My friend's laptop displays garbage letters upon boot up. Usually, most of the screen should be blank. But in place of the blank "spaces", there are a bunch of "a" characters, each with a "^" on top, all lined up, row by row, column by column. Where there should be normal text (information about the boot up process, POST stuff?), there is instead other garbage characters. Then, for a few seconds, it shows the Toshiba logo splash screen just fine. That is, color and icons and everything. So I think the graphics card itself is fine. Then, it reverts back to the funny characters. I tried booting from a WinME boot CD. And it seems to be booting to DOS, because I can tell based on the color of highlighted text in the selection menu (Help file, Safe mode, Without networking, etc) that DOS is loading and running. But it has the same problem, where all the characters are mapped to funny symbols. My guess is that the BIOS is messed up? Anyone else have different ideas? I downloaded the latest BIOS from Toshiba's website on another computer, made a bootable CD from the ISO file, and tried booting up the laptop. I think the program loads. The problem is I can't read the text on the screen since the letters are all jumbled. So I can't navigate the menus to start the flash process. One thought: Anyone know the sequence of tabs or Enters or other keyboard controls, so that I can use Toshiba's BIOS flash utility just by touch? Another thought: Replace the BIOS chip? I'm not sure where it is. I found one thing that might be it, near the power port. It had this text on it: 824-00197F 0520 CN2 Does that mean anything to anyone? Anyone have other ideas about what could be wrong or what else to check? Thanks!

Have you tried booting to the BIOS to see what comes up in there? Is this something that just started? I don't know off hand what the keystrokes are to enter the BIOS for that computer but you should be able to find them in the manual. Manual should be available online. You MAY need the exact model, although for just finding the keystrokes to enter the BIOS any Tecra model should suffice.

Thanks. I'll try that when I get back to the office on Monday and post back here.

I tried Esc and F1 (hit them both alternately) today, and got into the BIOS screen. Or, I got into what I THINK is the BIOS screen. Unfortunately, the letters there are also jumbled, so I can't read what anything says. I did see the outlines of some boxed panels, typical of BIOS screens. I think I'm going to try to find the BIOS chip and replace it, if possible.

I am now going to try to find the BIOS chip. For that adventure, see http://computing.net/hardware/wwwbo...

Did you resolve this issue by any chance? I have a Toshiba tecra M3 and have the same problem. Can you please give me your number so that I can call you? Probably we can work together to fix both of our laptops. My email is srsuhas@gmail.com.