Asus UL30VT FAQ / Official Owners Lounge redux

My brother aquired a 2 or so year old 12" HP Elitebook 2530P. It has a Core 2 Duo ULV running at 1.86GHZ, a matte 1280x800 screen. It is silver and built like a tank. Of course it was $2500 or more brand new, and probably still sells used for more than our ul30vts are new.

It just feels like a well built machine. I guess my point is that I miss the old matte non widescreen lcd's.

Anyone know what installs turbo33? I saw it running once, but that is it and either want to turn it off or whatever.

 

If i understand ur question you can turn turbo on and off with Power4Gear, then reboot.

This was installed from your Asus utilities off the DVD.

My first laptop was a ZE4000, built like a tank like your brother's, and with matte screen. I don't think HP builds them like that anymore but I gave mine to my brother..it still works but battery long gone. ULV CPUs were not invented yet

After three tries, I feel your pain. Call Asus and insist on a X-RMA. Asus is obviously having problems due to all the negative and some positive reports.

I find it tough to keep my temper in check but it really helps when dealing with some of the call in crew. I found it better to call in the daytime to get the US group; and feel free to politely escalate it if your getting nowhere.

Nobody really gives much thought to these posts..untill they are bitten

Let us know what happens.

 

Intel's ban on SandyBridge news is lifted today. Anandtech has a great read on what this means for the mobile space, and it is great news indeed for both power consumption, integrated GPU perf, and CPU perf!

EDIT: We should see all kinds of new laptops announced this week too.

 

Hello, I'm a new poster here, I've been lurking around a few months before but not very long, considering this here UL30VT I'm typing from is my first laptop I've had! Either way, let me get to the point.

I'm really, really liking this laptop, in some ways it's been exceeding my expectations really, which were quite high to begin with. I've basically two issues, one being the clicking sound from the HDD already discussed tons here (I'm planning on switching to an SSD drive in the near future, that'll sort itself out), and then there's something that I haven't found any information on with a couple months of googling, browsing this thread and even a couple other forums. I've had this laptop for about two months now, and I've been using it for quite a bit of gaming. But since the very beginning, I've had a slight issue with 3D apps - the screen does this seemingly random freezing/jamming up for like one-two seconds at a time. Happens about once every two minutes, it's only been a minor annoyance but I'm worried nobody else has seemingly reported a similar issue. Could be I'm just very bad at searching, too, apologies if it's discussed somewhere before and I'm not seeing it.

I know it has nothing to do with temperatures (SpeedFan reports show not a single sensor over 70°C at any point)... I'm really rather clueless what could cause something of this sort. Everything runs next to flawless save for these somewhat constant hitches. Does it have to do with the processor being slower than I'm used to on my desktop computers? Could it have to do with the hard disk? When it does this, I can easily alt-tab from the 3D app no problem, it seems to only jam that one program, and the jam is quite short. But it gets in the way of my enjoyment quite a bit sometimes. Can anyone help me out and clue me in on what could be causing this? I'm not dealing with a defect, am I?

 

Do you see drive activity during the freeze up, have you tried shutting off or deleting unneeded apps that may be running in the background, is the system stock with stock drivers, have you added/deleted any Asus utilities,changed any settings in your nvidia drivers regarding 3D apps?

I'm guessing here as I have not seen this personally. I would also consider a clean install to rule out bent software and start fresh before diagnostics on the hardware. The fact you on see it in 3D apps/games opens up questions to hardware and driver settings so this is why I suggested the clean install assuming all is stock.

 

@Insured

Are you running an antivirus program? If so, which one?

 

Then I wonder if Insured is talking about the GPU switching flash when switching? I tend to miss the little things on forums..

 

Is it possible to get the Nvidia driver to work under Linux? When I install from the Fedora RPMFusion repos X-server will just stop working and I have to remove the drivers. Currently using Nuveau drivers.

 

There is no real support for software switchable NVIDIA at this point, and newer switchable optimus is not supported at all under Linux, for a number of reasons. If you can't force the GPU in the BIOS, then there's no real solution (yet).

 

A couple days ago, I spilled juice on my laptop, I immediately removed the keyboard and turned off the device. Removed the keyboard, bought some distilled water, flushed the keyboard out, let it dry for 2 days, put it back. Everything is working fine, but the keys are bit clacky and noisy. Almost like a crunching noise when i type, which is really annoying. The laptop is still under warranty and accidental damage, so I sent a message to asus technical support, do you guys think they'll take it in and replace the keyboard with no cost to me?

 

@nvikram

Unless you're towards the end of your 1 year of accidental coverage, I wouldn't spend your 1 covered incident on a keyboard. You can likely replace it at your own cost for under 50 bucks.

 

The ADW specifically covers spills, so you should be ok. Another thing to try is carbonated water. It will help loosen the dried sugars from the juice that is, I assume, the source of your problem.

Obviously disconnect it first, but it is worth a shot as a last ditch try before sending it off.

That is sound advice. If you want to go this route, you could at the same time upgrade to a backlit keyboard. I looked into it awhile ago, and I don't think it was even $50....

Will check at halftime if I can find what I am thinking of.

 

Thanks for the advice guys, I have until March 2011 for my accidental damage warranty to expire, so it's in that gray area where i could send it in, or not. But I will try the carbonated water and try flushing it out again. Anyone else have other cleaning ideas that I could try?

 

You may want to have a can of compressed air handy as well, it will help dry the club soda or sparkling water or whatever you use, and help dislodge any other crumbs or stickies.

Not that I would know from first hand experience of course, I have NEVER ate near my laptop. j/k

Not that there is anything wrong with it...

 

We use distilled water, at work, as you did. What we don't know is how long you exercised the keys to work out the goop. If the second rinse fails, read thru the back-lit keyboard mod on the main page. +1 for the "giving it time to dry" part!!!

I got my back-lit keyboard here; $23+10 shipping and feels way beter than stock..when lit it's hard to step on in a dark room but still not water proof

 

How do you turn the backlighting on and off? Thank you for the link too.

 

I don't They are only off when laptop is off. There is another mod to use a touch sensitive pad with a capacitive switch.

The switch part bothers some but with the average burn of 50,000 hours, I'll pass on the switch as less to go wrong. ymmv.

 

Yeah, I'll try rinsing it again. Last time, I dunked it in distilled water, pushed each key several times. Drained the water, then re-flushed they keyboard. Do you suggest that i keep it in the water longer, maybe for a couple hours?

 

In case you were wondering... I just got a response from asus....

Re-flash BIOS? I feel like they didn't even read my message. I guess I should go straight to calling them from now on...

 

Itaru. I can't believe this & amazing. And I still do this process. Maybe I will finish it, I want forwarding this article to another UL30VT Forum?

 

Does anyone know if there are any newer Elan touch pad drivers than V8.0.7.0? I want to get rid of hibernation bug -.-

 

Further, what they directed you to do in the email DOES NOT flash you BIOS, it merely returns it to the default settings it shipped with.

 

Asus is not known for having the greatest support, just the greatest warranty. They give you a great warranty, but you can't use it.

I would try contacting them again and see if they give you a better response.

 

Ok, I need your help guys!

Call me lazy but I don't have the time to reed 150+ pages


My UL30VT is just great. Love the little . For those people wondering about the battery ware and tear; Mine lost 6.5 % in the first month (which was shocking! I posted this earlier.) but after that quick loss it stabilized. Today it's still the same, with regular use since I bought it.

NOW for the question(s). I want to re-install windows. Too many processes going on @ once, so I thought a clean start would be best.

1. Which drivers do I need ? Is there a list with all drivers (which work best)? Perhaps someone posted this earlier, just a link to the post is enough. You guys know this thread better than me

I have an Asus DVD with drivers (2.0 ?) that came with the laptop. Already made an ISO of it, so I can use a bootable usb to install everything. Are there any other drivers I need?

2. I just bought a Vertex 2 120GB What if (cause I'm not sure whether to put it in my pc or in my laptop ) I put it in the UL30VT.... Are there any tweaks etc. I need to perform for it to work correctly?? Could you make a list?


Thanks in advance!

 

Interesting! I missed the posts on the touch driver being the cause, most seem to suspect the PG4 drivers?

I'm still all stock, last week I tried to get hibernate to fail and it would not after 4 tries. The only thing changed, after initial failures, was the drive but again proves nothing.

I'm still using sleep as the laptops restarts so fast during resume...

 

No no, I'm not talking about that at all. Hibernation on my laptop is just fine.

New touch pad drivers added stuff like pinch zoom and 3 finger swipes. It all works perfectly on fresh boot, until I go into hibernation, that is. Waking back up, removes all new features and I'm only left with old ones. That's what I was regarding as hibernation bug.

Some users don't report that, some found workaround, but I'm just waiting for driver update. It's very hard to find them tho, unless you know exact version number.

I would still like to get some info about potential new versions.

 

I'm Glad that you broached the subject for the touch drivers. I was doing a search the other day myself. It's not the end of the world, but it irritates me too when the drivers revert back to the old features when resuming from sleep/hibernate!

Hopefully somone has some info!!

 

I recommend doing a clean install without using the Asus disc first. I believe that if you use the Asus disc, you will just get the same bloatware back on. I'm not entirely sure, though, so you may want to wait for someone else to respond about that.

1. The drivers you need are listed in the first post on the first page of this thread. It also explains the best way to do a clean install on this machine.

2. I'm not familiar with SSDs yet, so I can't help you there.

 

@Hydra: I was having hibernation problems, possibly relating to P4G. It has been hibernating fine recently. Bugs that don't repro consistently are the worst.

 

Thx.

I've downloaded the ATK drivers and new bios. I was just wondering about all the other drivers found on the asus support site LINK. Which other drivers do I need?? Wifi/audio etc. etc.

About the Power4Gear; In the first post you get warned about newer versions. Does this apply for the newest V1.1.31 Power4Gear?
Should I just go with the V1.1.24 or.... ??

 

I went with P4G 1.1.25 from the UL80VT support page, but I'm not sure about the newest 1.1.31. I know that 1.1.29 did not work correctly for me (it came pre-installed on mine).

The other drivers you need are: Realtek Audio Driver, TouchPad, Bluetooth, and Intel or Atheros network driver. I'll quote it from the first post:

That is in addition to ATK, nVidia graphics driver, and P4G.

 

OK Thanks for your answer ! I think I'll stick with genuine battery but I'll wait to buy it until mine gets really weak.

Actually I just bought a SSD (OCZ Vertex 2) for christmas. I installed it and everything is fine except that I always got an error when my laptop go to sleep. Hibernation and shut down is fine though.

Does anybody got an OCZ ssd and have the same kind of problem ?

I'm looking for ways to optimize the ssd but I'm new with that and it seems complex .

Personally I have never been able to install P4G 1.31, I always got an empty command window which open at the end and freeze the installation. You should probably stay on 1.24 or 1.25

 

My buddy was offering an OCZ Vertex 2 120 gb for half price to me. I wasn't sure if the SATA II was compatible with the mobo in the UL30VT though. So good to know it is. I will buy the OCZ SSD from him and install it, then let you know if I get that error. I don't know about the Windows optimization process but will let you know if I get it figured it out.

 

When using the DVD.v2 you simply check or uncheck what gets installed using the built in installer..really easy.

Search back and you guys will see what is installed, during a clean install, when I posted. I also gave a list of what was installed in order if the DVD installer is used.

I have a dedicated 4G thumb drive lock and loaded if needed again for clean install.

I'm still using all stock drivers as the modded video or the different versions of PG4 have not made it worthwhile to install, of course, ymmv.

@Wisse, OK thanks for clearing that up.

@davmat787 I hear you. I for one do not have that much time but I get lucky here and there.

@Asus Where are our new drivers? I think the answer is just buy a new model notebook?

 

Can anyone tell me how to install my own windows 7 disk on this thing? It will only boot the external optical drive properly with the original Windows 7 Recovery disk. If I put my copy in it wont boot it. (It boots fine in other PCs)

 

I have found that this laptop's BIOS isn't lenient in booting from a DVD drive. The combination of your external drive and your Windows 7 disc might just be too slow, so the BIOS thinks there is nothing to boot from. When you turn on the laptop, go into the boot options screen (not the BIOS) and choose the external DVD drive. It will be more lenient this way than if you simply have the external DVD drive as boot priority over the HDD.

 

Which program did you use to check your battery life?
cheers

 

He may be to lazy to answer but a lot of us use HWMonitor which reports your system temps and battery life. There are a couple of others for the battery alone.

Don't sweat your battery life unless you are within 30% in 10 months, in which case I would be surprised if Asus would help you unless totally dead.

My Gateway is now at 20% in two years, the 30vt is now @6% after several months. LiIo do a slow death used or not.

 

I agree with Hydra! I also use hardware monitor. Another battery application is BatteryBar.

 

Yeah the battery life seems to be surprisingly good even after 10 month of use ! I only lost 8 to 10% percent (figures seems to vary sometimes). I use battery bar which is an awesome software. I think it was the first software I have actually ever bought .


@choucla78 keep me informed when you install it ! I tried to install P4G to resolve this sleep issues but nothing worked. I got to disable the sleep for now

 

I use batterybar. According to that my battery already had some wear when I bought it. It went to 6,5% wear in just a few days, but then it stayed the same. Great little program.

Thanks for that. I don't know why I missed that bit .
I'm going to use the newest drivers. We'll wait and see if they work. Main issue I have right now is the very slow HD. My god that thing sucks.

I beg your pardon.....

 

I have reinstalled Windows what feels like millions of times. You'll have to do some research on these steps but you'll find the information easily. Here is the outline.

1 - Download an unmolested, generic, clean copy of Windows 7 Ultimate from the web. Spend time to find a good copy. I would suggest the 64-bit version, but while you're at it you should find good copies of both the 64-bit and 32-bit version to have on hand.

2 - Modify the ISO file with 7zip to allow you to choose any version for install. You now have an awesome ISO file you can use for any windows 7 install!

3 - Download the MS USB DVD Download Tool and install it

4 - Run the USB DVD Download Tool and allow it to prepare your 4+gb USB drive from the ISO you just modified

5 - If you only have this one computer then ensure you download and copy the wifi drivers from the asus site to the USB stick so that you won't be brick walled w/o a connection after installation. I think wifi works without additional drivers after the install, though.

6 - Plug your USB drive in, reboot your computer and keep tapping f12 (I think thats the key to press) until the boot manager comes up allowing you to select the USB drive as the boot drive.

7 - Install Windows 7 (leave your product key blank). May as well delete all the partitions on the drive and start fresh.

8 - Search online for the Asus Win7 certificate file. Its very small. Also find the Asus Win7 OEM product key for your version (Home Premium). Both of these are necessary to legitimately activate your copy of Windows in an identical fashion to how the OEM's activate them.

9 - Run cmd.exe as administrator and register the certificate and OEM product key through this windows. Be patient with the product key response.

You're activated and have a spankin' clean copy of Windows!

Its only a bit daunting the first time.

 

Hi guys,

I have (once again) some questions for you.

So I bought this OCZ Vertex 2, the speed announced were around 260-285 MB/S. But When I launch CrystalDiskMark this one say the SSD go barely over 200 mb/s for read and 80 mb/s for write.

1. So is CrystalDiskMark wrong or do my SSD lack of performance.

I also found it weird that I need 40 seconds to boot the laptop (from totally shut computer down to functional desktop)... I thought I would get 15-20 seconds, I don't know maybe it's because of all the softwares I got on startup (Rainmeter, Nod32, Switcher, 3RVX and Desktop Coral).

2. The Asus also got sleep issues since the Vertex II is installed. I'm not sure it's because of the SSD but now everytime the laptop try to wake up from sleep it crashes miserably with a blue screen and reboot. P4G and the drivers seems to be updated (I use the recovery disc for a clean install). Hibernating works fine though so for the moment I disabled Sleep.

3. Finally I found that the fan happen to be quite noisy for no reason sometimes. I checked the temperatures with Speed Fan and he told me I was around 46-51c for the cpu and 51-55c for the mainboard (0 for the SSD of course). Are these regular temperatures or do I have a problem there too ?
I'm planning to clean my laptops fan from dust soon.


Thanks to the Vertex 2 owners to tell me if they got similar issues and thank you to anybody who can help me

Here is the screenshot for crystal disk mark


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

 

OK, here is something to compare. I used the CrystalDisk Mark in a desktop that was handy. The desktop score is on the far right of the screen. The hard drive in this is a WD Black Cavair 640GB. On the far left is my score in my Asus UL30VT with a Momentus XT 500 GB Hardrive.

Just for comparison!

 

Will do, but it will be a few days. I am awaiting the external HD enclosure I ordered from Newegg to install the old HD into. I can hardly wait to install this SSD and try and get the best boot possible.

Are you dual booting into the Linux OS that ASUS bundled with the notebook? I thinking creating a dual boot of Win 7 and Chrome OS. I have found some Chrome OS builds on bitorrent.

 

Have you visited OCZ's SSD forum? I have been reading that in prep for my install.

 

@CC13 Thank you for that !

@Choucla : No I never had a linux version with my UL30VT from Asus ! Just got Windows 7. What should I read on OCZ Forums ? I've been there but couldn't find anything interesting ...

About Chrome OS, I'm not sure it's that interesting . From what I've seen It's just Chrome browser modified. Of course there is an advantage with the instant boot and use.

 

Me sorry...me lazy too

@CC13

Yea, mine looks like a dog too but boot up and apps normally fast! I'm think the bench is just straight drive, no cache hitting the mark? The 250G XT is reported faster..

The bench was performed on a cloned drive @70% full., 1st run.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0 x64 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : Crystal Dew World
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 94.339 MB/s
Sequential Write : 89.775 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 28.394 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 35.042 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 0.298 MB/s [ 72.7 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 0.724 MB/s [ 176.9 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 0.733 MB/s [ 178.8 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 0.676 MB/s [ 165.0 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [C: 67.5% (314.2/465.7 GB)] (x1)
Date : 2010/06/08 10:36:05
OS : Windows 7 Home Premium Edition [6.1 Build 7600] (x64)


@Jon-Jon
Not sure what your start-up config is which could choke your star up time? Seems that I read others with possible boot on sleep errors. Try searching the SSD thread or google search these forums.

I give you $100 for that piece of junk

 

Agreed, Chrome is not all that interesting. However, I would love to be able to dual boot into just a web browser if I need to look something up quick. The linux OS bundled on my UL30VT has Skype, a music player, photo viewer and browser on it. I just need a browser because my music and photos are on ASUS web storage if I need to get to them.

Question for you. Did you have a Windows 7 install disk to do a clean install or did you use the disk that came with your notebook? I would like to do a clean install of Windows 7 on the SSD without all that ASUS bloatware that took me 4 hours to uninstall when I got the computer. The problem is that I need to obtain a clean Windows 7 iso....perhaps on bittorrent.

 

Hydra:

I really feel it took a couple of weeks for the Momentus XT to get settled in, and learn my routines, as others have posted. I find my boot times are faster than my previous non Hybrid Drive.

I think these bench marking applications really don't serve the hybrid drive well, and don't give a correct or accurate number.

but that is just my 2 cents.........