My Toshiba Qosmio G30 suddenly developed the green screen problem
I have Toshiba Qosmio g30(no serious probs since purchase) that suddenly developed the green screen problem.The xp start up screen is green & black/dark gray pixels are also green. There is also some red pixel distortion in scroll bars and menu boxes.
I was using it fine today then i half closed the screen and left it to go on standby or hibernate. Anyway, when i flicked mouse to turn it back on, the green pixels were all over the desktop. PLEASE bear with me on my steps because i really don’t think it is a fatal hardware fault and don’t want to dismantle yet!
1)I thought video card driver corruption – installed new & original drivers but no joy. also tried other various tosh drivers for other parts.
2)problem the same in safe mode so started to get worried.
3)then approached the color management profiles thinking they had been corrupted somehow – short term fix but not happy. basically you can alter the settings to get rid of most black pixels…eg they will be v dark grey. the less there are the less the problem is visible. maybe there’s a prob deep inside windows, startup progs or registry that messes with pixel display/pixel shader? sadly i don’t think it’s that simple.
4)i can safely rule out water damage and have not dropped or bashed it.
5)I then suspected a damaged wire in the hinge mechanism but since i can have perfect blue (without even a single green pixel)i just doubt that any potential damage caused in the hinge would affect only black pixels…..and also only black pixels on all your pcs/laptops! playing around with hinge angle so far fails to solve problem but i haven’t entirely ruled it out since the last thing i did before it all happened was move the screen.
6)The static theory is certainly interesting but how would it have suffered such a problem? can heat / power supply or even sudden hinge movement cause this? Anyway, have tried touching inner frame/depress start fix but no joy yet. will experiment further with this but why would it only mess with the black/grey pixels and not green pixels instead?
7)I will soon try external monitor that should narrow down problem a bit more
8)in the meantime i am going into bios and will try a few other things…some rest for my laptop, a test of black pixels in photoshop etc, and some more static shck therapy!
ANY HELP would be greatly appreciated but surely we can’t all have the same faulty wires…it’s just such a specific problem.
QS remains is it software (windows, color management, drivers, registry, hibernate/standby/start up prob etc), or hardware ( lcd – graphics card communication, static charge, cable damage)
If these pixels appear on the screen as soon as you turn on the laptop, even before Windows starts loading, most likely your problem is not software related and there is something wrong with hardware.
First of all, you should test the laptop with an external monitor.
If the external video is fine and these green pixels appear only on the internal LCD screen, most likely you have a problem with the screen. You can buy a new replacement screen here.
If both external and internal images have the same defect, you might have a problem with the video card. Unfortunately, I believe the video card is integrated into the system board and when it fails, you have to replace the whole motherboard.
As I mentioned above, before you make any conclusions, test the laptop with an external monitor.
UPDATE. September 30, 2008.
Toshiba Qosmio G35 BIOS Update and GPU Repair Program
Based on our Investigation, some Toshiba portable computers have Graphic Processing Units (GPU’s) that may exhibit one or more of the symptoms specified below.
If you experience a failure, you may see one or more of the following symptoms:
- Multiple images
- Random characters on the screen
- Lines on the screen
- No video with power onConsistent with our commitment to customer satisfaction, Toshiba is conducting a free GPU Repair Program for customers whose portable computers contain the subject GPUs in the model identified below and have experienced a GPU performance issue.
Qosmio G35-AV650
Qosmio G35-AV660
Qosmio G35-AV670For more information please contact Toshiba Support at 1-800-457-7777 or a Toshiba Authorized Service Partner near you.
June 16th, 2010 at 9:31 pm
HI,
I have Toshiba Qosmio G -30 series Laptop.
Same problem as all other. The GPU has stopped working. Tried with external monitor also, same thing. This is the 3rd time this is happening.
Last 2 times got it repaired. The Toshiba guys just suggest a Motherboard replacement which is approx $1000 USD.
In INDIA, they have a very shitty Customer service, take the customers for granted.
I am trying to get the GPU : nVIDIA GeForce GF-Go7600-N-A2 G73M GPU BGA Chipset , replaced.
In E-bay some are selling a RE-FURBISHED ones and some new ones. NEVER HEARD OF A CHIP GETTING RE_FURBISHED.
Can anyone help me please? will the replacement work and what is a RE-FURBISHED chip? will that work? Does anyone know any service center etc in INDIA who can do a good job on this?
Please help.
Thanks
June 15th, 2010 at 3:12 pm
I too had the same problem with my Qosmio, green distortion on LCD and also same image on external monitor. Otherwise the laptop behaved normally. Replacement motherboard was nearly as much as a new laptop so was glad when I came across these guys: first4laptops.com
They repaired my motherboard’s video chip and at the same time serviced the cooling fans so the problem does not recur. Now it works great! Saved me a fortune. Hope this helps.
April 29th, 2010 at 5:25 am
The green screen is quite a common problem to be honest. It happens on many HP DV models and it comes down to graphics being weak. If you see a shed load of them on ebay then you know that model has problems.
April 13th, 2010 at 7:08 am
dejan,
If you have nothing to lose, you can try this method: http://www.laptoprepair101.com/laptop/2010/04/06/fixing-compaq-presario-v6000-motherboard-no-video-issue/
Baking the motherboard in an conventional over will reflow the VGA chip. This might work.
Do it only as last resort repair. It worked for me.
April 13th, 2010 at 5:47 am
Hi
Maybe its possible to repair MB. I have f30 with green lines all over screen. Lines were red at first. New MB is 800 € so its not an option. Once problem disappeared and it lasted for a whole one day. Graphic were fine with no red or green stripes. So maybe its not a big problem and it can be fixed.
April 12th, 2010 at 2:42 am
I have a Qosmio F30 and have just experienced green horizontal lines on boot up and vertical lines in groups of 4 in the back ground.( Red )I also have a problem on startup with the screen staying black, I have to swithch it on with F5 key. Otherwise its seems to work! Could this be a programing problem or is is it MB failure which seems common with the Qosmios? Not a good advert for Toshiba!
April 1st, 2010 at 5:44 am
Graphics on gaming laptops are a big problem. A white screen that turns green is generally a motherboard issue. Get it fixed. mate.
February 2nd, 2010 at 5:33 pm
thirteen months and tough luck for me. as paperweight, sitting in a drawer for over a year
January 19th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
While surfing discussion boards for a solution, I stumbled upon a comment about the Toshiba Repair Program for G35-AV650, AV660 and AV670 models. Check it out at http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/tais/support/jsp/outFrm.jsp?ofId=AskIris&searchString=GPU+Repair+Program&x=12&y=10
I called Toshiba Support (1-800-457-7777) to get my AV650 fixed, but after some conversation, the rep said they wouldn’t fix it for free because the second year of automatic warranty for this problem had lapsed.
So I called the closest Toshiba Authorized Service Provider (150 miles away) January 2010 and asked them about the problem. The person answering the phone put me through to Eric, the technician, who knew exactly what the problem was. (He said that Toshiba notified it’s Service Provider partners (his shop), but not customers, and that if they came across this issue they were authorized to replace the mother board with its graphics chipset at no cost to the customer.) Eric said that Toshiba probably wasn’t honoring that anymore and I would have to pay about $790 plus labor for a new mother board (the earlier chipset is in material that overheats and fries the chipset), but that he’d ask his Toshiba rep about it.
He called me back the next day saying that, owing to increased and continuing customer complaints, Toshiba authorized him to fix it for free. I simply UPS-ed it to him in Modesto, CA, and Eric did the rest.
I thought about calling Toshiba Support back and, with Eric’s info, arguing with them to fix it, but since Eric went out of his way and he knew about the problem and how to fix it, I just shipped it to him to fix. Contact him at enugent at itscurrie.com.
One week later I have my machine back with a chipset that’s less likely to get fried. WONDERFUL ! Thanks, Eric!
December 20th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
I suffered the same issue twice. I bought the sucky stuff on Nov. 2006. It broken up after 1 year warrenty, I spent $500 dollars to replace the motherboard. It works only 14 monthes, it broken again. What I decided is to thrown it away, ant told every people I know to never trust Toshiba product.
November 20th, 2009 at 3:11 am
damn! its my second time with this green screen problem hope there is a solution to this problem. Other than replacing and replacing the motherboards hope Toshiba will Fix it soon mine is not in warranty
November 19th, 2009 at 8:46 am
John,
What?
November 19th, 2009 at 8:41 am
I can’t find the “My Toshiba” icon and the “activate Warranty”. Where are these icons/addresses/whatever?
JM
November 12th, 2009 at 11:26 pm
I am a victim of G30 Toshiba. I am unable to fix the Green screen problems and I lost my hard earned money with this idiot Toshiba. Please don’t buy Toshiba
July 26th, 2009 at 6:50 am
Administrator of Toshiba forum at http://forums.computers.toshiba-europe.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=43957&messageID=168757#168757 is blocking my answer on Toshiba forum
Yesterday I gave there also link to this article and wrote my experience to answer. I think some of theses answers are from “Toshiba boys”. If you will monitore threads which were a time ago, suggestions as reinstaling drivers or Bios were truly not very effective to solve Qosmio G-30 troubles. They stopped me one year ago as well. I has two accounts at Toshiba because I forgot first registration username when I was puting in the warranty.
What I don’t understand is this. I fyou arrange account at Toshiba web you have there also written your model and serial number. You also have selection if you like to obtain mailing list – info – about actualizations for your computer. I never obtain something as this!!! Only advertisement about new products, cha…
IS IT FAIR CUSTOMER CARE? I think they are just “clever”…
Truly, not any more Toshiba again!!!!
Hana
July 25th, 2009 at 5:31 am
Hi to all,
sorry for my English but I have so bad experience with Toshiba custome care that I like to share it with you.
I bought Qosmio G30-126 in Czech Republic for very high money at June 2007. It start to be bad with Photoshop – and also Word, some strips over. I tryied everythin, drivers from Toshiba and later on also from NVidia. It was strange that they put in Vista 32-b but the driver from Nvidia (7600 Go) was on the web only for XP. When it came for Vista it was as another driver name(7650GS). but this one was working much better that Toshiba one.
The last summer they did diagnostic and found nothing wrong with my laptot. They told “it is normal”. Hm, so I was seating before it and waiting and waiting during processing. Everything was to slow, collapsing… My work was gone many times. I was truly angry.
I contacted not only Toshiba service (CHG Toshiba Brno) but also one of highest managers here in Czech Republic. He told me drive to Prague (200 km) or Hradec Kralove (120 km) there are two others services. But I was 3 days before trip for half year on opposite side of the World. So nothing happen about customer who have warranty (My fault that I bought it).
When I found the ling about Toshiba replacement named Product Update: Toshiba Qosmio G30 BIOS Update and GPU Repair Program
http://eu.computers.toshiba-europe.com/innovation/generic/PRODUCT_UPDATE_SUPPORT
I sent to them link. The service is located in Brno and to this manager. From service came message that I can come and they will do diagnostic again. My answer was: What will you find now? Have you different program for this diagnostic?
Not answer from the manager…
I don’t think I will accept a replacement only after cause as this. I like to obtain money return and payment for expert who will prepare report. They can be happy that I will not claim my harms!
I know about Sony laptops case – Sony Vaio. Bad luck I am not US. I was harmed in Europe and at last the notebook collapsed totally when were changing some parts in service. 3 times RAM did short cut to motherboard and display (when they put in to new ones). I put this one in rubbish…
I think customers like to buy running machines. If it is not running the producer have to be responsible for it and not to wait when customer will buy other one and will have inaf of strageling with producer…
If you are selling milk you have to sell milk. If you will sell only water people will change your trade mark very soon.
Hanka
July 10th, 2009 at 11:55 pm
Hi folks,
I have a Qosmio F30 since jan.2007. April 2009 this year the GPU went down. I tried eveything nothing helps.
Mainboards are expensive so what to do. Throw it away?
Can I repaire it by myself? Placing a new graphics processor?
Where do i get these things.
Goodluck with your Qosmio’s. A fine name for a rotten product. Thanks Toshiba.
July 7th, 2009 at 5:25 am
I am quite sad to be here in the list of Toshiba Qosmio G30 victims
.. I bought toshiba qosmio g30-194 in august, 2007 with 3 yrs extended warranty. i had read all the above posts way back in january this year and i knew that i’ll be hving the same problem as well. i was just waiting for it and on the 20th of june, 2009 the green screen finally appreared.. today, i am going to get back my qosmio after MB replacement but as you all have experience, i am sure that i will also suffer again..
just wanted to ask one thing.. can we all (G30 victims) make an impact on toshiba to persuade them to either return our money or give us any other model (no qosmio anymore) like satellite etc. plz give suggestions..
tht would be a non-sense act to go for MB replacements again and again if the problem still exists in their models.. there is no use of replacing it.. by replacing it, you are just passing on the warranty time and after that, you will hv to pay for this bulky machine..
plz give suggestions
June 17th, 2009 at 1:56 am
My G30 suffered from a failed video chip about 3 months out of the Toshiba extra year. At first Toshiba were reluctant to listen but when I pointed them to Nvidia admitting a huge financial hit they accepted the G30 for a free MB replacement. A courier called the next day and 2 weeks later was returned at no cost to me. See the link: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9112538
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9112538
April 28th, 2009 at 1:51 am
Hi. Qosmio’s are known to have hardware issues with GPU. We have found this throughout the F and G series. We can repair if your board is out of warranty. Or buy your faulty boards. repair@tektronics.co.uk
April 20th, 2009 at 4:32 am
Hi I’m from Germany and I just want to let you know that I have exactly the same graphic/mb problems with my G30 (188) which was bought end of 2006 in Germany for 1800 €!
My mb died in june 2008 the first time. It was fixed up (mb changed) by an authrised tech support. 3 days ago the same problem occured! I don’t want the mb changed again if this will not fix the problem permanently!!!
Has anyone experience with that (new) repair program from Toshiba for G30 series? Do the BIOS upate and a new mb fix the problem???
Thx for all experiences!
Best regards from Germany
April 8th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
I would like to know if anyone have Qosmio F30 and get the GPU Repair Program from Toshiba? In the program, it said it is only fos G series
My Qosmio F 30 is also having the same problem. I have been changing the motherboard twice. It is broken again for the 3rd time. I do not use it for a very long time everyday and do not use heavy program. 3 times happened has the same symptoms as odd green, red, white line and pictures. It couldn’t go to windows via normal mode. If anyone have F series and get the repair program, please relpy.
March 21st, 2009 at 10:15 pm
Hi, I have a toshiba qosmio g25 and about 2 days ago a third of my screen went totally black.. what is strange is that the other 2 thirds work fine… is my LCD gone or is it something else? I’ve tried to go to the bios menu and still that third of the screen stays totaly black as i tought it could be a problem with windos or some kind of a virus but even in the bios menu only 2 thirds on the left hand side work… Need some help please
March 16th, 2009 at 7:54 am
Please check this link from Toshiba:
http://tais-app-p01.toshiba.com:8080/KanisaPlatform/Publishing/672/1199_f.html
March 12th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Apparently there are a manufacturing date series of the G30’s that are accepted as faulty by Toshiba, but mine lays 3 weeks outside that! I am awaiting a call back from someone “higher up” the chain in Customer support (or should I say, Technical Support, as I cannot get a number for Customer Services!)
March 12th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
I did contact Toshiba canada customer support in Ontario though I can’t find the number now. The lady I was speaking with arranged for the repair and covered the cost. (3 months out of warranty)
March 12th, 2009 at 9:32 am
Hi,
I have another failure on my G30. Exactly the same as before, found it sitting with black screen and the cooling fan running full speed. Total failure to boot now and no Quosmio TV or Music Player either. Apparently the motherboard lasted 14 months this time instead of 13 months for the first one!
Does anyone have a telephone number for Toshiba in Canada where they have actually received a positive reaction from them and had it repaired free of charge? I seem to be beating my head against a brick wall with them.
Any help greatly appreciated as I do not intend to throw yet another $1000 of my hard earned money at this heap of junk.
Regards,
Duncan
March 8th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
Yes.. another g30 user with a second blown MB, first also blew just out of warranty(1yr) second MB lasted 13months, i’m gonna have another go with getting a free repair but am not holding my breath, my other very old satellite works like a charm with no complaints (besides crap toshiba HD replaced with a hitachi), shame toshiba didn’t carry on that workmanship with this high end laptop..
January 31st, 2009 at 4:52 pm
hey !end of 2006 i baught qosmio g30, a year later i get the matrix lines when i entered a game , couldnt exit .. so i rebooted and got the zero’s while loading .. i tried uninstalling the vga driver and reinstalling and i couldnt fix it . i sent it to the company for check up. i got it back a 3 weeks later . it was ok
2 days later i get the same prob . sent it back
it had its warranty. they told me i could change it for the 2007 model and pay a difference .
and i did that now i was playing world of warcraft and i got the same problem .. we people should do somethin about it
in my country the g30 costs around 3000$ back in 2007
wtf …… they sell laptops to get ruined a year after
is that timed on ur laptop to get ruined so u buy another one ??? can anyone reply ??n tell me what to do