or less.
Obviously if you publish or distribute some work you did not craft yourself, you should ask the owner first.
If only for politeness sake.
How would you feel if I published an old pdf from you without asking or informing you?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
more and more common. I got a motherboard from gigabyte that gave black screens during XP install. they said if I sent it in and they decided it wasn't their fault I'd have to pay hourly. a BIOS update several revs down fixed the problem. Not buying from them again...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Now that Lenovo, HP (and subs), and Toshiba have gone to shit, what's left? Acer or Asus? And what's with these dastardly companies trying so hard to keep people stupid about the machines they buy. HP and Lenovo put hardware blacklists in the BIOS, and Toshiba doesn't want anyone knowing what's beneath the hood. I always valued Toshiba as an indestructible and slightly buggy laptop, and they've always been an option if something better couldn't be found. Now, they are not an option. I fear though, at this rate, I am nearly out of options, with two remaining. But I won't support a tyrant. I can't help wondering what these shitbags would have to lose from some guy helping maintain the machines they've relinquished for cash. I guess they'd lose the opportunity to abuse the law, and that's fucking irresistible it seems.
Who's gonna be the next technoid rabid super-lemming to follow suit?
Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
Do Authorized Toshiba Technicians (whatever that entails) pay Toshiba for exclusive access to the documents?
Toshiba (and HP, and compaq) have been off my list is worthy of consideration laptop manufacturers for a long time now. It is worthless to have a PC for which you can only get graphics drivers from the OEM, and said OEM conveniently discontinues support for them long before nvidia/AMD does.
This kind of dick move with the manuals won't do them any good, what the hell are they trying to achieve here?
Ah yes, Toshiba and their wonderful legacy support.
The company that dropped all their support info down the memory hole without warning, when they exited the digital camera business back in 2004. All the manuals, software, firmware, and FAQs simply disappeared their site. I discovered this when I had to upgrade the firmware in one of my old cameras to address SD card compatibility issues (at the time it was already technologically obsolete in many ways, but had excellent quality optics). Only place that still had the firmware was a 3rd-party driver site with the flashing procedure instructions written in Chinese. Fortunately, the firmware itself turned out to be in English.
Toshiba eventually re-entered the camera business, but any information from their earlier generation of cameras is gone. If you want any downloads or manuals, Toshiba re-directs you to a third party telephone support service that charges $19.95 for assistance. Actually, that fee might be behind the removal of their laptop manuals as well -- whatever outsourced agency Toshiba dumped their legacy support info to, wants to be paid for that info.
you will find it somewhere
maybe even a torrent site
Fortunately the Wayback Machine allowed me to get copies before they disappear for ever.
This is clearly a copyright violation as the law currently stands. But I think you could make a good argument for user manuals - that are only of value if you have a product to begin with - should not be covered under copyright.
Python coder | PyQt Applications | Writer
Mental note: Toshiba laptops are now worth less because the manuals will be harder to come by.
If the company deliberately sets out to make dealing with
one of their products more difficult, then FUCK THEM.
warranty law, but I hadn't gotten around to it. I'll bet they would be susceptible to a complaint with my state's attorney general consumer protection office.
I am not trying to excuse Toshiba, but if you have had to deal with the general, clueless "public" with computer support, you might have a better understanding of why they (and other companies) are doing that.
I would guess that even more than 90% of all calls to support have nothing to do with a hardware problem. They are typically:
* MS-Windows brokenness
* MS-Windows virii and malware
* Broken third-party software and drivers
* Broken third-party hardware (chargers, cables, drives)
* Users that don't understand how basic stuff works (connecting WiFi, booting, burning discs, copying files)
* Users who have hosed their machines by doing stupid stuff
That, unfortunately, means a HUGE expense to computer manufacturers, and those costs were traditionally plowed right back into the sticker price of everything they sold. In a fiercely competitive industry, companies are looking for ways to cut their prices as much as possible. Support is the first target. (And the second seems to be machine quality).
The people like the Slashdot crowd are now forced to pay the price for the changed ecosystem- we have to put up with stupid front-line "support" levels that are not support, and pay stupid fees that to try and filter out the bad apples. The assumption is that every caller to a support center is an idiot.
There are times I wish that computer professionals could carry some type of "license" that would allow them to skip the normal channels and jump directly to support people that really are support.
You know, I have a Toshiba's video k7 player that never worked right and was and always returned of the guarantee with the same problem until the warranty period expired. None uses video k7 today but I didn't throw away this machine to remind myself to never buy anything from Toshiba. Sorry for a AC post, but I'm a lazy man.
allows for archiving. I don't know how this Toshiba manuals does not fall within the archiving exception?
My ability to quickly scan headlines on slashdot has become corrupt. I see a company name, a word starting with a capital A, and the word copyright/patient. This caused me to read only the end of the headline. I had to do a double take because I was thinking Toshiba was taking on Apple due to patient violations in which documentation is made available via a website.
Seemed like a scam to me, however. If you're going to manufacture a product, I think that warranty law requires that the expense for under-warranty repair falls to the manufacturing company.
Tim's not the only one to run into this problem with old hardware drivers, software, and documentation, and more than one someone, somewhere has Toshiba laptop archives available. Maybe it was Tim, but at least one person made a Toshiba laptop torrent available. I've had a copy for years. Time to reseed, maybe.
Wasn't a damn thing wrong with old-school manufacturer ftp support sites. Are web designers that hard up for work, or is this more corporate shyster driven?
...then fired them. http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2003-08-24/too-many-visas-for-techies
Buy Toshiba if you like, but Karma is a b*tch.
Oh and nothing against Indians, Russians, Ukrainians, etc.. they deserve to eat too. But IMHO, they need to be worrying about making their own g'dmned countries more efficient rather than being dumba*ses and logging-in over the Internet with fake accents and no practical basis to apply their technical skills from their alien environment. If Toshiba can hire a PhD in Computer Science for $15/hr over the Net ..they're not going to invest in local schools and universities and our local population (over the course of 15 years!) will become coffee servers meanwhile the PhD overseas shows up for work on a bus, carrying 10 (human) viruses and works in a disgusting BO-filled environment in between power failures --because they're organized like parasites and only do the minimum for themselves to keep the wire-transfers coming. Meanwhile, our guys, like that one in the article, can't draw a dime of Social Security 'til they're 68 (probably 75 by the time the adjustments are worked out) --and they now get to compete with the children the under-funded schools are turning out to serving coffee.
for a decent product from a decent company.
Well I'll never buy Toshiba products. I recently downgraded two friends toshiba laptops (an a205 and an a215) from vista to windows xp pro. While I'm cool with the idea that Toshiba did not support the downgrade, I thought I could at least find the documentation on their website to figure out what the hardware was.
Yeah, that did not come close to happening.
Thanks to third part sites that organized the documentation, I was able to find the data sheet for both laptops and ultimately got the drivers for both laptops. I now already hate working on a Toshiba laptop because of this experience, I definitely wont be purchasing one, or recommending my friends purchase one if they expect me to fix it when it breaks.
Disagreeing with you does not make me a troll.
They want to be like that, dont give them your money.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I'm not buying a Toshiba again. My current Qosmio is the first and last Toshiba shit I'm ever going to buy (£20/$30 to get the recovery media). Their website is absolutely shocking. Everything is 5-10 clicks away. My laptop's onboard update works like this: Message Alert - Click - Opens a Program - Click on Update list - Click on highlighted Update - Opens a browser with a dead link. So... I have to manually find that update from their website, download, extract, run and I get a message "Wrong version of WinDVD BD." GREAT!! Their last three BIOS updates has kept on throttling down the GPU. The last one (v2.0) prevents Windows 7 from starting up, because 2.0 now introduces a conflict with BIOS' "Enable Fast Boot" option. Sadly I have only two options: stick with it or sell this shit on eBay as 'Like New - barely used.'
Sure it is, as if you can fix minor isues with the service manual, you wont have to go buy a new one from them.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I've been using & repairing PCs & laptops for over 20 years & I've never touched a Toshiba that wasn't a flaming piece of crap. Even the $4k QOSMO one of my customers had was complete junk.
I wouldn't keep a Toshiba Satellite around if it was given to me free & new.
There is a war going on for your mind.
allows for "fair dealing provisions for the purpose of research and study" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_dealing#Australia). I would imagine that a liberal interpretation of Tim's Laptop use could fall within that exception. Although, I'm sure Toshiba's corporate lawyers would argue that he's not doing research - he's providing a commercial service for paid computer repairmen.
The lawyers are concerned that a manual might be altered in some way and that a customer who downloaded an altered manual might suffer harm because of it. The customer could then sue Toshiba and claim that since they knew the site existed and was hosting their manuals that they had an obligation to ensure that the manuals were accurate.
It's paranoia in the extreme, but attorneys are paid to be paranoid. They need someone else to reign them in, and apparently in this case, that hasn't happened.
It's great he was archiving these manuals, and it might be foolish for Toshiba to demand they be removed. However, his website isn't a solution either.
Manuals get updated and it's important to have the current versions. Furthermore, they may contain information that companies don't want to let out of their control.
A better idea would be some kind of standard for websites, like a cultural convention that every website has a "support" menu option and under it a "documentation" option that leads to a search blank and PDF archives of all manuals they ever printed by model number.
If we can convince companies that this is a good idea, and convince customers to expect it, that's a better long-term solution than this litigation nonsense.
Futurist Traditionalism
Stop being a shithead. I'm running out of companys i feel willing to support anymore.
It's not a whos a bigger douchebag contest. Its a business. And having your customers like you and being able to get support on toshiba is a GOOD thing.
That's odd. I also live in TX, Houston to be precise, and a three years ago purchased my mother a new 17" Toshiba. I installed GNU/Linux on it right out of the box (previously having verified that it would work with with the OS). I did have to compile the wireless driver, which was available from Toshiba's support website... While there I also noted that the fingerprint reader driver was available for my own Laptop (and it works neatly too, just swipe finger after "sudo"). While copying a lot of music files from an NTFS USB HDD (spinning disk w/ enclosure, not SSD), Linux would seize up. On Windows7 (it's dual boot you see), the file transfer would only use one core, and go slow as molasses, but Linux used multiple cores and thus the ETA was 1/4th the time to do the transfer -- Except it kept locking up mid transfer (a few gigs in). I thought maybe there was something wrong with the hardware -- bad CPU, or the chip was overheating, etc. I called for support, which cost me nothing, told them the issues, and they sent me a box to return the unit with for free. A few days after mailing the machine in a Tech called me and asked for the password to log into the Linux account. He had stress tested the chip, and since the HW wasn't at fault wanted to diagnose the real problem. Turns out the freeze-up was a kernel panic caused by a race condition flaw in the NTFS-3G filesystem module. The Laptop was mailed back, also free of charge, and to work around the issue I limited the file transfer process to a single core / single thread. (Of course I did a full wipe & re-install after getting the machine back, since the PW had been forked over).
I like that Toshiba contracts with companies to provide open source drivers for their hardware, and that they have techs that can actually diagnose problems, even ones not related directly to their hardware.
If you ask me, it's pretty fucking strange that our experiences would be so damn different. Have they changed so much in such a short time?
It's so hard finding documents for hardware and firmware upgrades. I always research the companies using hardford analysts to make sure that the company have old documents and firmware upgrades of their products. It's so physically painful trying to find old documents. I'm glad that harrtford is absorbing all the physical pain for me.
A great way to Spur sales of your new products, what are they thinking. I have a list of companies I do not knowingly buy from, it just grew by 1 today.
I'm wondering if three years really did make that much difference. I've had their products in the past, and had not run into any trouble. But I talked to the support "tech" and the supervisor, and they told me it was policy. It may also be that your problem occurred immediately - I think they have staggered levels of support, depending on how long out from purchase.
THIS type of service is one reason why I love my Apple products. Any time I have had problems, I get service by a person based in the USA and they take care of the problem leaving me completely satisfied. This is part of the premium which one pays when buying an Apple product from Apple (not a 3rd party). I've had devices have problems and they swap it with a new product (but if you bought the product through a third party such as Amazon, you need to go through that third party, so pay the extra and go with Apple).
I also try to buy other products where possible which have excellent US-based support (sadly challenging) or buy from places with a generous return policy (such as from Costco).
Companies like Toshiba are out of touch with consumers and consider post-sales support to be a bother and cost which they'd rather not take on. They produce second-rate products with third-world documentation and support.
Why the fuck do you still have the vendor crapware running on your machine?!
repair service taking too long, leaving them without a working computer or phone for a week or more, making them make an appointment several days ahead of time to see a repair tech at the Apple store. Is this peculiar to LA that people have this problem? This is one reason I've stayed as far as possible from Apple products (other than the walled garden, overpricing, patent abuse, etc).
My wife spilled tea on her Toshiba. I found a manual online, bought a replacement keyboard off flea-bay, and fixed it myself for $35.
Yeah, I should have done that. Would have at least saved me the irritation.
If I were this guy, I would put this in the front page of every search of "toshiba" on its site.
"Oh! You're looking for the manual for the Toshiba Satellite XXX. We had that, but Toshiba itself told us to drop it from this site because they think that your computer is SO OLD that it's already discontinued. Good luck finding it in Toshiba's site (link goes here to some goatsy picture)"
Just don't buy them. Recommend/review against them. Refuse to support them.
Then let's see what their copyright is worth.
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
I guess this helps me with my decision on a new laptop. HP it is..
Organization? You must be joking..
From a liability perspective, it is obvious why they would shut this down.
While it would never occur to most people on this site, please understand that once you have other people in control of your documentation and distributing it, they can do whatever they want with it. There is no assurance that a manual hosted on a third-party site is in fact the original manual as published by Toshiba.
So imagine the scenario where someone hosting such a copied manual adds a page that implies that certain persons of an African descent (referred to only by the "N" word) cannot possibly use Toshiba computers because they are too stupid. Of course nothing else, including the Toshiba copyright page, is changed in this manual. This page comes to the attention of some politically connected person who launches a very public tirade about the racist people at Toshiba. How much do you think it would cost Toshiba to get out of this sort of a problem?
Why would someone do this? Well, a better question might be why wouldn't an irate customer do this? Any large company would find itself nearly defenseless against this sort of an attack. The only pre-emptive defense possible is to keep a very tight control over anything they publish so they can easily disclaim any rogue documents as clearly being malicious alterations as opposed to something that was discovered by a whistleblower.
The Internet makes this sort of thing possible and even makes it possible for such things to be done anonymously and nearly untraceably.
Funny thing is I'm using Toshiba touchpad software on my workplace Dell, since the Toshiba version has more features (e.g. autodisable touchpad if mouse plugged in).
Unfortunately it also auto-disables the touchpad whenever I enable wireless (which is not that often, so not a big problem for me).
Hello,
I am in the market for a laptop, which means I am reading quite a bit as part of
my research as to which laptop to eventually buy. You can imagine my surprise
when I ran across this:
http://www.tim.id.au/blog/2012/11/10/toshiba-laptop-service-manuals-and-the-sorry-state-of-copyright-law/
It seems Toshiba has decided that non-commercial distribution of product manuals, which
is a thing that would actually HELP the owners of Toshiba laptops, is not allowed:
âoeYou do not have permission [to disseminate Toshiba copyright material] nor will it be granted
to you in the foreseeable future.â
I most definitely won't be buying a Toshiba laptop, nor will I ever purchase any other
Toshiba products. Your policies are anti-consumer and hurt those foolish enough to spend
their money with your company.
Further more, numerous examples of other of Toshiba's anti-consumer policies, are found
in public comments to an article linked here:
http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/12/11/10/1334221/toshiba-pursues-copyright-claim-against-laptop-manual-site
Thank you so much for publically stating Toshiba policy. It leaves me with quite clear
reasons as to why I will never purchase Toshiba products.
and helpfully forced him to remove all of their manuals under a copyright claim.
That's not helpful. That's not helpful at all!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
And any manual anyone has on the product is by definition completely useless. If you want to know something better go to YouTube.
they want $78 to replace a laptop keyboard that probably costs $5 or less.
Laptop keyboards cost around $20-$30, BTW. I've had to replace mine.
https://www.google.com/search?q=laptop+keyboard
Fuck Toshiba for trying to make their older machines even less maintainable.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Sams Technical Publishing.
Those more interested in their own self-aggradizement and pure avarice have doomed the next few generations to a new dark age.
The answer is NOT crony capitalist statist control of everything.
You can not block the signal.
First off, copying is not theft. You're making an appeal to authority without considering what that authority says. As the FSF points out, "Unauthorized copying is forbidden by copyright law in many circumstances (not all!), but being forbidden doesn't make it wrong. In general, laws don't define right and wrong. Laws, at their best, attempt to implement justice. If the laws (the implementation) don't fit our ideas of right and wrong (the spec), the laws are what should change.".
Second, the key to understanding how GPL copyright infringement lawsuits are so different from proprietor's copyright infringement lawsuits or threats of copyright infringement lawsuits is to examine the effect on the user. The GPL says you're free to do things regulated by copyright law including copying so long as you don't deny recipients the same freedoms to do the same. Proprietors, on the other hand, deny recipients those freedoms; Toshiba is flatly disallowing anyone who's not an authorized dealer from sharing copies of their manuals. Again, just because a law says copying is forbidden by default doesn't make copying wrong. Thus despite using the same underlying copyright system, the outcome for the user is radically different and the public's support for that underlying system should reflect what we need that system to say. The conditions the GPL grants licensees are far more amenable to the public than the antisocial deal proprietors offer.
Digital Citizen
For all the justifications of Toshiba standing on its "rights", a key point is that other PC makers are NOT being so petty and anti-consumer. The others seem to have the larger view (or just benign neglect?) that those customers (or their PC fixers) who are so inclined are free to share the repair documentation. That is an important contributor to customer good will that leads to future sales. Toshiba seems to simply be short-sighted in this regard.
Because makers are putting "features" in their hardware that can't be "unlocked" without their crapware. The computer runs "better" with the crapware. That's the case with my Lenovo. A fresh restore install (with crapware) boots from power-on to usable desktop in under 30 seconds. A clean Windows install takes about 45 seconds. Crapware speeds up windows boot. At least for Lenovos with "enhanced experience" (my version of EE is 3, no idea how 1/2 do).
Learn to love Alaska
Maybe this guy should add his own value to the world by actually creating something of his own, instead of simply by repackaging someone else's content. What was he expecting when he redistributed someone else's hard work?
Maybe it thinks you're a Jedi and wireless is actually your "move" power kicking in.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
If you buy a Toshiba laptop in the same price range of an Apple one, I believe you are going to get an excellent product.
what if someone ended up hurting himself opening a monitor (CCFL inverter packs a punch), could Toshiba be civilly liable?
This is just to protect them from assholes who don't know what they're doing. If there's actually something wrong with the motherboard itself than you have nothing to worry about. I've sent in 3 or 4 products in the past decade and have had no additional charges from Gigabyte.
But again, at the same time, copyright still doesn't get affected by attempts of enforcement. Only trademark does.
Are you trying to claim that laches does not apply to patent or copyright claims at all? But then again, laches applies only to back damages, which appear not to be at issue in this case.
I run iFixit. We started writing our own repair manuals because of this very issue way back in 2003. Slashdot has run stories about us on a number of occasions.
Apple has been very aggressively protecting their copyright on service manuals pretty much since the dawn of the internet. Heres an example of them going after Something Awful. Many of the sites theyve gone after have ceased to exist.
Since then, with the help of tens of thousands of incredible repair technicians around the world (including many redditors), we have built the largest free repair manual. Because we write them ourselves, the manufacturers cant shut us down. The community has written over 6,000 manuals, and you can download and reproduce any of them to your hearts content. We even post all of our manuals on bittorrent and the internet archive so they are guaranteed to be free forever.
Heres our Toshiba laptop service manual. Weve made progress on half a dozen laptops so far, with more on the way. Not nearly as comprehensive as what timix had, but its a start.
Toshiba is not an outlier here--they represent the status quo. Many manufacturers havent gotten around to issuing these C&D letters, but its perfectly within their right. Any site hosting manufacturer service manuals without permission is at risk of a shutdown like this at any time.
Thats why what we do at iFixit is so important. The world needs to know how to fix these products. Repair is critical for the environment. Repair helps bridge the digital divide by keeping the secondhand electronics market alive. And electronics repair represents hundreds of thousands of jobs in the United States alone.
We cannot rely on the good will of manufacturers. Yes, many of them have looked the other way and ignored sites like timixs, but that is unlikely to continue. We have three options:
Its easy to say, "shame on Toshiba" and move on with your life. But this is not unique to Toshiba. No cell phone manufacturer makes their service manuals available. In fact, outside of the heavy equipment industry (where customers demand it) and the automotive industry (where legislation requires it), its the rare manufacturer that does not use copyright to prevent publicat
IME Lenovo is not Toshiba.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
I would happily recommend non-technical users purchase directly through Apple even with their premium pricing model based solely on their excellent post-sales support but for the fact that they only sell Apple products.
Like this comment? I accept Bitcoin! - 153sc8UUBXyp12ofQqfAWDmJrzyiKCYC1x
Copyright laws protect creative and artistic works. To me the collection of facts on how a printer operates is no more creative than the collection of phone numbers in a phone book.
I run a sole trader business (ie. I'm the only one here), and part of that involves selling laptops to customers. Of the laptops I've bought (quite a few Toshibas in the last few years), two have gone back for warranty repairs. No charges, no fuss.
I'm not saying you're incorrect in some way, but that I don't think what you've described is necessarily Toshiba's typical attitude towards warranty repairs. I'm in the UK btw, so it may be different in America.
With the exception of Apple, there is very little brand loyalty with laptops - they are all pretty much equivalent and easily swappable.
Until you get to the 10" screen size class, which a lot of manufacturers have discontinued in 2012. Even ASUS, which pioneered the affordable subnotebook PC with the Eee PC, doesn't seem to make them anymore. It might end up being Acer or nothing.
Some products fail and must be repaired before use. Access to manuals is the only way I can see to ensure that a repair will succeed. So yes, having access to manuals on a site that Google knows about is the only way that one can make a broken laptop ready for use.
They sell from a 3rd party at $20-$30. They probably don't cost Toshiba even $5 in the quantities they buy.
There are times I wish that computer professionals could carry some type of "license" that would allow them to skip the normal channels and jump directly to support people that really are support.
You may try this...
This is liable to happen when buying processors newer than your motherboard.
From both personal experience and the number of review page threads, I can tell you Toshiba is by far the worst when it comes to honoring warranty and repair claims. They are incredibly awful.
Meanwhile, so what. Let's all go Streisand on their manuals.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
The question was about vendor crapware. I answered the question. I'm unclear what your comment adds to the discussion.
Learn to love Alaska
I still remember buying a Marantz stereo amp back in 1973 (you know, before the dawn of time), and being thrilled to find that they packed a complete schematic with the unit. That's right: every resistor, cap, trimpot, and so on called right out in a drawing.
While I don't necessarily expect board schematics, or even detailed interior wiring diagrams, to accompany a computer, I do think the amount of technical info made publically available could be a lot greater than it is today.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
There is no assurance that a manual hosted on a third-party site is in fact the original manual as published by Toshiba.
The proper solution to authenticate the source and integrity of a document is a digital signature, not restriction of distribution. A manual signed with Toshiba's private key will have been published either A. by Toshiba or B. by someone who has stolen Toshiba's private key.
I would like to find a manual online, but the only links in this article or that I've seen so far in the comments point to sites that previously had them but no longer do. I have a Toshiba Satellite P505D.
Learn to love Alaska
I went through 3 of their laptop drives in 14 months. Haven't bought any of their products since.
Thanks to you, I just discovered you could pinch and zoom (umm, multi-touch).
http://www.retrevo.com/support/Toshiba-P505D-S8935-Laptops-manual/id/23503dj191/t/2/
Seriously, the only people who would use this service are people who already own one of these devices.
Also, I thought facts could not be copyrighted.
... I download all the manuals for kit I buy - even non computer related kit. They don't take up much space, and they just stay on my NAS until I ditch the piece of kit.
Even the kit I buy for my customers, it just doesn't make sense to take the risk that the manual will disappear.
My understanding is that the UK holds companies to a much stricter standard with respect to consumer warranties. I've heard this is one reason that some products are priced a bit higher in the UK than in the US.
Thank-you!
I remember when people used to be smart and capable by default. A "Dad" could fix things by virtue of his training in adulthood. A "Mom" could make clothes and bread and all the various items necessary to keep a family healthy and prosperous. All that all started to change for the worse about fifty years ago. -And for the record, I'm not making a comment about gender roles; girls who can repair cars and guys who cook and make clothes are heroes in my book. My point is about basic human competence.
I can't stand not having access to information about how the machines around me work. If people can't fix or command the technology which makes their world function, then they are little better than slaves. It's really that simple.
So? Just go back to the store where you bought it and demand your legal right to warranty on a broken product? A few months is way less than two years.
The problem is that it's a problem that never should have cropped up. I was using a shipping gigabyte video card on a shipping gigabyte motherboard and installing a shipping OS. There was no excuse for that configuration to go untested. I assume they didn't test an XP install at all. It happened to me with three video cards and two power supplies, so I knew it wasn't my problem, but the dick on the phone still said it sounded like it wasn't their fault, so I naturally assumed that I would end up paying the consulting rate. One of the pairs of headerized USB interfaces has also gone south, on my ULTRA DURABLE 3 motherboard. Fuck gigabyte, I'm going back to ASUS even though there is a price penalty. I'll be happy to pay it, to get something that works right the first time.
as for "processors newer than your motherboard" (sibling comment) it wasn't, and the processor I bought was on the compat list.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I am fucking sick of "virii". It's not plural for virus in English OR Latin. Or any other language. Stop fucking over-correcting, being an arrogant "I think I know English better than you" arsehole, and fucking speak/write normal English. Thanks.
So, you didn't take the option to create your own recovery media?
Have to say, my experiences with Toshiba hardware are at the other end of the spectrum.
Their website, on the other hand....... Why can't I just type in the serial number, and see a page with EVERYTHING I need - tech bulletins, software updates, manuals (yes, even the service manuals)?
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
In the radios in the 50s (which i picked from the trash) schematics including simple test procedures were stuck in a small paper envelope taped to the inside of the enclosure.
In the electronic device of the 80s at least a schematic was included in the manual, often including simple test instrucitons.
At some point the belief started that only licensed service centers or at least some who pay fro the instructions should have the information to touch the holy devices.
MESSAGE TO THE COMPANIES: I am the customer who buys you fucking device. Every money you charge for helping to fix/repair the device i gave you money for will make me less happy.
Its sad to know that a broken stabilizer capacitor probably causes more cost (and effort) to repair dur to the small and intransparent market than to just buy a new device.
Maybe this is the story: Toshiba executives were sitting around with their martinis in a bar in the afternoon, after playing golf. They said, "We have guaranteed salaries. How can we reduce the work?" One of them said, "Sell fewer laptops." Another said, "How do we do that?" A third said, "Make repair manuals difficult to get, and hope that Slashdot covers the story."
Done.
My daughter got a Toshiba laptop as a graduation gift from her grandparents, and a few months into her ownership the keyboard died completely. Toshiba would not allow the device to be returned for repair/replacement under their warranty without first paying a phone "technician" $49 for a "repair consultation".
Do you know how often people call their router support line claiming their wireless is no longer working, when the issue is the laptop's Wi-Fi switch is simply not turned on? The repair consultation charge is the Stupid User tax, as most issues that can be resolved over the phone could probably have been resolved by the user on their own if they had RTFM or used available online troubleshooting information. If you were really confident the issue was a hardware defect that required actual repair, the phone support charge shouldn't have phased you (once you knew it was refundable).
The "tech" was a completely clueless English-as-a-second-language phone center guy. They offered to "refund" the $49 if their phone service did not help (hint - their phone procedures were useless with a broken keyboard). They then offered a $29 box to use to send them the laptop for repair/replacement. This company is pure garbage - they want $78 to replace a laptop keyboard that probably costs $5 or less.
1. How is the repair cost $78 when they refunded the $49 phone support charge?
2. The keyboard part cost is a red herring. The $29 box includes the shipping and insurance for your device. Most manufacturers ask you to ship the device to you at your own expense insured as well. And you aren't taking into account the cost of a technician sitting there and dissembling the laptop to replace the part.
With Sony on the ropes, Toshiba wants to take over their role of "#1 Japanese tech company we used to like but now hate enough to boycott".
There's always, Dell, you know. Now, I don't say they are not full of idiocy of other kind as well, but at least their support with downloads is excellent, and all you need is the service tag (a shorter kind of a serial number). Things don't just disappear. Alas, if you want to buy a 2TB SATA drive (in a caddy) for an R510 server, expect having to spend 30-60 minutes on the phone. I kid you not.
You need to take a chill pill
My Kenmore washer, dryer and gas range (all less than 10 years old) came with wiring diagrams, parts lists, and other service information tucked into a little pouch on the back of each unit. The washer and dryer also had the wiring diagram pasted on the inside of the removable back cover. My understanding is that this is common in this industry, for whatever reason. Great to see in this day and age....
Up until the 1980s at least, GE television sets used to include fairly comprehensive service information inside a little compartment on the cabinet back, accessible by removing a screw from the inside once the cabinet back was removed.
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
Dear Toshiba,
I am the owner and previous purchaser of 4 Toshiba laptops which have had their issues, with various hardware and software quirks. That you attack an amatuer/admirer/repair site that provides free archival service for Toshiba products amazes me. Although I am sure marketing and legal can provides rationale and a myraid excuses for this, hear me.
If this travesty is not reversed, my family will not buy a Toshiba product ever again, and I will mock your corporation in conversation. We have long memories.
POd,
xxxxxx xxxxxxx
-- (1) fresh restore install "(with crapware)"
-- (2) clean Windows install
What you're not noticing is that (1) may have the correct drivers installed for your hardware while (2) may have working drivers but not the correct drivers that (1) had. Also, you need to test two more conditions to be able to say ``it runs "better" with the crapware'':
(3) fresh restore install, then with crapware manually removed
(4) clean Windows install, with correct drivers (copy from (1) to usb-stick, then install in this episode of have-i-optimized-my-laptop-yet)
Only if (3) is slower than (1) can you correctly state that: the computer runs "better" with the crapware, because if boot-up time is slower with (3) than with (1), then removing the crap-ware does slow down your system.
If, however, the EE3 actually needs to be a running process in the background (rather than being just a circuitous route for installing the correct proprietary drivers) for your hardware features to work, then your conclusion is probably correct, and you're screwed. Either way, I deplore the preinstalled crapware in most system restore partitions/disks. I like to optimize my install, then save the setup as a compressed image which I can restore as needed. Or use a live-run system like Knoppix which I can always start from a fresh clean known state.
This is what lawyers do when they're either on retainer or an employee of a big company: justify their existence with litigation and copyright enforcement.
body massage!
I have had outstanding service from ASUS (although was story is somewhat different from the average person).
I had an ASUS laptop touchpad and an ASUS motherboard that was not working for some reason. I lived in New Zealand at the time and decided to go to the ASUS service centre headquarters in Taipei at 1800 (no appointment necessary and they closed at 1900). They fixed both within 20 mins - a cable had disconnected the touchpad and I think the motherboard needed a reflashed bios or something like that. Once fixed I headed home. .... FYI - I was already flying to Taiwan for vacation and took these two hardware items with me to get repaired.
http://laptopservicemanuals.no-ip.org/ also has the same problems and all of its Toshiba links are broken now. :(
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Nothing more needs be said...
And what if the "crapware" is BIOS/firmware level? Just a quick read of EE3 indicates that it uses a ram cache to load the OS into at max disk speed, then runs the OS from RAM until the OS has booted (works with W7 only). Sort of like a poor mans version of a dynamic RAM drive for the OS, used for boot only
And I don't know if the crapware is related to the performance, but the Lenovo is the only laptop I had where it would resume from suspend when you opened the lid to the login screen before you had the screen all the way opened. Windows itself sucks when on for a long time (and suspend counts for that, for some reason) because it eventually pages all memory to disk, assuming that you haven't used it recently enough that it'll free the RAM for a new program. If you are a person who, like me, opens everything when they boot, then switches between programs as needed, Windows is designed to punish you. But turning off the paging file fixes that, even if it causes other issues, it's still a net gain. So again, the Lenovo has a healthy 16 GB of RAM, and paging disabled, so it's always responsive.
Learn to love Alaska
Toshiba. What an asshole company. And a stupid one. All this site could have done was relieve some of the support load from Toshiba, and make the customers a little happier and less disgruntled.
The stupidity contains its own negative reward, of course.
In the 80's, Toshiba was caught selling milling machines to the (then) Soviets, which enabled our old cold-war foe to make their subs run silent. As a result, I believe that Toshiba was locked out of the US electronics market for quite awhile. Since then, I have never (knowingly) bought a Toshiba product. I find it a little ironic that now, after all these years, the company that illegally sold the sensitive equipment is now quibbling over copyright issues with manuals. Is it time for another boycott?
http://www.multiupload.nl/1R4XP5N9EB
Mirror of 96 of those manuals
User manual, I didn't find the shop manual there.
Learn to love Alaska