Asus UL30VT FAQ / Official Owners Lounge redux

You are running a ul30vt right? Glad it is working for you. Would you happen to have a link to 1.1.29?

 

Yes, I have a UL30VT-A1. As far as the driver for the Power 4 gear, the 1.1.29 was on my drivers restore disk. I did a clean install when I added a Scorpio black HD. I know on the ASUS site, they now have a Version V1.1.31, but the earlier one listed prior to that is 1.1.24???, I have not tried this as I had seen when I read through the Asus forum people were having issues with power4gear drivers, so I felt if it's working just fine, no real reason to update. Sorry I am no help with the download, I just did a search for it, but really no luck. Someone else may be of more help, or if I get a chance I can try to copy it off of the disk into a zipfile.

I think I managed to zip the power4gear v1.1.29. Win 7 64bit version. Giving me a little grief trying to add it, But I think its here now.

 

I'm running 1.1.29 also. I was able to use one of the 1.1.3X versions before too, before I did another clean install. In fact I never used 1.1.24 or 1.1.25.

If I'm not mistaken 1.1.29 is listed as newest P4G for UL30Vt. I wouldn't use anything newer because they eventually added support for Optimus laptops.

Switching works all the time as expected.

 

I updated P4G to 1.1.29, and the bios to 211, and GPU switching is still broken. Also, I still get a bugcheck f4 (aka blue screen) resuming from standby.

Lovely. I suspect an updated hybrid package with the latest nvidia and intel drivers would help.

I have been using and selling Asus products since the 486 and original Pentium days. Asus could always be counted on for reasonably quick driver updates. This is my first Asus laptop, and I am fairly disappointed.

 

Wow, I am so sorry to hear the issues you are having with your UL30. I think Wisse and myself must count ourselves lucky. As I noted earlier, I have had absolutely no issues with the P4Gear what so ever.

This may be a moot point, but have you tried doing a fresh install? For me, that is the only common denominator that I have done since I purchased my laptop. And I did it right after I made a restore disk when I first received it. And my new install was with Windows 7 Professional 64Bit, as I wanted the XP mode function for a few of my odd programs. And after that I used the Drivers disk that came in the box. I think I did do a few other updates, from the ASUS website, with the exception of the P4G.

I wish you the best in getting this sorted out, because this has been a great little notebook so far.

 

Yes, I put a clean install of Win7 from a downloaded ISO, not the ASUS OEM image. Did this after I installed an SSD (great perf increase!)

Also, the HDMI out no longer works. WTH? Pressing the FN+F8 key simply brings up the LCD option, nothing else. Again I say WTH?

I am going to do another clean install. I am going to make a backup of the virgin install before loading any drivers this time, and at each related driver install, see what works and doesn't, and at what point things start breaking.

This will be a great laptop if I can sort this out, if not I will probably try something other than Asus if they can't sort this out. First time I have said that in almost 16 years of using, supporting, and slinging Asus wares.

 

hi. i recently got a ul30vt, too.
is there an app or tool to control the fan? i.e. in order to disable or reduce the fanspeed.

 

Load Power4Gear, and look in the advanced settings tab - scroll down to processor powermanagement - system cooling policy

Not sure if that is what you want, but start there.

 

I dont know how I can get the Turbo-Icon in Power4Gear Hybrid

Can someone tell me how i can get that icon? I know I pressed it and I also have 1,7Ghz in CPU-Z...but I want to go back to 1,3Ghz ... but now the icon there is gone :O

 

It should be there, but in lighter color :/

You can try Turbo Widget. It should be in you Windows widget list.

 

So a few weeks ago I posted concerning random restarts on my UL30VT-X1.

Yesterday I discovered massive bad sectors on the standard seagate hdd which an unusable reallocated sector count. The drive also fails all basic integrity tests when tested with SeaTools.

I really need my laptop for the holidays, so I am considering just going out and buying a new HDD.

My question, does anyone know if the Windows 7 64-bit home Recovery Disk will still work if I switch it with a different model?

A different model HDD that is. I mean, if I go out and buy a 320GB Western Digital drive, will the recovery disk still detect my product as Asus laptop?

 

yes, it will

 

Hey guys, thought I'd post my question here since I'm specifically considering an Asus UL30VT.

Anyway, does this whole switchable graphics thing go well together with GPU programming? I will study a lot of graphics programming of different kinds next year and need a laptop for school. I'm pretty sure I'll be doing some programming in OpenCL, CUDA or GLSL so if anyone has any experience with that, comments would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
/ Victor

 

I wouldn't recommend this particular laptop for the task. You would be way better off with something that supports nVidia Optimus technology, or even something that doesn't support switching at all (I'm not very familiar with Optimus tho, so I would advise you to investigate a bit).

The problem here isn't switching, which most of the time works perfectly. Drivers switch as expected and you probably wouldn't notice any difference compared to 1 GPU system.
What I'm very concerned about is hybrid drivers updating. That's the only reason why I wouldn't recommend this machine at all, because you'll be constantly wanting cutting edge drivers with support for latest technologies. This laptop uses hybrid drivers, which is Asus's mash up of Intel's and nVidia's drivers. Official hybrid drivers are seriously outdated (15 months!) and the only way to update them is to build your own package, which is rather tricky and unconventional. Even so it didn't come to my attention that anyone built hybrid drivers using latest nVidia package, so even manual builds, made by some clever guys on this forums, aren't that new. I use one of those builds and it's more than 6 months old.

Optimus is official nVidia's switching solution, so it should be updated all the time alongside with other mobile drivers. But as I said, you should do a little more research before deciding.

I hope that helps

 

Thanks a lot! Good things to think about. If anyone else has some comments on this, I'd be glad to hear them!

EDIT: Saw that the Asus U35JC actually uses Optimus, do you think that would be a better choice for me?

 

Well, CUDA is proprietary so that would limit you to just nVidia GPU's and the company's strong arm tactics.

Spend all your time with open GL

 

There is ASUS UL30VT-2B version for sale here, anyone know difference with 2 mentioned above?

 

It appears to be the X-1 localized with the cyrillic keyboard. You will have to dig on the Asus Russian site to find out the exact specs.

I could not get Goggle to access this page, sorry.

 

Thanks!
But Asus Russian site is very weak, they only have general discription for all VT models
Are you sure it's X1 localised version and not A1?
X1 was old initial model, so there is no point in getting 2B version? Also, do you think i'm ok to buy a model this old? I was all set to get Toshiba R700, but it appears that this Asus is less noisy and has much better battery life which is big plus to me...

I called one online retailer, guy doesn't know what X1 A1 or 2B is.
They have two UL30 VT versions, one is black with 4 gigs of RAM and 500 gb hdd, and other one is silver with 3 gigs RAM and 320 gb storage, - this one (with 3 gb ram) is newer (i asked him that i want newer one). Do you know if it's true?

 

Nautis1100 Hybrid and Optimus Drivers - LaptopVideo2Go Forums

We arent able to update Intel beyond version 2020, but for Nvidia you can install every new driver. As Nautis updates his drivers pretty frequently there is no problem with new drivers or new physx or new cuda.
Furthermore its pretty easy to switch nvidia or intel graphic by just enabling/disabling the nvidia card with devcon.exe. So event-based or profile-based or program-based is also possible with our card. Furthermore you always read articles about Optimus failures...it still doesnt seem to work well and selects the wrong card for the desired job (videoediting, 3d games, youtube hd, etc).
For this price the UL30VT is still some insider tip to get most things done.

 

I see, that's some very good info thx! I'll check out what's going on there.

What's your opinion about updating drivers? Is it worth going through all the fuss? I'm not playing any games atm and almost always running Intel, so I'm mostly interested in performance gain inside GPU accelerated apps (video decoding, flash, PS...).

 

The benchmarks between the original asus drivers and the newest nvidia ones are nearly the same...original ones are even slightly better (regarding fps).
For decoding its up to you what you desire. The MPC-Codecs can use Intel and Nvidia DXVA (Hardware decoding), but i.e. PowerDVD can use DXVA and CUDA and CoreAVC can use CUDA. As MPC (Media Player Classic and its Decoders) are the mainstream solution, you can use Intel or Nvidia they are able to deliver good results. Only if you want to watch live h264 tv, nvidia would be the better option. Since 10.1 beta 1 also Adobe Flash is good for Intel HD and Nvidia, so its still up to you there

I use the Intel one 99% as its enough for browsing and watching youtube 720p.

BTW: I found out why the Turbo-Button was missing in my program
If you kill ATKGFNEX-Service (c:\program files\atkgfnex\gfnexsrv.exe) the button disappears

 

Having P4G 1.24 version and everything working quite fine with it. But when I use normal account, fn+space doesn´t work, because it seems to need higher level authorisation? Some way to grant all acces to that program in every account?

 

The base model should be same SU7300, 4G ram with 64bit OS, 500G-5400rpm drive, dual GPU.

Why 3G ram unless a 32bit OS substituted? The main differences used to be the battery and make of wi/fi card. I heard reports of different drives on the Euro market.

The comment of the localized version was just a logical guess, I don't think the Russian users would be happy with a non local keyboard layout?

This laptop is at end of life so we would be at the mercy of what is left in stock at our local distributors.

I would try to get, in B&W, the exact specs offered and compare to the X-1/A-1. Sorry I can't give you the 2B info..anyone else?

http://sv-shop.ru/140/

 

Hey Hydra:

A quick question for you, I just bought the Momentus XT for my UL30VT. My question is probably stupid, but I have never cloned one disk to another, I was wondering what program you would recommend. I only had the one license when I upgraded to W7Pro, so I just wanted to do a straight across copy, as I don't want to have to install everything.

Thanks in advance, and sorry about the stupid question.

 

Nice of you to get something for your lappy this holiday season!

A couple of options to look into:

- Make a backup image using Win7's backup utility to a USB hard disc or DVD. Remove old HDD, install new one. Boot from Win7 repair disc and restore image to new HDD.

- Check if the Momentus XT came with a transfer utility.

Please let us know how you like your Momentus XT once it is up and running. I really like the idea of a hybrid disc if you really need the space. I am surprised it hasn't caught on more in the way of new models and manufacturer's.

Hope this helps.

 

Thanks for that, I will try that tomorrow. I actually got it on sale for 99.00 here in Canada as a boxing day sale. I have really heard a lot of good things about the drive, so I figured it's a worth while investment. I will try the windows image backup first. If no go, I googled it today, and looks like Acronis true image may be what I'm looking for.

Will update tomorrow or Tuesday!
Cheers,
C

 

if your UL30VT came with a Seagate drive like mine did, you can use the Seagate DiscWizard. Its free from the Seagate website and is basically the same as Acronis True Image.

 

Actually mine came with a Western Digital Scorpio Blue, But I purchased the Seagate Hybrid Drive, as I have heard that it is much faster, not SSD speed, but better than a traditional HD. Thanks for the tip on the DiscWizard, I will try that.

 

Both Seagate and WD use the same proprietary version of Acronis True Image downloaded from each respective site for free. I used this depending on which drive used.

I have not tried the W7 back up utility..this works with W7HP? I though only the Pro version had it but may be thinking of Vista.

Enjoy your new drive and great price!

 

Ok, here is my Update of my recent Hardware upgrade.

davmat787: Thanks for the heads up with the Windows 7 disc image. It worked flawlessly. I started the image in the afternoon/early evening. Then before I went to bed, I started the install on the new hard drive, and it was ready to run when I woke up.

I just wanted to note. My UL30VT came with a WD Scorpio Blue HD (5400) RPM. The first thing I did when I got the laptop, was installed a WD Scorpio Black (7200 rpm) that was in an external USB drive that I had. So I installed it, and loaded a copy of windows 7 pro that I bought from NCIX. I really had nothing wrong with the WD Scorpio black, I only replaced it because I read a lot of reviews stating how much quicker the Seagate Momentus XT was (i.e 4GB SSD cache), compared to a traditional HD. I would love to have a full SSD drive, but the price for one with a decent amount of space is way to much at this point. So I figured the Hybrid drive would be a happy medium.

The results so far, was a complete waste of Money. I know that this drive is supposed to learn repetitive tasks so they load faster in time etc...

Well after two days, I can say that my windows start up is almost the same as the WD Black. I timed the windows to load with the WD black three times, and the three times took between 1.034 min and 1.088 min to load.

The Momentus XT very first load was 1.20 min, 1.109 min, 1.00 min, and the last few loads 59 seconds. So all in all, I have saved about 8 seconds. I hope over the next few weeks, with the drive learning, that the times will decrease, however at this point, I am really not overly impressed. Not the end of the world, the price was right, and the WD black will go back into the old enclosure. I just should have been patient and saved for a SSD.

The Momentus came with firmware 23, and I have updated it to 24.

That's it for now, I will give a quick update in a couple of weeks to see if thing's got better.

 

Keep in mind that if you're not starting and shutting down everyday, it probably won't put those commands in the 4GB SSD space. Whatever you use most often will go in that space, even if it is simply loading Notepad (of course, Notepad wouldn't fill up the 4GB, so other things would also be in there).

 

Something is not right for sure. My boot time is around 27-30 seconds as posted way back, I saved about 25 seconds, from my old notes, with a clean install over stock.

I'm coming from a 5400 stock Seagate but no matter. Phil, in the hardware forums, did bench marks between these drives. I don't think all this was posted to mislead people...

Sorry your expectations were so high but Seagate can only do so much with 4 gigs of read only cache, you did gain 8 seconds.

If you check out the Boot timer thread, your will find the fastest ($$$$) SSD's doing 15 to 30 + seconds so a lot depends on what you have trying to start up and other hardware issues. There have even been post saying their SSD's were not all that..

Like you, I'm waiting on a $200, 500 Gig SSD..with a five year warranty

 

Glad I could help, I think the built in Win7 imaging is pretty slick. For those that have ultimate, you can backup the image to a network location as well. You can always move the image manually to a network location if you don't have ultimate.

Sorry to hear you are not getting the perf increase you had hoped for. I would only suggest you quit benching it for now, wait a couple weeks and do some full shutdowns as well as hibernates. I don't understand why seagate hasn't release an 8 or 16 GB version. I would have went with that, instead I went with an OCZ 64GB Agility 2 for just under a hundred. I don't need a ton of capacity, and I put the 500GB (seagate in mine) that came with my ul30vt in an external enclosure for media.

Do you really need 500GB? For the same price as your momentus, you could get a true SSD. Best upgrade ever in my opinion.

EDIT: PS, I live in Seattle, and I love the Vancouver area. Always have to visit Granville Island! But I have to say, you canucks sure could use some turn lanes! Getting into Vancouver on Oak can be a challenge sometimes.

 

Hey davemat787, Seattle is a great place..unless it snows I was in that mess 4 weeks ago, Thanksgiving.

Could you do me a favor and run boot timer on your OCZ? I'm guessing you should be around 20 seconds so was curious.

BTW, I fly a lot so I stuck with the single drive to avoid the tiny airline tray hassles. htwingnut found a great deal on the 120gb SSD so unless you need the single drive space, the deals are out there.

 

Sure, I can give boottimer a try in the next day or so. BTW, do you really do cold startups a lot? If so, have you tried using hibernate instead? It is so reliable now, I rarely do an actual restart. And with an SSD, resume is extremely fast, quicker than an actual bootup for sure.

 

Of course not I use standby with 3 second start ups, us non SSD guys gotta make do..we are jealous!

I still get a random boot failure with hibernate so need to get that sorted one of these days. I'm still using stock P4G, you?

Don't misunderstand me, an SSD will be on the list when i see the prices come down a bit more.

thx

 

Even for a mechanical disc, hibernate should be faster than cold boot right?

 

Yes, absolutely. I only cold boot after long travel or software updates.

I haven't tried hibernate after initial boot failures, with old drive, but never trusted hibernate except only as old school emergency shutdown. I guess i have problems leaving any state of work in hibernation in case something goes wrong during wake, just my 2 cents.

Well if SSD hibernate is fast then what are you seeing for wake from standby?

 

Hello everybody,

I searched through the forums but couldn't find my answer...

I want to get a 8 cell battery for my ul30vt (I got the 6cell one) and was wondering if I should get a generic one or not...

There are plenty of them which are less than $50 on the web when the official and genuine one is around $120.

The thing is I am scared that the generic ones ruin my laptop by overheating or being of bad quality.

Did any of you ever buy a generic battery for the asus ? And if you think it's a bad idea where is the best place to get the genuine one for cheap ?

Thanks a lot for your future help !!

 

Not sure anyone here has bought third party batteries at this time.

I have used generic batteries with my Dell and had great luck with them, even outlasting my original which only lasted 13 months!

That said, others will say theses can cause cancer and you will die.

Me, myself and I would research warranty(90 days to 1 year), full battery protection circuits and seller feedback if you decide on third party battery. These are all made in Taiwan and China, as are the originals, but final quality should be reflected in return warranty given.

You will have to do some homework but maybe someone else has bought some?

Here's one seller offering 8 and 12 cell batteries with 12 month warranty but i would email about protection circuts included;

http://www.cheap-laptop-batteries.com/laptop-battery/asus-ul30vt.htm

 

I agree, I find Vancouver to be a pain in the butt to drive in. I think the city grew quicker than expected, and there were no future plans to help with traffic, and now it's too late...

It's funny how Seattle people head up here, and Us BC people head down to Seattle...

I think my drive is gradually getting quicker. When I indicate my boot times, that is using a timer, and going from pressing on button, until the end of my desktop gadgets loading (turbo 33 icon).

Really, I should have bought a SSD, and just used an external hard drive for extra media space. Can't go back now, so I will live with this. As I said, it's not the end of the world, it is a little faster, than the previous drive. I think I just expected more. And I agree, 64 gb or even 120SSD would have been perfect in size.

Maybe this summer...

 

Same could be said about Seattle traffic: the city just grew too fast! Of course the inept Seattle City Council has a lot to do with it as well, but I will get back on topic.

I tried boottimer as requested, and it said 309 seconds. Obviously this is wrong as I was able to load Chrome, etc for many minutes before boottimer finished. Must be waiting on some service or something.

Will try manually timing it.

Wouldn't a Seagate Momentus XL Hybrid w/ say 32 GB of SSD just be sweet?

EDIT: I think with these new micro msata drives like Intel just announced, we will see more 2 drive systems with a tiny SSD for the OS and main apps, in addition to a traditional mechanical disc.

 

No worries,

Thanks for the Intel Link. I have not seen that information yet. I agree, an SSD for OS etc, and then the rest of the drive for storage would/will be great!!!

 

Remember when, over 2 months ago, I posted that my UL30VT's power adapter died, about 10 months into ownership of the laptop? Well you may not, but I do - because ASUS has yet to replace it.
I called them in October and faxed an advance RMA form. Right off the bat they can't even tell you whether it was received, which would be good to know since it has credit card and personal info on it. A month later, I called again, and by this time the RMA number had expired so they wanted me to start it over again. I didn't want to, at least until my last RMA form was accounted for. They said they'd contact me via email. A month passes with no contact. I tried calling again recently, and got the same runaround - "this RMA has expired, but we'll contact you with the status once we find out what happened".

100% tired of ASUS' bullsh*t. No power adapter put my laptop out of commission for a few weeks until I spent my own money to get a temporary adapter with plans to return it later. Well, I guess I bought a permanent replacement. Thanks for nothing, ASUS.

 

Thanks for running the timer. Yes, something must be bent but then you know your fast

32 GB hybrids have been greatly discussed so the question is why haven't WD or Seagate taken the next step? The 64/128GB SSD are getting cheaper so it may be the development cost issues and die shrink costs.

Yea, it's a shame the UL30's don't have a pcie slot or heck, a second drive bay..yea and throw in an eSata port as well

 

With SandyBridge release just around the corner, I wonder if anyone else is looking forward to what the integrated GPU performance will mean to us guys and gals who like a ultraportable ulv type notebook?

Without the need add a discrete GPU to get credible 3D performance, notebook manufacturers will be able to make more capable 12 inchers, at less cost too. I have always thought 12" is the sweetspot.

EDIT: Check these 3D benchmarks out.

 

Well lets take up a notch to where a GPU can perform both functions as well, if Intel doesn't have you killed. GPU's are becoming massively powerful but the power demands have been massive as well.

The whole VT series are people looking for more...for less?

 

By both functions are you referring to 3D and battery performance? As for battery perf, I will try and find what the difference is between regular voltage mobile and ulv mobile sandybridge procs are.

I think Intel did not get the needed battery savings from the current crop of core i3/i5/i7 ulv procs. Do we really need four 2.5GHZ cores in our laptops?

Not I says the davmat787! Give me two cores of Sandybridge clocked at the same config as our SU7300's, and it will fly. Even better, widen the gap between low speed and turbo boost clock rates.

How often do you guys really wish our "dinky" SU7300's were faster? I have not ran into that problem yet.

 

I was thinking of past Sandybridge. The question is will a ulv CPU/GPU or GPU/ALU/CPU all in one win..down the road of course. I want a Cray that is solar powered..with a 12 inch screen

Whatever is good in a year or so will be fine..Sandybridge or Glassarch, but yeah, I don't think anyone would turndown it down. At least not I! I should hope to trade in by then if work holds up.

I'm running my SU7300 at 1900 most of the time, so yes, at times I wish it were faster. This is why I blow the dust off my T9300 when I need to do some video work, but I'm very happy with the Su7300!