I've blogged about my various laptop problems (Toshiba Satellite Pro 6100), and have come to the conclusion over the years that a laptop cannot be depended on. My latest use of the laptop has been strictly using remote desktop to my main workstation, and for things like browsing the Internet and playing poker. Anything that requires storage dependability is not worth putting on a laptop. This includes things like running a web server with ColdFusion, PHP, SQL, etc, and also includes programs like Dreamweaver. After running numerous installs, it seems like I was getting at most a few weeks or months before having to do it all over again. Summing up the various repairs I've had in 3 years:

12 total repairs:

6/30/2003
No boot/video
Reseat VGA board
P000372720 VGA support assembly

9/18/2003
Boot failure, no boot
HDD, LCD Hook, HDD Unit (60 GB)

3/10/2004
HDD Failure, no boot, grinding HDD
HDD Unit (60 GB)

5/7/2004
Cursor drifts every day, unit shorts out and shuts off when moved
Defective PCB Main Board

5/12/2004
no boot, just had M/B and video card replaced
Reseat and Secured all internal connections

6/4/2004
no boot
Main Board PCB Assembly

6/18/2004
LCD goes grey, mouse only works on horizontal axis
Keyboard unit

6/23/2004
Boot failure, no display
Power supply, CPU 2.0 GHZ P4 Processor

9/14/2004
No boot, blue screen, DVD not working
Update Win DVD

11/19/2004
HDD failure, no boot
HDD Unit 60gig

12/2/2004
Unit gets extremely hot, fan not working
Main Board

7/25/2005
HDD Failure, no boot, grinding HDD
HDD Unit (60 GB)

10/30/2005
Unit dead, warranty expired. RIP.

Summing up: 4 hard drives, 4 motherboards, 2 video boards, one P4, one keyboard, and miscellaneous other parts. Luckily I had a 3 year extended warranty, so all repairs were free, but there was way too much time consumed with all this crap. It's not like I abused the machine. It sat on my table and I used it a few hours a night. Once in a while it would go into a bag and be taken to a hotel room where it would sit on a table. Here's the good part: after blogging about it a few times, one of the comments on my blog talked about a lawsuit against Toshiba for the faulty 6100:

The lawsuit alleges that the Satellite Pro 6100 contains a design defect that causes certain power-supply, display and related failures. The lawsuit further alleges that Toshiba knew of, and concealed the existence of, the alleged defect at the time it sold the Satellite Pro 6100. Toshiba denies any and all liability to Plaintiffs and the Class and has agreed to settle the actions for the sole purpose of avoiding the expense and time of further litigation.

Sounds like it applies to me! I signed up at the settlement site and should be getting a credit of $1500 for a new laptop (which I have to spend at Toshiba, unfortunately). The unit was about $2200 originally plus $300 for a warranty, but $1500 is better than nothing and will get me a new laptop. So who says blogging doesn't pay?