*Official UL30VT-X1 Owners Lounge*

Have you tried updating your wireless driver? My signal is much stronger than my HP and has never dropped connection while at school with a LOT of people online.

 

Of course I did. Made no difference. The moment I added the second antenna, 4-5 more access points showed up!

 

i, too, detest the touchpad.

 

So I got the Asus UL30VT-A1 from Infonec.

I can't switch the graphics from 4500 to the nVidia now! There's a button on the top left corner, but pressing it doesn't switch anymore. did I do to screw this up? Need to get my gaming fix on.

 

I want to order this laptop from xoticpc, but unfortunately they are back ordered. I thought about ordering from gentech as they do have it in stock, but I wanted to get the IC Diamond Thermal Compound to help keep the computer cool. My question is does anyone have any problem with heat from this laptop normally without this thermal compound? I'd rather not have to wait, but if I can't use this laptop on my lap without getting, I think I'll wait for the UL30JT even. Looking for input please.

 

Mine is about the coolest running laptop in my stable; I wouldn't worry about heat for a single second.

 

Can you switch it via software? There should be a nVidia Hybrid Graphics program in your Control Panel area; if that doesn't work either you probably have a hardware issue and should call ASUS.

 

I don't have the lappy with me right now, but if I recall correctly the temperature readings in Speccy topped out in the low 40's. So I suspect that a different thermal compound will not make much of a difference.

 

The GFX button functionality is embedded in a utility (Hybrid Power4Gear I think). First I would recommend reinstalling the drivers, and see if you can switch graphics in software mode. Then you should install the utility that controlls the button and see what happens.

 

I don't know if anyone is interested, but Amazon is now offering a free ASUS optical drive with purchase of certain ASUS laptops, the X1 and A1 included. I haven't had much use for the drive, but I wouldn't have minded getting it free!

 

Just a side note to the above, the UL30VT-X1 is back in stock at Amazon for $799, with the free drive.

As Scooter says in Borderlands, "Git you one!"

 

In case anyone's interested in battery life under different usages, I've done a few full discharges of the battery:

Scenario 1: Light web browsing, office work.
Turbo Mode: ON
Graphics: Intel
WIFI: ON
Bluetooth: ON
Brightness: 20%
Battery Life: 10 hours

Scenario 2: 720p HD video streaming over WIFI, h264 decoding and full screen effects (sharpening, contrast)
Turbo Mode: ON
Graphics: nVidia
WIFI: ON
Bluetooth: ON
Brightness: 60%
Battery Life: 4.5 hours

Scenario 3: Heavy Gaming
Turbo Mode: ON
Graphics: nVidia
WIFI: OFF
Bluetooth: ON
Brightness: 60%
Battery Life: 2.5-3.5 hours (depends on how taxing the game is)

Really impressed here, HD video streaming/decoding on my n10jc would max out at 2 hours 45 minutes.

 

Unboxed my A1 last night, right off the bat I must say the glossy plastic on the palm rests and touchpad sucks. I kept looking for a layer of plastic film to peel off, the plastic is just awful feeling and my finger does not glide on the touchpad at all. It kills me that it feels so cheap, if I keep this computer I definitely need to get a nano mouse.
My other thought is that asus must have a lot of crap on this, because it took no less than 10 minutes to boot up the first time. I'm going to wipe it and reinstall win 7 tonight.

 

I dont really mind the glossiness, and the touchpad gets a bit better with use, but yea the bloatware is pretty bad. Took me about an hour to get everything out.

 

Has anyone swapped to the Intel card in their A1. Is it even possible? Without voiding the warranty?

The Oxfordtec link wants me to pay 20 bucks for shipping a 10 buck antenna I've seen some Intel Wifi Link 1000 cards on ebay for a similar price.

 

If this had been on the table a month ago when I bought my A1 I might not have canceled the Amazon pre-order. Tax really killed the Amazon deal back then, but the optical drive would at least defray some of the cost.

 

that is why I love newegg, no tax. Atleast where I am located in nyc

 

this baterry life seems amazing even with turbo mode on. Does it get to get slow at all to load a webpage with a couple youtube vids paused and multiple tabs open? How about with turbo on and off? And how fast or slow is the computer with turbo mode off?

 

could someone tell me what the difference b/w the x1 and a1 is? I'm looking @ amazon and I can't seem to find what's different.

 

X1:
Black
4400 mAh battery
1 year warranty
Intel wireless card
No Bluetooth (i think)

A1:
Silver
5600 mAh battery
2 year warranty
Atheros wireless card
Bluetooth

 

which is better, then intel wireless card or the atheros wireless card. I heard that one was having problems.

 

My X1 has bluetooth

 

^My mistake then. Wasnt sure about bluetooth.

The only problem i have with my Atheros card is range. It works fine wherever i connect it, but i get less bars. I can no longer surf from my basement.

 

I have a question,,

how easy is it to replace harddrive in ul30VT???
as i am planning to put in my 160 gb intel x25-m in it...
do i have to take it apart like the 1201n?

 

Could not be much easier, I replaced my stock 5400 RPM with a 320GB 7200 in less than 10 minutes. Take back cover off, you'll see the disk right below, bingo.

 

Very easy. Remove 3 screws to access the drive. The HD is mounted in a tray w/ 4 screws that you have to remove to replace w/ the SSD.

Before installing W7, check that what firmware version you have on your Intel SSD and ensure that it is one that has trim support. If not, update firmware first since it will likely require a reformat of the SSD.

When doing a clean install of Windows there are two places in bios you have to change the configuration of in order to boot from USB and install W7. You will need at least a 4GB USB drive and the W7 iso file since the system restore disk that comes with the lappy will not do the trick. You can find them here.

For some reason I could never activate the clean W7 install over the internet, but the phone based solution worked just fine. See what works for you.

 

I got a chance to uninstall ZoneAlarm, and it made a world of difference. No more random restarts. Right now I'm giving COMODO Internet Security a try, I will also give MS Security Essentials as well. Thanks for all the help everyone.

How do you find the dmp log? Is there a specific folder that I find this log file?

 

Is anyone puzzled by the lack of a kensington lock port on the UL30Vt-A1 ? I use my laptop all the time in coffee shops and like to tie it to a chair so that I can leave it unattended in the bathroom.
Instead, the UL30 has a loop that you can use, according to the manual, to secure your laptop with a "2mm metal cable". What kind of cable should I use ? any thoughts ?

Thanks.

 

No slow down at all watching youtube video. I'm guessing you might get slowdown if you try to watch 2 HD youtube videos simultaneously in the same window, though hopefully Asus or nVidia will release driver support for GPU accelerated flash video on the UL30vt, which will improve HD flash video playback substantially.

There is noticeable slowdown with Turbo Mode disabled, boot times increase about 20%, general responsiveness is less snappy, HD youtube video may stutter slightly (especially if you blow it up to 1080p on an external screen). Of course, as a tradeoff, you get about 10-15% greater battery life.

I highly recommend purchasing a good SSD with this laptop for best performance. Can't say no to 20-second boot times!

I did not have to format the SSD after upgrading the firmware. I upgraded my firmware with a full windows installation with no problem.

 

Does anyone have battery bar installed on their UL30VT? If so, can you report your power consumption if your have the stock 5400rpm drive installed? I swapped mine with a 7200rpm seagate drive and want to compare the power consumption between them.

 

Deleted. Wrong thread.

 

Does anyone know if the following UL30A cover fit UL30VT-A1? Thanks
http://www.sgpstore.com/product_inf...d/973?osCsid=6ac350cb797739bd979f7482b403e1c0

 

Yep, it should fit with no problems at all.

 

Ok, simple question, since I went and formatted the HD of my A1 right off the bat. I did install the non bloatware from the Asus driver CD though. And I don't think this was covered in any manual that I remember flipping through...
How do I enable/disable turbo mode? I see an Asus Easy Overclock in the BIOS but it only goes up to 5%, is that it?

 

Yep.
10char.

 

You have to reinstall the Powergear software.

 

Sorry, he's right, overclock is different than Turbo Boost, senior moment...

 

I got my A1 a few days ago. Did a fresh install of Windows 7 Pro on it, most things work okay.

My Fn + Hotkey works good so far, the only one that doesn't seem to actually do anything is the brightness hotkey. The little animation shows on the screen that its working but the brightness doesn't actually change. If i want to change the brightness I have to go to Power4Gear to change it manually in the profile which I'm in. Has anyone encountered this problem before?
I can turn up and down the volume with the hotkey and that works fine so I know its not the hotkeys playing up.'


Oh and does anyone have an essential list of software to install?
Only ones I've really installed is Power4Gear and ControlDeck.

 

Is that the "Power4Gear hybrid" software? Because I've installed that, and I have it set to 100% max processor. Is that turbo boost?

 

Should be a button in the lower left hand corner of the Max Performance Power4Gear screen that says Turbo.

 

i've had the x1 for over a week now, and finally decided to try the turbo button in the power4gear app. For some reason though, after i restarted, everything seemed a lot more sluggish. I decided to run performance test 7 to confirm this. For some reason when turbo is on i get 1157 for cpu passmark, and 1457 with turbo off.

Is any one able to make any sense of that? Is there something else you're meant to do to get the overclock to work right?

 

looking at those numbers, it would make sense if i had gotten turbo and non turbo modes mixed up.

If that is the case, can anyone tell me the mode the laptop comes in when you first get it. Is it already overclocked?

 

I dont remember but it is overclocked when the button is RED, if it's GRAY then it's not overclocked.

 

Two ways to find the dmp file. When the system reboots from a crash usually a recovery window will open with various information....but easiest is to look here:

c:/windows/minidump folder....and find the latest file...

Good luck.

 

bah! i thought clicking the red button set it into turbo mode. Mine was red when i first got it, and throughout the entire time i've been using it. so that means it's weaker than i thought. On the upside, maybe i can get more battery life out of it now?

 

Heh, when I use my laptop, I don't even overclock it. 1.3Ghz is good enough for my every day tasks... Java programming, web, chat, and movies.

 

accident repost

 

This may be a case of something right in front of me that I'm missing, but I don't see a turbo button, or even anything that say turbo, in the power4gear sw...

 

well i guess i've been using it overclocked this whole time, and i found that everything has been very very smooth. In the back of my mind i kept thinking that it could still be boosted 33%. It definitely seems noticeably slower with turbo off. Will need further testing to determine it's adequacy.

 

No, you're probably not missing anything. Try installing the ATK Generic Function Service from the disk. I had the same thing and once I installed that and rebooted, it now shows the turbo button.