Karaoke Forums

I have a new toshiba laptop with compuhost installed. Have done 3 shows and the computer goes off about twice a night. It says on the screen before it goes off display driver has been interrupted and has been fixed. But you have to restart the computer. Computer friend of mine updated the driver software from the graphics card company but it did not help. any ideas

Hello Krazy, and, welcome to the forum
I have a Toshiba Satelite laptop that I bought in Jan, 08 to use for my shows. For the most part it worked fine. Every now and then it would freeze up for no aparent reason, it always ran OK after a reboot. I never felt like I could depend on it, so I built a rackmount PC to use at the shows and kept the laptop for back-up. After a while the freezing of the Toshiba got more frequent so I completely reinstalled the operating system (vista). That seemed to solve the problem.

I didn't use the toshiba that often so months went by without the freeze ups. About 2 months ago I was using it at a mobile gig just to play music and it started freezing up again ( about every 20 minutes that night)

Naturally by now the 1 year warrenty had expired.

I went to toshiba support and downloaded a motherboard update that was supposed to address my very problem...No help

I COMPLETLY reinstalled the operating system again...No fix

I replaced the hard drive...No fix

Finally I decided to install XP, it was a Hassle because I had to search the net for all the drivers to run this Satellite P205d with XP...For WHATEVER reason the problem is now gone.

The source of your problem may be completly different than what I had going. I will never buy a toshiba laptop again. If yours is new enough to return for a refund, that is what I would recomend! Don't waste your time trying to fix it. Just take it back

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[font=Fantasy][/font]LIVE IN THE MOMENT

Thanks for the reply. I purchased the laptop for 750 at circuit city and did not use it for a month. It kept going off and was sent back to toshiba 3 times before it would work at all. It was purchased in Oct 2008 but they will not replace it they just keep sending it back and say it is fixed. It works ok now except when you attach the external monitor. I think I will just give up and use it for back up like you said
Again thanks for the answer

Vista has a history of crappy drivers..

The first one I received un-installed the audio on first boot.. Sent it back, got XP..

No more issues..

I think Vista was shipped too soon..

Thanks for the answer I am going to get another laptop and i can assure you it will have XP

It took 7 years and was almost three years late. No, the problem is that it shipped at all. Incredibly bad product.

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[color=#ffff55]Mickey J.[/color]
Alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music in them.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

That could have happened on any manufactured laptop. Sounds like a Vista problem and not Toshiba. I have a used Toshiba. Never frozen up in a show that I can recall. It did do it a couple times when I first got it at a family gig but I quit using it for any internet activity and it's been clean since. I should mention I have xp.

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KingBing Entertainment C'mon Up! I have a song for you!!! [font=MS Sans Serif][/font]

Was the computer working good at one point where you could possibly restore to that point?
Also, check the Toshiba website to see if any drivers are available for your machine and possibly a Bios update??? Make sure to ALWAYS use the driver from the Toshiba site for your specific machine and not from Windows or the hardware manufacture.

It looks to me like a driver conflict that could be fixed

Unless you buy it used, you will not find a new computer with XP, even Dell has discontinued - or supposed to - selling their computers with XP. You may have to purchase XP & reformat the drive yourself, but know you will most likely void any warranty doing so.
I have 3 computers with Vista running my karaoke programs with no problems.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

Thanks for answer
I have been doing karaoke with discs but am just starting with the computer so far I love it I have 6000 karaoke songs loaded so far. I selected CompuHost which seems to work fine (I have not tried anything else so do not have any thing to compare it to) I am going to get another laptop for backup and also sometimes i do two shows at once with a friend helping me. Since you have 3 laptops is there anything I should be sure and get on mine. I was just going to get a gateway or dell with 4 memory and 500 harddrive. Anything you can tell me to help me get the best one I will appreciate. I just use the VGA port on the computer for the singers monitor. Is this the best method. I also ordered a powered splitter so I can have a singers monitor and an audience monitor I hope it works have not received it yet.
You can tell by my questions I am new to computer karaoke. Do you use an external harddrive for second laptop or do you load the songs on all your computers. Thanks

Not exactly HP business still offers the downgrade to XP Pro and BTW, I strongly recommend their laptop as oppose to the commercial type found in stores

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm ... tebook_pcs

Had the same problems for about a month. Tried all different things but with no success. Finally, I went to control panel-personalization-display settings and changed my color setting from 32 bit to 16 bit. Have'nt had any problems since. Hope it works for you.

My partner has used a couple of different Toshibas (Satellites), at shows, since Thanksgiving and hasn't experienced the problems described on this thread.

He did replace his first Toshiba to get one that provided S-video. The next unit (with the S-vidoe) had an unresolvable driver conflict with the external Creative sound card we both use. Although the card could be gotten to work, it was an extra step and a clear deficiency that he wanted to avoid. So.. he returned that model, spent a bit more and bought another Toshiba that has been working just fine for the last 6 weeks or so!

I'm not "dead set against" Windows Vista or Toshiba Laptops. I have been using vista on other PC's since it first came out and havn't had the problems that so many people have described with vista. Partly , I'm sure, because i have used it on newly built machines. On an older machine I have, XP does run faster than vista . The laptop I had my problem with happened to be Toshiba Satellite P205D. For me that unit was a lemon. Every manufacterer seems to produce a lemon from time to time (some more than others)

When nothing I did seemed to fix my problem, I switched to XP. I'm not sure exactly why it fixed the problem. Could be different drivers, more stable code, different settings, or the gremlen just got bored.

Now I have my own story about how vista screwed me up and I had to go back to XP

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[font=Fantasy][/font]LIVE IN THE MOMENT

Just for sake of balance I'll throw my story in here. I've had two Toshiba Satellites that I've used for my business. The first was an older one that I had bought used for a different purpose, had XP on it and worked great until the IDE controller on the system board took a dump. I replaced that with a brand new bottom of the line Toshiba Satellite I bought at Office Depot for around $500. It has Vista Basic on it and I upgraded the memory to 2GB. It runs great. The dual displays work find, my USB sound card works fine, it's been very good to me for the last year and half that I've had it.

Sorry to hear others have had so many problems with them and with Vista.

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DJ Tony
Let It Rip Karaoke

Sounds kinda fishy to me!

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KingBing Entertainment C'mon Up! I have a song for you!!! [font=MS Sans Serif][/font]

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[font=Fantasy][/font]LIVE IN THE MOMENT

I too have a toshiba laptop I bought two months ago " replacing my old HP laptop XP" . It has Vista 64 Bit . The screen has went blank a couple of times with the same display driver has recovered. I am using Roxbox software. I am going to try srlbeck66 idea of setting the color to 16 bit. I feel like vista like it or not is the future, windows 7 only promises it will be fully compatible with Vista. Please update the board if someone knows a positive cure for this problem. I even thought of trying MTU Holster sofware to be sure it wasn't roxbox

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Life is Short Play Hard!!!!

I'm reluctant to say that I've been using Vista for almost a year now with no problems at all.

Reluctant because like everything in life as soon as you say it - BANG -

(but Hey ! I've said it now)

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[font=Fantasy][/font] "Travellin' at the speed of light"

I set the color to 16 bit. Run a whole show about 5 hours no problem. For some reason I think that cured it and I was running two TV's off a vga splitter.