Asus UL30VT FAQ / Official Owners Lounge redux

hmm i dont find your mentioned driver overviewed, i just downloaded all of the drivers and atk´s the newest ones from the asus page and from the tools i install p4g and nothing else, is the rightway for a new win7 install?

 

Check back a few posts to where I just did a clean install.

Look at the drivers installed attachment and note the order and all must be 64bit compatible. Yes, no way do you want to install all from that list. The key is to follow order and deleating the ones you find not needed.

One problem; i see many different versions of the same install. IMHO I'll stick to Asus install order as it has not failed me yet, ymmv.

The dvd installer is smart enough to know when not to run something not needed for clean install; Software\ASUS\VGA_Patch_UL50\Win7_32_Win7_64_1.0.0.1 VGA Patch for Win7 32/64 bit

If you search this forum you will find many posts on clean installs, sorry, they tend to be long posts. Use the search feature, works fine.

here's two; http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...icial-owners-lounge-redux-80.html#post6417664

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...icial-owners-lounge-redux-46.html#post6293093

I think that,s the Kindle version. Check with Amazon.

 

thx for the fast and good information with the screenshot of the install order i think i will be able to set up the new win 7

 

I'm in ladies and gentlemen, just order the UL30VT-X1 from Amazon, and will have it tomorrow! I have spent countless hours and days over the past six weeks, and thought I had decided on the Asus 1215 netbook. But I just kept getting a nagging feeling that I was compromising on going the netbook route.

So I found the UL30VT, and there were no thoughts of having compromised on anything, know what I mean?

Next up is reading through the wealth of info on this thread and others, get to know a few of you, and get the UL30 running nice and shiny. Will most likely stick an SSD in as well.

If anyone has any good links on "what to do with your new UL30 to get it up to date", that would be great. basically looking for a guide with all the latest drivers, software, firmwares, codecs, etc.

 

Yes, read thru the threads! Your questions will be answered many times.

I would suggest you use it for a few weeks to get to know any driver quirks and to ensure a healthy machine before leaping on SSD's and such.

 

I think the only difference is that in the "K" model, the Amazon Kindle for PC software is already installed. (Please feel free to correct this post if it is wrong)

 

I am new to this forum. I recently got a new SSD drive and tried to load the image from the Recovery disc created earlier. After loading up the image, however, I can never boot to Windows although I can see the SSD in BIOS. For some reasons the SSD does not seem like a bootable drive. What did I do wrong? Any input is welcome. Thanks.

 

I am in the exact same position here, any ideas anyone?

 

I thought the image is specific to the hard disc it was created on. At least thats how it was a long time ago, maybe the imaging tools are better now. This would be frustrating, anyone have any ideas for these guys with their shiny new ssd's?

 

Boot sector can be a tricky thing. I've never done cloning, so I can advise anything. I've seen guys here reporting successful cloning tho.

I would go for fresh install. I've done it few times and every time I install less and less stuff from Asus, because it's mostly bloatware.
One might have to grab Windows 7 from the internets. Using your own CD-Key should make it legal anyway. There's official tool meant to create bootable USB drives for easy Windows installation too.
(I installed my MSDNAA copy of W7 on friend's computer, but used the CD-Key that came with that laptop. After phone activation everything worked well.)

 

I got mine this friday and I am so pleased with it. It's a very nice machine.
Though some things were quite obvious from the start, most of them already mentioned before.

- viewing angles are not great. Was prepared for the worse so, not really a big deal sort of speak.
- first time for me to get such a small laptop. Touchpad is a bit smaller which takes getting use to. Also the mouse buttons, would have rather seen 2 sepperate buttons. This one only works on the far left and right end side. Middle is way too hard to press.
- fingerprintmagnet. Like a blackhole sucking it right up. It's a thing I can live with.
- battery is just faxing awesome. No more adapters taking to work/school or something like that.
- The weight is without the battery just amazing. With the battery in place, which doesn't move at all!, it's portable. I wouldn't reccommend something heavier to take with you every day.
- The keyboard types great. No spacebar issues what so ever and believe me, I've tested it a long time . Only got 2 problems with this thing.... no backlit and german layout Both will be dealt with as soon as I have grown the balls to do the mod
- The PC is quite fast. I can feel the HDD being the limited factor in this picture. Vertex 2, momentus XT or just wait till next gen. SSD come out and prices will drop.... drives me crazy > make up your mind batch lol !

If you are in the market for a thin & light, this is the way to go. Paid 499 euro's for this thing (no shipping costs) which is allmost the same amount as I would have paid for a 1215N :S Other 13.3 inches dont have these great specs or price.

 

I have had my ul30vt for about 5 days, and combined with Windows 7, the overall experience is by far the best new pc experience I have had. That would cover 15-20 pcs/laptops via biz/personal use.

random thoughts on first five days:
- the SU7300 proc is incredible. DO NOT let the 1.3GHZ rating fool you.
- can't wait to put in an SSD, I think it will bring out this machines full potential.
- if you are thinking of putting 8 gigs of RAM in, consider an SSD of around the same price. What would give you the better overall perf increase for the same outlay of cash? If you really need the 500gig of local storage, look at the hybrid Seagate Momentus drives. Am I being captain obvious here?

 

Thanks for the review Freaky86 !

I'll buy it too from amazon.de right now, at 499€

Here in France, same computer with same configuration is nowhere less than 780€ lol

I almost bought it from US, but there's a lot of taxes (VAT) in France...
ASUS UL30Vt-A1 13.3" Notebook Computer (Silver) UL30VT-A1
Here there is a good price, with a bonus : " * Includes Free:
* ASUS Leather External Hard Disk Drive (320GB) "
Nice
I just posted that in the case where someone wants to buy it also



A german keyboard in Qwertz, with german windows will be weird lol
Guess I'll change it to a Qwerty LED backlit too, like you Freaky

----

By the way, some little questions for the guys who have bought it from Amazon.de :
1) No problem of Wifi reception ?
2) Fast shipping ?
3) does it come with a sleeve/case, or a mouse ?
4) In Amazon.de : can we change the sending way ("standard versand") for something like FedEx or UPS ? I don't find it :/

Thanks


---

And last thing : Don't forget Asus is one of the rare Computer companies which payback the cost of Windows ! (at least in France, but I think elsewhere too)
You just have to ask them to give your money back

 

@ Ankyra

Yeah amazon.com looks tempting, but the problem is taxes and they don't always ship to the EU. Taxes ruined it for me, so I went for the next best thing really.

The keyboard sucks yeah. German layout is quite annoying. The enter key is vertical and not horizontal. This makes me hit other keys when trying to press enter. Also the shift key on the left is small. I type blind and this key is too far away for my finger so I have to look and press.
Other then that I've got no real complaints. Typing is a joy. The keys are silent and have good feel when pressed.

About windows, mine is set to dutch. When first booted you can select language for windows and keyboard layout. French was one of the options too I believe. I recommend a fresh install, because of the bloatware. I'm going to do that too. Just make a bootable usb, download windows.iso from microsoft and use the key on the back of the laptop to activate. Just make sure you got all the drivers/software you need before you begin. It's a time saver.

To answer your other questions;
1. Wifi reception is great. Better than my linksys wrt600n usb adapter in my pc. The asus finds more networks and always has 4 or 5 bars.
2. I ordered on Monday (10pm) and I received it on Friday. That's fast in my book .
3. No it doesn't come with anyting. I ordered a sleeve and mouse seperatly (not from amazon).
4. I used standard shipping. Don't know why you want to change that?

You're jokin? right?

 

First of all, thank you Freaky for all of your answers !

Because there are a lot of thiefs in France in the regular Post
Especially in this period (near christmas) when they hire a lot of people, temporarily, and they steal packages, gifts, etc.
So I thought that with FedEx or UPS, there is a lot less risk

lol no, but it may be only in France, but I think it's also in European Competition law, so maybe in other countries.
Actually, when you sell a product (a computer), you can't force the customer to also buy another product (Windows system, or the other softwares)
Liste des bons et mauvais constructeurs d'ordinateur personnel et matériel informatique | AFUL
===> we can see that Asus payback 40€ for the Windows 7 Home Premium

But :
-we must not have activated the Windows
-we must send the Licence under the computer + the invoice before 15 days
OR
-we send the whole computer and let them format it for us

And they give us back 40€ Better than nothing !

 

Ah, I thought you meant Asus gives a cash back or something like that without any strings attached. Thing is I use windows. I've never used linux and also linux seems to have some issues when it comes to power saving mode. People on dutch forums talked about a reduced battery life that could be as big as 2 or 3 hours. So I'll stick with windows. 499,- is still a great price

 

I managed to successfully clone the original hidden partition and the the root c: partition from the original 500GB HDD to a 64GB Kingston SSDV NOW. If you're interested here are the steps I followed.

1. Boot from the original drive.
2. Download the MiniTool partition wizard from this link and install it
3. Run the MiniTool partition wizard and reduce the size of the c: to less than 35GB on the original drive
(there is a 14 GB hidden partition on the original drive. so the total space occupied on your new drive will be 14GB+35GB ~ 49 GB. So you'll still have about 10 gb free on your SSD after everthing is done.)
4. Connect your new SSD via usb
5. Run the minitool partition wizard
6. Choose the Copy Partition Wizard
7. Choose the hidden 14 gb partition on the original drive in the "Copy Partition" window and click on Next
8. Choose the Unallocated space on the new SSD in the "Where to create a copy" window and click on Next
9. Finish it
10. Repeat same copy process for the c drive
You should now have two paritions on the new SSD. While you still have the new SSD connected via USB, open the MiniTool Partition wizard and
11. right click on the newly cloned 14gb drive on the ssd
12. mark it as hidden
13. Similarly Mark the newly created OS partition on the SSN as active.
14. Download and Create a legal version of the Windows 7 dvd using the steps listed in this post (Thanks v3loc1ty2.0)
http://forum.notebookreview.com/win...-7-download-links-just-like-vista-before.html
15. Shut down your system
16. Remove the battery
17. Remove the original HDD from your laptop
18. Remove the SSD from it's USB enclosure and insert it into the laptop (remember to mount it to the HDD cage that the original HDD was attached to before inserting it in the bay)
19. make sure all the fasteners are in place
20. plug your battery in place and then plug in the wall adaptor
21. connect your usb dvd drive and boot with the newly created windows 7 dvd.
22. When prompted to install Windows 7, look for a link on the lower left hand corner of the window for Repairing an existing Windows setup
23. Go to the command prompt and in the command window
24. type BOOTREC /FIXMBR and press enter
25. type BOOTREC /FIXBOOT and press enter
26. shutdown your system
27. disconnect your usb drive and start your system.
28. This should successfully boot to Window 7 login prompt.

Hope this helps.

 

For the ones looking for a windows 7 iso; All Windows 7 editions ENGLISH

Simple ISO's that you can use to create a bootable USB or bootable DVD.

 

arvindar_n: Thank you so much for putting together a detailed procedure guide, this should ultimately end up in the ul30 wiki.

BTW, what kind of cable/adapter did you use to connect the SSD via USB? Assuming any standard OS supported USB->SATA adapter will do, just curious as to what you used that definitely did work.

Thanks again!

 

The version of the SSDv NOW that I purchased came with a usb enclosure. Unlike some other usb enclosures this one was didn't have any screws. Completely tool-less insertion and extraction of the drive.

 

I just checked the battery with BateryBar (3.4.3) and it says batterywear is 4.2% :s

This is after one discharge in the first week... Is this reliable or what? Is this kind of wear normal, right out of the factory?

 

5.8% after one week with two discharges and i have it for 7 days now :-(

 

i've been steady at 7.8% wear for about 4 months now. I was surprised and disappointed at first, but just got over it

 

For what it is worth, I have had mine for about a week, and batterybar reports 0% wear of 60200 mWh.

 

Hmm... So 4.2% is normal or what? Did davmat get lucky or are we being screwed ?

 

Yes, we need some baseline data to make anything of this. I imagine some wear is normal, and there is nothing to worry about, 7% or not.

I've certainly done nothing to deserve a better battery!

I should add that the battery has maybe 5 hours of usage, other than that it has been plugged in. I am now using only the battery, until it runs down.

 

I think my clean install using digital river/usb thumb drive and Asus driver disk was about 15 gig for reference.

You copied the hidden restore partition..it works?

BTW, you can use W7 to expand/collapse/delete partitions, all built in.

Still waiting on the prices for SSD to get real

 

hey guys i have a problem after i switched to battery saving mode last night and switched from the nvidia graphics card to the intel i can now no more switch with the button to the nvidia back, i switched to performance mode, started several times the windows and also reinstalled all the atk tools/vga patch/nvidia driver and so on but still the button to switch the graphics isn´t working anymore :-( any suggestions? because i really don´t want to reinstall the whole win7 again

edit: somehow in the energy settings of win7 was gpu sli --> boost performance deactivated and switched to save power instead, really weird as i haven´t changed anything there by myself, after switching from save power to boost performance the nvidia card was back and active again wooohooo


@davmat why only 60200 mWh? mine has 84000 and with a wear level of 4.8% now it has 79860

 

I'm not sure how I would go about testing the hidden restore partition. I just did it so that the first two partitions were the same in both drives (not really sure if that helps or hurts the cloning process).

I tried to use the built in feature of W7 to reduce the C: partition size, it would not let me reduce it below 50gb. (for some stupid reason the minimum size displayed was 50gb and the counter wouldn't go below it) that's why I ended up using MiniTool Partition Wizard.

 

Not sure what is normal. I have the ul30vt-x1 with the 4400mwh battery. What model do you have, and what battery? I read once that occasionally a ul30vt is shipped with the higher capacity battery, I think it is 5600mwh. You can look at the battery, the capacity is printed on it.

 

Pardon me if this has been asked and answered before, but I need to purchase a new LCD screen and outer aluminium case/lid (the part that the screen attaches to) for my UL30VT-A1. I tried the ASUS eStore but they're out of both and ASUS technical support cannot give me an answer, does anyone here happen to know where I can purchase them? Thank you in advance.

 

The screen may be available on web from third party. The lid has to come from Asus, can you order and wait? How can they repair with no parts?

Did you apply for the 1 year accidental?

Are you able to use with external monitor while waiting for parts? Good luck!

Tons of new "wear level" posts All will wear and is normal so if you think yours is way out of wack then call Asus.

Mine is hanging at 4% around 80000 mWh, for what it's worth, after 5 months.

It means little as none of my laptops batteries are worth doodle, after two years, out of 5 prior laptops. I don't think this one will make a liar out of me?

If you don't get but 8 hours out of your battery, be happy, to get more you have to disable half the laptop.

Mine does fine for a 6 hour flight for movies and excel but compared to 90 minutes on the Gateway, I'm ecstatic. YMMV.

You might want to test it or you may be wasting expensive space?

As long as you have the driver dvd 2.0 and an OS image/disk, I don't see the point in keeping the restore partition, ymmy. I was told this puts back the shovel ware as well.

Not sure why you could not dial in less than 50gb so will check it out.

If anyone is interested, I'm running World of Xeen in DOS BOX. Dos Box is an amazing emulator for both the CPU/Video(S3) and sound drivers that run most golden oldies.

This runs very well on the SU7300..way better than my old 486 junk!!

Check out GOG Games for cheap titles you might be interested in..back to Xeen..

 

i have the asus ul30vt-qx061v and it always comes with the bigger battery i was told, so happy me

i have one further question does anyone know if there is a usb port inside of the notebook or an empty pci-express slot?

 

"The screen may be available on web from third party. The lid has to come from Asus, can you order and wait? How can they repair with no parts?

Did you apply for the 1 year accidental?

Are you able to use with external monitor while waiting for parts? Good luck!"

I did use the accidental damage warranty and they RMA'd it but they sent it back without fixing anything even though the RMA form that came back with notebook the said they did. It's impossible to just get someone to give you non-scripted answers at ASUS support about whether or not they have the parts and if they would repair it. Last time I called they offered to "try" to fix it this time if I paid for another RMA.

 

No, the ul30 is pretty much an island. If you have an N router, you may find that the fastest port available. For huge files you also have the option to pull drive and use a eSata drive dock if you have that gear. I use this method for large single folder dumps.

An express slot would have been nice, no?

Ouch! Well.. your not the first, including myself, who has had trouble with Asus. In my case it took 3 RMAs for a simple drive exchange..I now have a USED drive for a warranty exchange

All I can say is have patience, escalate your calls to a higher tier, write corporate, be nice.

Let us know how it goes...

 

Do you happen to have a number or other contact information for corporate? All I can seem to locate is a number for a California office and the usual support hotlines.

 

This is more of a comment than a question, but I've had my ul30vt for about 6 months now and I find both the touchpad and the mouse buttons to be absolutely awful. The touchpad somehow manages to be both unresponsive and overly sensitive at the same time (kinda like my girlfriend uhuhuh), and the left mouse button is starting to not work at all. The part that actually "clicks" seems to be working it's way to the right so if I press on the left part of the button it doesn't register. This is a huge problem because with the single button you have to push much harder closer to the center to get it to go down. Has anyone else noticed this issue? I almost want to sell the damn thing on CL because trying to do anything I can't do keyboard only is irritating.

 

if you install the elantech smartpad driver from the asus page the touchpad is the best on the market so far no need to use the buttons below, because one finger = left click and three fingers is right click and scrolling is working using two fingers and in the driver you can change nearly every setting also the sensitivity, your touchpad problem descritpion sounds a lot like you have no driver installed and therefore windows installed a generic windows touchpad driver

Remember Touchpad+Elantech Smartpad driver = incredible good very close to a macbook touchpad

 

I don't suppose you could provide a link to this elantech driver or some more info? What model download page is it on? Assuming that it is not on the ul30 downloads page since it is a different driver than what is supported?

 

i´m using this ElanTech Touchpad Driver v 8.0.7.0 - TechSpot Drivers even newer version of the one from the asus page

and i´m using it on my asus ul30vt-qx061v and this driver supports any elantech touchpad and in the asus ul30vt is an elantech touchpad built in

 

@dolce.vita: thanks a ton for linking to a specific driver, much appreciated. Did you uninstall the previous touchpad driver and apps before installing this?

 

you´re welcome after putting win7 new on my ul30vt i installed directly the driver version 8.0.7.0
that´s all you need for your touchpad

 

Will be clean installing Win7 when I put in an SSD in a week or three, will load the elantech driver then. Did you find a list of minimum utilities to install to gain complete functionality? I was disappointed with ASUS, the sheer number of ASUS authored craplets is a little much.

 

The only utility you really need is Power4Gear Hybrid.
Other than that, you just need to install a bunch of drivers with silly non-descriptive names.

 

you need to install all drivers, all atk-stuff and power4gear what to install and in which order you can see in this screenshot provided by hydra in this forum http://forum.notebookreview.com/attachments/asus-reviews-owners-lounges/57274d1287596888-asus-ul30vt-faq-official-owners-lounge-redux-2-install-order.jpg and i installed everything from IMSM in this screenshot until ASUS Wireless Console3 all the stuff after that, i decided is crap a normal user don´t need and don´t want to have on his notebook

 

I wonder if such a case would fit the Ul30vt

BookBook Case - BookBook Case - Twelve South

 

You weren't kidding, the new touchpad driver kicks

 

i told you so

 

I doubt it would. The case is meant for MacBook, which is not as wide as UL30Vt. One can use soft (neoprene or such) MacBook sleeve, but this one looks like it doesn't want to change it's shape.

Yeah they really do, but I lose all new functionality (compared to old drivers) after resuming from hibernation. That makes me very sad, but it looks like I'm not alone, since other users of this forum are reporting the same (forgot which topic tho, I think it was U35's).
I hope you won't encounter this kind of problems.

 

WOW! That has to be the most beautiful and original cover for a notebook. But I am a book (the paper kind, refuse to go the e-reader route yet) lover that reads on average 3-4 a month. Thanks for sharing Akyra!

Edit: just took measurements of my ul30vt, and according to the BookBook case spec page it should fit.