It happens sooner or later to everyone in the tech industry. They find one laptop or another that they really, really like. If you’ve stumbled onto actively-updated web sites dedicated to really old laptops… you’ve seen a case of this. Even happens on desktop systems, the Macintosh Color Classic being the most common in Japan.
Mine happened to be the Toshiba Satellite 5005 series. There were two models, the 5005-S504 (with GeForce2Go and XGA display) and then later the 5005-S507 (with GeForce4Go and UXGA display). Interestingly enough, these were the first two “desktop replacement” laptops in the industry. Before 17-inch laptops, there was the 5005 series. Unlike laptops prior to them, the Satellite 5005 was the first laptop to use a desktop Pentium III processor. No mobile chip at all.
Now, the systems were far from perfect. Many overheated, and I was personally involved in the class action law suit surrounding them. Let’s just say I was paid well for my expert advocacy… but basically, Toshiba put out a BIOS update that clocked the systems to run at 600 MHz (instead of 1.1 GHz) when they got hot. Bad Toshiba, bad! Thankfully, it was easy to fix the heat problem, and the machines lived out happy lives, and most owners got a nice check in the mail for their problems ($500 to $1500, not bad for a three-year-old $2000 system).
Toshiba went on to make the 5105 and 5205 series systems with Pentium 4-M processors, before Toshiba’s laptop division was downsized. And, by downsized, I mean most of the teams were fired and replaced with Quanta designers in the middle east. Wonder why most Toshiba laptops look the same today? Now you know.
Now, Toshiba actually has expanded since, and I understand most of the people are back working on Qosmio systems (which are the apparent successor to the 5000 series systems).
If you happen to own a Satellite 5005, you’re in luck… I’ve been keeping the drivers up-to-date while Toshiba hasn’t. Toshiba’s support teams in the U.S. are not good at maintaining drivers. And, with Windows XP SP3 on the way… those ancient drivers will fail horribly on the system. So, you can download the truly latest stable drivers from the link below. These drivers are a well-tested, Frankenstein mix of reference drivers, 5005 drivers, 5105 drivers, and 5205 drivers. Lots of BSODs were involved in the making of this set.
And, as an added bonus, you can download the 5005 reference manual at the link below.
Satellite 5005 Driver Kit for Windows XP 2.2
Satellite 5005 Service Manual (PDF)
P.S. Yes, I do still use the Satellite 5005-S507 that I own. It primarily acts as a DV capture unit for captuing HDTV from my Comcast DVR via FireWire. Granted, it may not play the video well, but the system certainly is not going to waste.
P.P.S. The graphics card drivers in the kit are very old (40 Series ForceWare). This is because Toshiba was using a special Video BIOS that has not been cracked yet for re-integrating into “Mobile ForceWare” drivers. You can use newer versions, but they prevent the system from waking from Standby. 70 Series drivers provide optimal performance, and a hacked 70 series driver is included. Just disable standby and only have your system hibernate.