Earlier in the year, my sister gave up using her Toshiba Qosmio laptop because the fan was dying on her. It gave off an unpleasant noise and there were even software warnings stating that the fan malfunctioned.

So without taking the laptop apart, I ordered a replacement fan off eBay. Today, when I finally cracked open the laptop to swap out the fan, I came to the realization that it probably wasn't the fan at all, just the thick layer of dust caked between the fan and the heat sink.

I've never seen anything like that happen in my IBM/Lenovos, coupled with the fact that I had to basically take apart the entire laptop just to swap out the fan, I wasn't very pleased with Toshiba's engineering. I think it's straight up laziness which leads to an insanely inefficient design.

To get to the fan, it took me about 15 steps. On the back panel alone I removed screws in the double-digits. I also had to remove the keyboard and disconnect about five data cables. They never thought of applying the beloved Six Sigma process to the design and the whole manufacturing process? I can't fathom how much time they would save if they had 'designed-out' half the screws required to hold the damn thing together. After putting it together and then taking it apart halfway again, I still had two extra screws left... laptop is working fine, what was the point behind those two extra screws?

Toshiba... after my crappy experience with the Portege 2000, my brother's old Satellite having fan issues and my recent run in with the Qosmio. You are in the dog house until further notice.