Is it possible to swap s2800/s2805 mainboard to other model i.e. to s1800/s1900/s2400... or other similar? Has anybody tried this? I have compared s1800 with s2800 and they seem to be different. It is difficult to find s2800 at the moment but maybe there is -toshiba case/body compatible with this mainboard. Question asked because I have working s2800 mainboard 😉

przemek wrote on 2025-12-18, 21:45:

Is it possible to swap s2800/s2805 mainboard to other model i.e. to s1800/s1900/s2400... or other similar? Has anybody tried this? I have compared s1800 with s2800 and they seem to be different. It is difficult to find s2800 at the moment but maybe there is -toshiba case/body compatible with this mainboard. Question asked because I have working s2800 mainboard 😉

Sadly they're very different - I'm pretty sure the Satellite 1800 isn't even made by Toshiba themselves, more likely it's a Compal laptop. The compatibility of motherboards between models is a little worse than that though, there are essentially two generations of the Satellite 2800 series - the S3 version and the Geforce versions have differences in the casing around the floppy drive and I think the Geforce version added a smartcard slot. So the Geforce mainboard probably won't even fit in the earlier Satellite 2800 series housing.

MikeSG wrote on 2025-10-27, 11:54:

Do these have Tualatin CPUs? I dicovered on my Satellite 1800 (factory Coppermine) that a Tuatalin CPU worked. Desktop Tualatin Socket 370.

Nope, they have an Intel 815 chipset but they're not Tualatin, just coppermine socket 495. Some of them are soldered to the mainboard too so no swapping is possible.

As I thought, so even if I will find the faulty geforce version and I have s3 mobo, then it will probably not fit, good to know 😀 thx for the reply

A story happened that’s very much like something I’d do 😀

So here’s the situation: the 2805’s screen is kind of mediocre, but there’s a Toshiba 5205 with an absolutely awesome display. And I noticed the connector to the motherboard is the same. So I figured it was simple — I just hooked the 5205 screen up to the 2805. It didn’t work. And when I reconnected the original display, it was showing a white screen only. The image was still output to an external monitor.

I got a bit sad, but the problem turned out to be simpler than it looked. Next to the connector there are two fuses, and one of them had blown. I bridged it with a jumper and everything started working again.

But it was a good excuse to tear the laptop down completely, so I’m posting detailed photos of the motherboard.

https://disk.yandex.ru/i/_IGex9XVgZdh2w

https://disk.yandex.ru/i/OXjPSNLWqjmHkQ

vorob wrote on 2026-03-16, 08:15:

A story happened that’s very much like something I’d do :) […]
Show full quote

A story happened that’s very much like something I’d do 😀

So here’s the situation: the 2805’s screen is kind of mediocre, but there’s a Toshiba 5205 with an absolutely awesome display. And I noticed the connector to the motherboard is the same. So I figured it was simple — I just hooked the 5205 screen up to the 2805. It didn’t work. And when I reconnected the original display, it was showing a white screen only. The image was still output to an external monitor.

I got a bit sad, but the problem turned out to be simpler than it looked. Next to the connector there are two fuses, and one of them had blown. I bridged it with a jumper and everything started working again.

But it was a good excuse to tear the laptop down completely, so I’m posting detailed photos of the motherboard.

https://disk.yandex.ru/i/_IGex9XVgZdh2w

https://disk.yandex.ru/i/OXjPSNLWqjmHkQ

Yep, Toshiba did a good job of wiring up the screens but didn't account for so much with screens of different models or STN/TFT models with the same connector. I've done that and got a white screen but somehow didn't blow the fuse. That's great that it was just the fuse though 😁 white screen means the inverter is running but the LCD is not - that's probably why there were two fuses.

What res is the 5205 panel? Since they both have nvidia graphics, they're quite tolerant of different LVDS configurations if the wiring is all correct. Say an XGA panel would be 1 channel LVDS while the 1400x1050 and 1600x1200 panels are 2x lvds channels and the panel resolution would be decided by the EDID on the LCD panel itself. Potentially if you wired up the 2 channel LVDS to match the wiring of the 2805 then it could work? But that means knowing the pinout - you can guess by following the differential pair traces either on the mainboard or the LCD. Both those laptops are from a similar era so the LVDS used is very similar and each channel will always consist of 3x diff pairs for the RGB signals and 1x diff pair for the clock signal.
There is a 1400x1050 variant of the Satellite 2805 but it was Japan only, called the Dynabook A1 x85PMC and A1 X10PMC. Or the dynabook A2: https://dynabook.com/pc/catalog/dynabook/010821a2/a2hard.htm
Thing is though, I bet the mainboard on all models routes both LVDS channels to the video chip and different pairs are quite easy to spot since each pair sticks together and has significant spacing from other traces.

I wonder if the 5205 uses the same panel as my Satellite Pro 6100 UXGA. It's pretty good, not sure if it is IPS as we know it today but definitely has good viewing angles.

5205 I'm using has gorgeous 1600x1200 panel, bright and with good contrast - sharp lq150u1la03 some time ago I showed comparison:
Re: Toshiba 2805-s402 Ultimate retro gaming laptop

There is a 1400x1050 variant of the Satellite 2805 but it was Japan only, called the Dynabook A1 x85PMC and A1 X10PMC. Or the dynabook A2: https://dynabook.com/pc/catalog/dynabook/010821a2/a2hard.htm

Need to search for them on Japan sites... but I'm so lazy 😀