Toshiba Sued Over Notebook Design

Owners of Toshiba's Satellite 5005 series notebooks, among the first to use desktop processors in mobile PCs, filed a class-action lawsuit late last month against Toshiba America, alleging the company knowingly concealed a design flaw that caused the notebooks to overheat and shut down, and compounded the problem with its attempts to fix the situation.

The suit specifically states that Toshiba was aware its Satellite 5005-S504 and Satellite 5005-S507 contained a design flaw that made them unable to perform at advertised levels due to their inability to dissipate heat from their 1.1-GHz Pentium III processors from Intel.

Toshiba marketed the notebooks as "the ultimate multimedia machine," but the notebooks were unable to handle the high levels of processing power needed for gaming and multimedia presentations, the suit alleges.

Poor Performance

BIOS upgrades provided by Toshiba to solve the problem prevent the notebooks from shutting down, but at the expense of processing speed, rendering them unsuitable for multimedia applications, the plaintiffs say.

Toshiba has distributed two software fixes since March designed to correct thermal problems in the notebooks. It blamed a BIOS glitch for the problems, which it said affected a small number of notebooks. Both the plaintiffs and members of a Yahoo user group devoted to this issue allege that while the fixes did solve the heat dissipation problems, it slowed their notebooks down to speeds equivalent to entry-level notebooks.

Several Satellite 5005 series users created a message board on Yahoo's Web site in May to air their frustrations and difficulties with the notebooks, and the fixes. As of Thursday, the group had 320 members.

The Satellite 5005-S504 originally sold for around $2,000, depending on the configuration, and currently sells for around $1,700, according to data on industry price guide Pricewatch.com.

Toshiba was not immediately available for comment. The suit was filed in the Superior Court for the State of California for the County of Los Angeles, Central District on July 23 by the law firm of Kiesel, Boucher & Larson.

Processors Get Portable

Desktop processors have been used in notebook computers over the last year as a way to inexpensively boost performance. Other manufacturers have used different designs to solve heat problems in notebooks with desktop components.

Dell Computer and Gateway have both introduced notebook computers with desktop processors from Intel this year. Both companies acknowledged concessions to increased heat produced by desktop processors when they announced the products. Dell said it had waited to release its SmartStep 200N and 250N until it was sure it had solved thermal problems from the use of desktop processors, and Gateway's new 400 series notebooks are bulkier and heavier than some of Gateway's other models with mobile processors due to additional heat shields.

The suit says Toshiba had four design options to counter the increased heat given off by desktop processors: design a more efficient heatsink, install a bigger fan, increase the size of the notebook, or reduce the speed of the processor. However, these options were not attractive to Toshiba because they would adversely affect the price, noise, or aesthetic value of its notebooks, the plaintiffs allege.

Intel and Advanced Micro Devices manufacture processors designed specifically for mobile environments, but they are more expensive and run at slower clock speeds than desktop processors. Transmeta also makes processors for mobile environments that run slower than desktop CPUs, but consume less power and produce less heat.