steptail.com

A durable workhorse of it's time, the T3200SX and T3200SXC portable computers were manufactured and targeted primarily as desktop computer replacements for businesses. Of course, at the time of the release, there existed smaller laptop computers, but none of these even came close to the power, durability and expandability of this Toshiba computer.

The T3200SX and T3200SXC computers are siblings. The only differences are that the SXC has a color flat panel screen and a faster central processing unit (20 MHz as opposed to 16 MHz). The graphics adapters are the same, both systems are VGA capable, and support resolutions up to 640×480 with 16 colors.

Toshiba T3200SX comes with either a 40 MB hard drive, or an 80 MB hard drive. The system has a standard IDE interface to connect to the supplied Conner CP hard disk. Most Toshiba T3200SX(C) computers certain newer BIOS versions are locked to specific hard disk part numbers, so you cannot upgrade it easily. If you try using a different hard disk, the computer will refuse to detect and use the hard disk, unless it has a certain part number starting with the letters “CP” which stands for Conner Peripherals. Older BIOSes will allow you to use any hard drive, but will still use the disk settings for the hard drives that were originally supplied with the system. In this case, you can override the settings programmatically, with Anydrive, found under Files and Resources.

These are the drive configurations supported by all BIOSes:

Search these hard drives on eBay using this affiliate link.

If you're lucky, your computer has the older BIOS, and will ignore the part number and will let you boot from any IDE drive as long as you manually override the BIOS settings in software using ANYDRIVE or any other BIOS overlay software, like OnTrack. However, if you have a newer BIOS, the computer will not detect the drive unless it's made by Conner (it's IDE identifier string must start with the letters “CP”).

If you're technically skilled, HighTreason has made a tutorial how to flash the BIOS onto an EEPROM. Flashing a compatible BIOS will allow you to boot with any hard disk. Please see Files and Resources for more information.

The computer uses 30 pin SIMMs to add more system memory, but it's not completely standard. The computer was shipped with 1 Mb (megabit) or 2Mb memory chips that were 80ns (or faster) with parity. There are six slots in total and the banks are used in pairs, so at least two are needed.¹⁾

If you remove the rear panel, you will be able to access the ISA expansion slots. The computer has one 16-bit full-length ISA slot and one 8-bit half-length ISA slot. The system also has a proprietary 16-bit Toshiba expansion slot. I have my computer set up with an 16-bit Sound Blaster 16 and an 8-bit 3Com Etherlink III (3C509) for networking. However, at least this site ²⁾ points out, that some later 3Com Etherlink III cards do not support 8-bit ISA.

The computer can be upgraded with an math coprocessor (FPU). The FPU doesn't come as standard, but the computer has a provision for an added Intel 387 FPU.

Q: What is the PRN-A-B Switch on the side?
A: Toshiba offered an external 360Kb disk drive as an option. This plugs in to the parallel port connector but is not a parallel device. Setting the switch to PRN enables the printer port, setting it to A tells the machine there is an external disk drive and you want it to be A drive. Setting it to B tells the machine there is an external disk drive and you want it to be B drive. Setting it to A would allow you to boot 360Kb boot disks.

Unless you have the Toshiba external floppy – always set this to PRN. ³⁾

Q: My computer gives me a configuration error when I turn it on
A: If the CMOS battery is empty, you will be prompted with the following error when you power on the machine.

Invalid configuration information - please run SETUP program
 Strike the F1 key to continue. F2 to run the setup utility

Please refer to instructions here:
How do I boot my T3200SX with an empty CMOS battery

Q: How can I access the built-in BIOS ?
A: Press CTRL + SHIFT + F10 when the computer powers on. If this does not work, you may use the TEST3.EXE utility, a little program by Toshiba which will open up the BIOS settings from a DOS environment. You might want to include this utility in your computer recovery disk. See below for files that apply to this type of machine, or view all files at the files and resources section.

Q: I am still unable to access the BIOS.
A: When the computer BIOS battery runs empty, it will clear all BIOS settings and will prompt you to review the system settings on power-up. This may be used to your advantage to get into BIOS. To force this behavior, disconnect the clock battery entirely. Wait for a few minutes and power up the computer again. The computer will ask the user to review the default settings. Please refer to How do I boot my T3200SX with an empty CMOS battery

Q: My computer does not hold settings or time
A: You probably have an empty BIOS battery. The battery holds volatile information in a CMOS chip like information about your BIOS settings and system time. When the battery runs out, the information will be lost. You can still use your computer by going into BIOS settings and accepting the defaults (see above).

Q: How do I replace the computer BIOS battery?
A: The BIOS battery is located on the system board. The correct voltage for the battery is 3.6V. You can replace it with either an original part, or alternatively, you can replace it with a 3.0V CR2032 coin cell battery. In this case you should buy a CR2032 holder, a CR2032 lithium battery and a diode. The diode is required to avoid charging the battery. Take the old battery connector and its wires, solder the coin cell holder to the wires and solder the diode in series as such:
[PC] - - - - [|<] - - - - [+ BATT -] - - - - [PC]

You may search for CR2032 battery holders including leads using this eBay affiliate link

Q: I can't get a larger/custom hard drive working on my T3200SX(C). My computer won't boot, or it will refuse to detect the drive.
A: Unfortunately newer Toshiba T3200SX BIOSes are restricted to specific CONNER hard-drives of either 40 or 80 megabytes (the T3200SXC accepts 40 or 120 MB). On bootup, the BIOS queries the IDE controller for hard-drives, and will prevent the system from booting when it detects a hard drive with a part number that doesn't start with the matching letters 'CP' (Conner Peripherals).

There are three options:

1. Buy a working CONNER Hard-disk with the part number starting with 'CP', and use ANYDRIVE to circumvent the BIOS hardcoded drive size limitations.
2. Get an older BIOS chip, or hunt down a spares -computer with an older BIOS version and replace the chip.
3. Re-flash your BIOS chip with the 3CH BIOS found in the files-section, and again use ANYDRIVE to circumvent any size limitations. There is a well written BIOS re-flashing guide in the files page in the section labeled Documentation.

On older Toshiba T3200SX machines (BIOS 003C) the computer will boot with any peripheral IDE drive, but you may still need to use ANYDRIVE to circumvent the BIOS hard-disk size limitations, because older BIOSes assume the hard disk is 40 MB. It may boot, but using the computer could cause hard drive corruption. With ANYDRIVE enabled, the program will manually reprogram the BIOS to use whatever size hard disk you want and utilize up to 512 megabytes on the hard drive. The program installs inside the Master Boot Record (MBR), so that it will run every time the computer starts.

Toshiba T3200SXC disassembly (identical to T3200SX) | Original URL
HighTreason's overview of the Toshiba T3200SX laptop with a in-depth look at the hardware
Baudband - Toshiba T3200SX

T3100 | T3100e | T3100SX | T3200 | T3200SX | T3200SXC

« Back to T-series Support page