Qosmio F30-117 - Display issues - red and green lines

Question

Hi there,
I have a qosmio F30-117 and up to recently, I was delighted with everything about it.
Then, mid session, the graphics began to deteriorate, which a reboot fixed.
Then a few days later, it did it again and this time when I rebooted it came up with a corrupted display, lots of aa's all over the place then lines of red and green all over.
Managed to get in by selecting safe mode with networking and got a desktop although still with the red and green lines all over it.
Now its gotten worse still, when I boot up the laptop screen itself is blank, its getting something because it isnt totally black like it is when its powered off, but its blank.
As a check I connected an external monitor and managed to get in again to safe mode with networking, but its still very bad, and still has the red and green lines all over.
I started to have a look around on the good old www and there are numerous posters and articles with problems, and lots mentioning the red and green lines etc...
so Im not alone, but no-one seems to know exactly what it is.
Some have mentioned Toshiba acknowledging this as a problem and doing repairs even if out of warranty.
So, any ideas, any advice, and does anyone know if Tosh have indeed accepted the problem and offering any help??
Thanks in advance

Answer 1

Hi
I think it's a common problem in the Qosmio F30 models. After long term use, the soldering balls under the GPU chipset start to melt down because of the over heat and the bad soldering quality that was used with the F30 model that cannot resist high temperature. Now you have to replace the motherboard, since the GPU is build within the motherboard.
However, there is another two solution for this problem and cost less money amount:
1- do what is called a "heat reflow" for the VGA chipset: to do this you have to take the motherboard out and heat the VGA chipset on the motherboard with a heat gun or you can bake it in the oven for a few minutes at low temp, this will make the soldering balls melt and go back to there right position. However, you need to keep in mind that this solution is temporary and will last maybe for month then you have to do it again and again till you ruin the GPU and then the only solution will be to buy another motherboard. So I don't recommend that you do that at all, but if you don't want to spend a lot of money on a new motherboard this will help you to recover your data, even though there is more easier solution to do the recovery.
Anyways, you can go to youtube and search the term "VGA heat reflow " to see how people do it.
2- send your motherboard to a repairing service that can do what is called reballing: what they do is that they will replace the soldering balls under the VGA chipset with new ones that can resist high temp. and this solution is permanent and even in the future you don't have to worry that the same problem will happen again since the new soldering balls can take high temp change. I do recommend this solution even more than buying a motherboard, since the motherboard that you will get will generate the same problem after few years.
you can find this type of repair service online if you googled the term "VGA reball repair" or you can find it on ebay
If you decided to replace the motherboard I think you will not be able to find a new one, and in case you found one it will be more expensive than a new laptop, but still you can find used motherboard for your qosmio on ebay or online. so you need to do a search and find out what fits your budget or maybe it's better to buy a new laptop.
Sorry about your qosmio, and hope that my post will help you!