*Official UL30VT-X1 Owners Lounge*

I think gentech and other places are out of stock as the newer version will be out very soon.

 

After installing the latest version, I set the GPU settings in the Advanced settings of P4GH so that only High Performance mode uses Nvidia GPU and the other power modes use integrated graphics. After hibernation or sleep, the GPU settings are still exactly as I set them. However, after a restart or logoff/login, the GPU settings for all the power modes are reset to the last setting I was using when I did a shutdown or logoff. So, they're all set to either Nvidia GPU or integrated graphics, and switching power modes using P4GH no longer switches the graphics since they're all set to the same settings. I didn't use the boost button to cycle through the power modes though, I just changed power modes directly from P4GH. By going to Advanced settings and checking the GPU settings for all the power modes, I confirmed that all the GPU settings are all the same for all the power modes both for On battery and Plugged in. Setting the GPU settings again manually will fix it until the next restart/logoff. Needless to say, it's very annoying to have to set the GPU settings manually after every restart/logoff so I went back to v1.1.25 where this problem doesn't occur.

Yes, it's easy to choose which graphics card you would like to use just by changing power modes, and 4 power modes are provided. It's also easy to change power modes just by pressing a single button, pressing Fn+Space, or using the Power4Gear Hybrid utility provided. You can also fully configure which power modes use which graphics card, including when running on battery or plugged in. The notebook can still handle 1080p even with integrated graphics, so the Nvidia GPU is really needed only when playing modern games.

 

Quick note. Upon removing hard drive and examining wireless chipset, the atheros card does in fact only have 1 antenna. Of greater interest is that asus' claim that the card "is optimized" for 1 antenna use appears to be true... As there is only one antenna port present on the card. Consequently I have not had any issues with wireless reception.

 

I think there was someone else on here who has attached a second antenna to the Atheros card.
And the problem with 1 antenna isnt reception, its range. I havent had any dropped connections or speed issues but I cant use my A1 in my basement whereas my M1330 w/ intel card gets three bars. Similarly my desk in my room gets 2 bars where the intel got 5.

 

If you can dig the black model, UL30Vt-X1 Amazon.com still has stock @$799 with no tax for most people, so there's an alternative that is viable. I think that Amazon.com will be the last place to *have* stock of the series, as the day approaches when the new models are being released for sale.

When Amazon.com runs out, you can be *certain* that the new model will be available imminently, whenever that happens to be.

They also have a fantastic Return Policy, which I have used to check out virtually every small notebook/netbook that exists during the past 5 months or so. That would be 30-days to return virtually anything that they sell, as long as it is in "Like New Condition", with all the warranty books, stickers, the whole retail package still intact and the machine could potentially be sold again...I have gone as far as 27 days on that policy and returned a computer, ostensibly that had a defective BlueTooth module (at least that was my feeling about it anyway ), and by George they gave me all my $$ back including the Express Shipping Fee ($3.99 when you have Amazon Prime Membership like I do).

I really do prefer buying my computers there, as long as it isn't an SRO or CTO/BTO order (customized in any way...they don't do that sort of thing) because of the liberal return policy, and highly recommend Amazon.com to people here at notebookreview.com. They don't screw around with your order either, even when they don't have something in stock, ie they will tell you if queried about an order that they will be getting stock quickly, or will be honest and frank with you and tell you that you should order something else...if it seems like they are not going to get stock soon.

For instance on the Hitachi 7200RPM 500GB 16MB Cache Retail boxed 2.5" HD that I got for the UL30Vt-X1, I ordered it last weekend when they were out of stock...and when I queried my account Representative about the order on Monday morning she told me to "sit tight, stock is arriving today and your order will ship this evening!" So I did just that, and sure enough my order shipped Monday late, and I got it on Tuesday morning via UPS Red Next Day Air, a typical out-of-stock order that was fulfilled quickly, no hassle, no headache!

If there's anything to be said about Amazon.com it's this: they may be the biggest worldwide retailer/etailer, but they do offer a nice bit of personal service, once you learn the ropes about ordering there, and you can be assured when you order that your order will be fulfilled quickly, shipped and packed well, with xlnt "customer-comes-first" service.

There are exceptions to this, of course, as no etailer/retailer is perfect by any means, but my general outlook when ordering from Amazon.com is always positive, and I generally feel I am going to get xlnt service, fair or the best available price, even on hard to get items, and I don't fret or worry about my orders there at all.

 

Really? I thought the ASUS guy from Amazon said that these issues affect only very few units!..

How hard can be changing the wifi? I mean.. switching the card is a matter of 4 screws and pulling.. But what about the other antenna you need to run through the display?

Uh.. I don't know guys.. This is getting more and more complicated. I hate the new JT thing bc silver version won't be here till like April or something ..

 

"I would strongly recommend using Speccy. It allows for multiple monitoring features in one package and it does not have any of the multiplier issues reported earlier."--KungFusion wrote.

I am familiar with the nice people at Piriform because of their Defraggler utility, which works well if you want a 3rd party disk defragmenter. But I already have installed the most thorough and comprehensive computer analysis tool there is, Everest Ultimate's latest version, *not the free version*-- I subscribe to the utility and am updated automatically when it changes.

Thank you for the recommendation though, I am glad that you like it and will keep that in mind for down the road. I may try it out on my big PC desktop, an OEM build Core i7 920-series machine that runs 4210Mhz on AIR only 24/7, @ 100% load doing Folding@home. It might be a good utility to use there!

 

If you do as I did, you can basically install the whole shooting match worth of utilities. I am even *using* the Smart LogOn Tool, ie facial recognition, which works 90% of the time, surprisingly. Especially with the ATK utilities, you've gotta install the whole bunch of them to get things working nominally...


Good Luck on your Clean Install! Mine works a treat, you're doing the right thing, yes you are!

 

Well that must be quite a feat... my atheros card has one native antenna port visible. I did order an intel wifi 1000 and extra antenna if I do have range issues. Though running the second antenna looks like it will prove to be tricky

Here are some brief questions:

1. Besides the ATK[suite], Control Deck, P4G Hybrid... what are the other "essential apps" (fancy start, fast boot (which can be handled via msconfig) are not considered essential if you get my drift?

2. What is the latest Nvidia driver acceptable for our Vt's.... 8688 comes on the install DVD ... but the 8.16.x.xxxx series seem to be updated more frequently. Do they apply to our notebooks?

Thanks guys.

 

Just wondering if someone could post a succesful install order drivers/apps after a clean install of Windows 7.

It seems like the only thing driver missing from a clean install are the nvidia graphic drivers. I was thinking of installing the latest from laptopvideo2go-is that advisable or should I be using the drivers from asus?

I tried to do a rather disorderly install of utilities and it just wasn't working right- I was getting prompted to run power4gear as administrator, the on screen notifications weren't working and the one-button thing was taking a long time. So I thought I would try again from scratch and ask for advice here.

Also- should I be using the latest versions of everything from the asus website? It seems like some people are complaining about the power4gear version posted most recently.

Thanks!

 

Here are the drivers that I installed, in no particular order, well, I take that back...there was an *order* to my installation, and here it is/they are:

Essential Utilities and Drivers to make all Hot Keys Function 100%:

A System Restoring Utility
Alcor Card Reader
ASDM Utility
Atheros LAN Driver
ATK HotKey Utility
ATK Media Utility
ATKACPI Driver
BlueTooth Driver
Control Deck
Fancy Start
Generic Function Service Utility
IMSM (Intel Matrix Storage Driver)
Intel 1000 WiFi Driver (your Atheros driver substitute if necessary)
IP Switch
Keyboard Device Filter Utility
LifeFrame
LiveUpdate
RealTek Audio Driver
Smart Logon
System Monitor Utility
Touchpad
Virtual Camera
WebCam Driver (for your particular camera...mine was the Chicory camera)
Multi Frame Utility

INSTALL Last:
nVidia Driver (VGA)
Power4Gear Hybrid v1.25.x--from this site here:

http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?model=P4GHybrid&os=30&SLanguage=en-us

I restarted the computer after EVERY DRIVER INSTALLATION FYI, and checked its function (if there was any to check) to make sure that they worked! You cannot just install all of them 'shotgun style' then restart, at least I DO NOT RECOMMEND THAT TECHNIQUE!

At the least, install them in groups of 3-4 then restart if you don't restart every driver installation. The reason is simple: each driver installs a Registry Entry and it's got to be solid, and in there one, by one, or the install will FAIL!

Also, MOST IMPORTANT, use a Registry Cleaner/Organizer/Fixer during these installations, and at the very least use it 3-4 times during the installation.

I use Glary Registry Cleaner (*free utility*...Google it), which is highly recommended and effective at fixing Registry Entries when doing a Clean Installation like this. YOU WILL HAVE REGISTRY ERRORS by the HUNDREDS (!!) if you do not clean the Registry up at some point during your installation, and things will NOT work correctly if you don't deal with this important thing!

Now, you cannot use any other driver for the VGA/nVidia Driver but the one on the web site, as any other driver will simply NOT INSTALL! The regular nVidia drivers, up to 195.62 for Notebooks will NOT work with our hardware! Use the VGA Driver off our web site ONLY! PERIOD!

Follow those instructions and you will have success, guaranteed!

Good Luck

rexrzer727

 

I assumed that you guys are making a CD ROM/DVD ROM with ALL OF THE DRIVERS AND UTILITIES ON THIS CD/DVD ROM before you started up this enterprise, correct? Did you do that?

Are you using an external optical drive? I assume you were doing that!

I got all of the drivers on a CD ROM, after I downloaded each and every one, and UNZIPPED IT so I could have the bare file not a Zipped File, to work with BEFORE I STARTED UP MY INSTALLATION! This saves an immense amount of time and headache, and I cannot think of doing it any other way, save for using a USB Flash Drive in the same manner, and putting all the necessary drivers and utilities on the USB Flash Drive.

I hope you are doing this in an organized way, because it's the difference between night and day, success and failure, if you don't do it one of the above ways!

I am not trying to be a jerk or anything, I just work like that and can't imagine doing it any other way...just too tedious and disorganized to continually go to the web site and download and unpack/unzip each file, then install the driver, then go back and do the same thing all over again...that is just stupid! Sorry! But it is!

I hope you are using a CD ROM/DVD ROM, an external optical drive, and/or a USB Flash Drive to store all these drivers and utilities on it before you get started! God Save You If You Are NOT Doing that!

Good Luck, in any case...
rexrzer727

 

I copied following files from 195.62 driver folder into asus driver Display folder, then modified INF file to update the version, then did driver update. My test 32-bit win7 OS had installed 195.62 once (got 3dmark06 3615), then roll back (3dmark06 3426), then install again with the modified driver (3dmark06 3484). The OS had some dll files from 195.62 despite I rolled back the driver to 85.88. Those extra file would help the modified driver to run, since the old driver setup doesn't copy some new files.
Asus should have done this for us, but guess they don't have any incentive. Ideally the INF file should be merge with 195.62's INF for the extra file and registry setting, then it'll have higher chance to work on a clean OS. So after all, this maybe just an experiment.
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 611,469 nvapi.dl_
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 96,597 nvcod.dl_
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 38,866,168 NvCplSetupInt.exe
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 2,478,382 nvcuda.dl_
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 813,849 nvcuvenc.dl_
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 1,316,274 nvcuvid.dl_
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 5,488,265 nvd3dum.dl_
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 164,917 nvdecodemft.dl_
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 2,790,323 nvencodemft.dl_
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 5,330,514 nView.cab
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 5,862,133 nvlddmkm.sy_
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 6,240,275 nvoglv32.dl_
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 592,488 nvudisp.exe
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 2,416,547 nvwgf2um.dl_

 

Hey guys, I just got my UL30VT and I'm loving it except for one problem. I have set the graphics option to use the discrete card when my laptop is plugged in and the integrated card when it's on batteries. But for some reason, it doesn't switch. The Graphix Boost button doesnt do anything either.... I know that it worked when I first got it. I solved the problem once by reinstalling a bunch of different drivers, not sure which one solved the problem though... Has anyone else experienced this problem?
Thank you very much.

EDIT: So... for some reason, after restarting a bunch of times, the graphic card now switches according to my power plan. But I still can't get the Graphix Boost button to work...

 

@rexrzer ... I dont think you are being a jerk at all, just being helpful. But I promise, this aint my first rodeo. ( been system wrangling since 80286 33mhz was blazing... and windows 3.1 was the new hotness) I think a meticulous, empirical method eliminates a lot of confusion & frustration. However, I must say, that if restarts are necessary after each install (through no fault of your own), that some of those app's code are not optimized. Registry dependicies should integrate regardless of a restart... they wont be loaded (unless you force a reload of the hive) but should be entered nonetheless.
However I will head your advice.

As far as the the nvidia drivers... I am only referring to the drivers available via asus support catalog. If you go to notebooks, drivers, Win7 x64 you will see 36 entries. our drivers are 8.15.11.8688 I believe... I was wondering if the later 8.16.xx.xxxx series drivers would work with our notebooks. Any thoughts?

Thanks for all of your suggestions... they are certainly welcomed, ( and in most cases headed)

ps... i created an iso of the driver disk... copied to usb and will mount with poweriso

 

Itaru, thanks for your explanation of how you see the problem with graphics modes, various power modes, and the latest Power4Gear Hybrid version. I was only using the boost button, so I did not encounter the problem that you did. It is strange to me that the button still does the switching properly after hibernate, while power mode settings fail.

Anyway, thanks again for explaining the problem.

 

Hi,

first of all, sorry for my bad english.

I'm really interested in the Asus UL30VT. Just one point is holding me up purchasing it.

I really love Battlefield 2. Did anybody played BF2 on this "machine"?

I would really like to use the following scenario:

UL30VT connected via HDMI with a external screen (1680X1050 resolution)

graphic settings are all on high.

Can the UL30VT do this job with playable framerates? Probably I could choose a lower resolution and let my external screen do the interpolation.

Is it generaly the wrong notebook for playing Battlefield 2??? Or is it only possible to play in really low resolution (like 800X600) with all details on low?

I would be great if u guys could help me out.

Thx,

Bjoern from Germany

 

Asus UL30VT Review Followup he tests some BF2.

 

after a clean install... everything seems to funtion properly (hotkeys, graphix boost button, express gate... etc...)

only one issue... DWM.exe keeps crashing, disabling aero effects. I am running sfc now to see if something was corrupted...

Also, is P4G the only means to control cpu throttling as well as multiplier... or is there another way to force the 6.5 multi ???

Thanks all

EDIT: SFC did not find anything, but after a restart... DWM is mysteriosly working again. I am cool with that.

 

Is the UL30VT being phased out to make way for the UL30JT? There doesn't seem to be anywhere with it in stock.

 

So I got that RealTemp program after seeing a post in this thread. What kind of temps are you guys getting? I was in the middle of playing a movie over HDMI and saw my GPU @ 55*, and the two core readings at 45* and 38* (all in *C). Are those high?

 

I don't really think so. the JT uses the i7 right? It'd probably be budgeted way out of normal users' range ($1500+) just because of the new chip. ASUS would most likely still keep it in stock for a while longer until the i7 matures.

My own 2 cents!

 

More like the 30VT-A1's are selling like hotcakes. Shipment comes in; and the next day, they're all sold...

 

I don't know why people keep saying the UL30Vt-X1 is out of stock, and nobody has it... AMAZON.COM HAS IT RIGHT NOW!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002XZLURC/ref=oss_product

I can't help you if you want the silver A1 variant, but the black X1 is there right now, and they have had it for 5 weeks straight, lots of supply with Amazon.com!

If anybody knows where the A1 variant is in the USA please post, as that one I cannot find. Black, yes, silver=No!

Good luck, and hope this helps!

 

Those are very reasonable temps via RealTemp, nothing unusual at all.

My GPU idles @ 45-C, and the Cores idle @ 35-C, fyi. Under real load, like if I use OCCT stress test on the GPU and CPU simultaneously, I have seen 65-degrees C in the GPU and up to 70-degrees C in the CPU (100% Load for 25 minutes or more), and that is not unusual either, totally normal!

Hope that helps your perspective...

 

A restart usually cures most things with all these drivers interacting, honestly it does, one or the other of these techniques:

1) simple restart and reload, no special tactics...but if still problems exist go to No. 2 suggestion...

2) Restart, F2=go to BIOS choose "Load Manufacturer Defaults", then restart...this has been 100% effective for me when I have had glitches...next time I restart I simply go back into BIOS and enable "User Defaults"... and all is well with the UL30Vt-X1

Hope this helps somebody out there, and of course You Po$er...

 

I actually was able to narrow down the DWM.exe crashes as a result of a corrupted driver install (nvidia 8.15.11.8688), when running under integrated graphics. Uninstalled the driver, deleted appropriate registry keys, booted into safe mode, eliminated remaining registry dependencies and reinstalled driver. All is gravy now.

Very impressed with this machine... very much so.

 

1) Uninstall your existing P4G Driver with Windows utility and restart the computer

2) Install P4G v1.25, which you'll find here:

http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?model=P4GHybrid&os=30&SLanguage=en-us

3) Restart the computer again, when screen goes black start tapping F2 until you see BIOS screen, go to BIOS Screen No. 4, use arrow to scroll to "Load Manufacturer Defaults", Select that option, hit "Return", then F10 (Save & Exit), Return again, start up the system

4) Try GraphiX Boost Button, should work like Golden Cheese!

5) Next time you start up, shut down, whatever, go back into BIOS (F2 again) and go to Screen No. 4 once again, this time select "Load User Defaults", Exist & Save (F10, Return twice), BAM! Done deal

All should be normal and nominal after this exercise.

If your GraphiX Boost Button ever ceases to function again, and it should not, but if it does, repeat No. 3 above, ie "Load Manufacturer Defaults", that should fix the problem. If it does not, REPEAT above steps if necessary, but should *not* have to do this if you have followed those instructions 100%.

Good Luck, and hope this solves your problem...

 

Interesting...so your install was screwed up with bad Reg keys...yes, that will mess up the integrated graphics and DWM.exe...good fix!

Glad you are liking the new machine, it *IS* a fun machine, is it not!?

I am really liking mine also, especially since I installed 8GB Crucial RAM, ie tremendous speed-up overall in the system, and anything I use it for. How is your SSD doing, or did you install it yet? :yes:

I can score of a new Crucial 256GB SSD for a little less than $700, a dealer friend owes me a flavor! I may go for it, even if I end up putting it into my wife's new MacBook Pro 13.3", which also has 8GB Crucial RAM, same stuff actually that I installed in this machine.

 

@rexrzer727
So.... do i need to reset BIOS everytime i start up the computer?? What a hassle...

 

Can anyone get CUDA to work on this laptop? I bought mine 2 days ago, and I can't seem to setup it right.

 

NO! Just do it that one time, that should get everything working correctly, just like I indicated...I never said you had to reset the BIOS other than the 2 times...after that, go back into BIOS and choose "Load User Defaults", and you'll not be bothered by BIOS again...the computer will restart normally after that.

To recap: 1) Choose "Load Manufacturer Defaults" after you install the new drivers

Then: 2) Next time you start or restart after that, go into BIOS Choose "Load User Defaults"...and you are done with that stuff!

I hope that makes it clear for you, and I'm sorry if you thought otherwise!

Have fun!

 

If anyone is interested, I've made some Photoshopie CS4 11.0.1 tests.

For this test I used this benchmark http://www.retouchartists.com/ on my desktop PC:
Q6600@3,4Ghz
GF8800GTS@1905/750/1001, 512MB
4GB DDR2 Ram 4-4-4-12
2TB 7200RPM
After each test, I've restarted PS, and waited a few mintes for the system to calm down.

Desktop:
Settings | average time | variance
PS CS4, no OpenGL acc: 0:40.9 s, 0:03.3 s
PS CS4, /w OpenGL acc: 0:37.0 s, 0:08.7 s (first bench had an abnormal long time 50s)

Laptop (40% LED, 97-99% battery charge):
Settings | average time | variance | ~battery time | processor speed
ASUS UL30Vt@High Performance setting
PS CS4, no OpenGL acc: 1:09.0 s, 0:02.2 s | 3:00-3:20h | 1,066-1,73Ghz
PS CS4, /w OpenGL acc: *

ASUS UL30Vt@Entertainment setting
PS CS4, no OpenGL acc: 1:39.1 s, 0:01.1 s | 4:30-5:10h | 1,066Ghz
PS CS4, /w OpenGL acc: *

ASUS UL30Vt@High Quiet Office setting
PS CS4, no OpenGL acc: 0 s, 0s | 5:30-5:50 | 1.066Ghz **
PS CS4, /w OpenGL acc: *

ASUSUL30Vt@Battery Saving setting
Doing this test was pointless, because it's even more strict on the hardware than Quiet Office mode.

* Saddly after installing the latest drivers from ASUS, I couldn't run CUDA enabled apps (even Badaboom didn't recognize my GPU).
** here I got results all over the board, once they were similiar to @ent settings, and other time I got times of over >10 min. I've also noticed that the cores in the task manager never exceded 50% of their total load capacity. So basically, forget about using PS in this mode.

 

The hybrid graphics driver that Asus provides is out of date and doesn't have CUDA support. Unfortunately, the latest Nvidia official notebook driver which has CUDA support does not work on the ULxxVT since it breaks the switchable graphics feature. However, someone seems to have gotten it to work by merging the latest driver with the one made by Asus. It's detailed here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5913147&postcount=2263

I haven't tried it yet, but probably will give it a try tomorrow when I can download the drivers at work. If others are willing to give it a try, please post your results here.

 

I put my 256 Crucial SSD in a new ASUS U80V-B2, and it's a joy. This machine, tho spec'd slightly better than our UL30s, actually felt a bit slower (probably because of DDR2 RAM), but no more. Be sure to update to the 1916 firmware, however, which fixes (according to Crucial) the corruption bug that ate a lot of the early 256 drives, as well as having both automated TRIM and garbage collection support.

NewEgg had them for $669 yesterday.

As for 8GB of RAM while all the benches show minimal gains over 4GB I think both OSs (Snow Leopard and Win7) really love RAM and the more you can give them the better they like it.

 

The SSD is going into the second machine, it arrives tomorrow. I have to say I am really impressed with the overall build quality. For some reason, and I could be wrong...I believe the A1 saturates @ 4gb Ram. Which would be odd, given that they use the same mobo & Processor combo... and I assume the same mem controller... but I would have to do more research to be sure.

 

ya, found this to test cuda
http://www.refractivesoftware.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=445
works ok with the mixed driver, but haven't tried with the asus driver to see if it was working or not.

 

I just received my UL30VT-A1 and noticed the security lock slot is not intended for the universal type locks. The user manual mentions a 2mm cable lock, but I can't find any products fitting this description on ASUS's website or at any online retailer. Does anyone know what models of locks will fit these laptop?s

 

Does anyone know if its possible to recover the recovery partition? Is it the same contents as the recovery DVD? And what are the atributes of the recovery partition? Is it plain FAT/32, hidden/logical/primiary? Please help, I have to return the laptop to the factory settings but I can't do it because I don't have an external DVD drive.

 

Hi, I have a question for rexrzer727 or anyone else who might know the answer. I heard that amazon is offering a promotional free external dvd player if you buy the ul30vt on amazon. Problem is that I don't see the promotional offer anywhere on amazon's site. Has the offer already expired or am I missing something. The dvd player would be sweet (though I plan on buying the ul30vt regardless). Thanks in advance guys.

 

Does anyone have issues when typing with the cursor jumping to a different location or text box?

I have this issue, sometimes it will jump backwards several words and then I'll be typing in the middle of a previous word. Or sometimes it will jump back to a different text box altogether or even switch programs. It is VERY frustrating. Any help appreciated. Thanks.

 

2Albigger:

Dude, you're touching the touchpad while typing. Disable it by Fn+F7

 

The Recovery Partition is called just that by Windows Disk Management, and it is indeed FAT32, about 12GB in size, and it's *in back* of the regular partitions in terms of its logical order on the volume. If you have flattened, reformatted the HD to install the OS clean, you will have lost the FAT32 partition when you reformatted the whole HD.

If, however, you only formatted, flattened the C partition, and left D and the FAT32 partition alone, you should be able to simply press (tap and hold every 1/2-second until you see the Recovery Messages) F9 after a restart or fresh startup routine, and follow the prompts to Recover the C partition to OEM factory condition.

There is no "in-between" to this concept, it will either work or not. If you have the FAT32 partition intact, the *only way* you can get to it is hitting F9 like I advised above...it doesn't work any other way. You cannot "recover" the FAT32 partition by using the Recovery Media from Asus, it's done at the factory in a special way, and they aren't telling us *how* that works, it's their little secret!

Good Luck, and I hope I answered this correctly...and that you understand what I wrote clearly.

 

Amazon.com has taken down the promotion, apparently, but keep your eyes open if you can wait a day or two because chances are it will magically re-appear! They do that at Amazon.com...take down promotions only to put them back up without any warning to the customers.

I bought my UL30Vt-X1 from Amazon.com when the promotion was *active*, and indeed did get the free USB 2.0 Asus SDRW-O8D 1-S-U external DVD+/-RW optical drive, and it's a hum-dinger! I love it because it doesn't have a power brick, operates off of bus power in low-energy modes, so it doesn't steal a lot of battery power to use it.

It seems to work very well also, as I have used it extensively since I got it, dispensing with my normal, and usual external optical drive, which is a Pioneer DVR-110 that I've made Region Free by tweaking the firmware, and it's in a heavy-duty Bytecc aluminum case, with internal PSU, fan, and it's USB and FireWire to boot, so I can use it with my PC's and Mac's both. :yes: :yes:

The new drive fits easily in my carry case for the UL30Vt-X1 also, as it disassembles to two flat pieces, ie the case and drive in one, and the mounting device the other, and I already carry an USB twin-coupling 2.0 cable for my external HD, so that works for both items--so it's all a very complete package to take remote at work now! I like it! :wink:

Normally the Asus optical drive is discounted to about $50 shipped, so I thought it was a fantastic thing to get the free drive with the UL30Vt-X1. Amazon.com will have the promotion again, as it's good through 2/28/2010 according to the printout from the day when I bought my notebook, 2/12/2010.

Good Luck, and I hope you can score the promotion as I did...its a cool deal!

 

"I believe the A1 saturates @ 4gb Ram. Which would be odd, given that they use the same mobo & Processor combo."--Po$er wrote

Here's what Everest Ultimate says about RAM in the chipset dialog:

Field Value
North Bridge Properties
North Bridge Intel Cantiga GS45
Supported FSB Speeds FSB533, FSB667, FSB800, FSB1066
Supported Memory Types DDR2-667 SDRAM, DDR2-800 SDRAM, DDR3-667 SDRAM, DDR3-800 SDRAM, DDR3-1066 SDRAM
Maximum Memory Amount 8 GB
Revision / Stepping 07 / B3
Package Type 1363 Pin FC-BGA
Package Size 2.7 cm x 2.5 cm
Core Voltage 1.05 V
In-Order Queue Depth 12

Memory Controller
Type Dual Channel (128-bit)
Active Mode Dual Channel (128-bit)

Memory Timings
CAS Latency (CL) 8T
RAS To CAS Delay (tRCD) 8T
RAS Precharge (tRP) 8T
RAS Active Time (tRAS) 20T
Row Refresh Cycle Time (tRFC) 68T
RAS To RAS Delay (tRRD) 4T
Read To Precharge Delay (tRTP) 5T
Four Activate Window Delay (tFAW) 20T
Write CAS Latency (tWCL) 6T
Refresh Period (tREF) 7.8 us

Error Correction
ECC Not Supported
ChipKill ECC Not Supported
RAID Not Supported
ECC Scrubbing Not Supported

Memory Slots
DRAM Slot #1 4 GB (DDR3-1066 DDR3 SDRAM)
DRAM Slot #2 4 GB (DDR3-1066 DDR3 SDRAM)

Integrated Graphics Controller
Graphics Controller Type Intel GMA 4500MHD
Graphics Controller Status Enabled
Graphics Frame Buffer Size 32 MB

PCI Express Controller
PCI-E 1.0 x16 port #2 In Use @ x8 (High Definition Audio Controller [10DE-0BE3] [NoDB], NVIDIA GeForce G210M [10DE-0A74] [NoDB])

Chipset Manufacturer
Company Name Intel Corporation
Product Information http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets
Driver Download http://support.intel.com/support/chipsets
BIOS Upgrades http://www.esupport.com/biosagent/index.cfm?refererid=40
Driver Update http://driveragent.com?ref=59

I believe if you use Everest Ultimate on *your A1 machine* that it will say the same thing, without a doubt! I was skeptical about this machine supporting the 8GB of RAM it now has, but sure enough it accepted it, and BIOS says "8192MB" RAM also, and Windows reports the same, so it all works perfect with 8GB of Crucial RAM in the house.

As tallan wrote, both Win7 and Mac OS X Snow Leopard, both 64-bit OS's, are very RAM-Hungry and will use all the RAM you can throw at them. I don't care about what others say, or benchmarks say, about this 8GB of RAM in the UL30Vt-X1, I can tell you all first-hand that things go very, very speedy and quick with 8GB RAM on board vs 4GB RAM, and I can have an unlimited number of windows open without penalty, it seems. The machine is just a rocket-ship like it is, and I highly recommend it to anybody who has the Ca$H to part with to do the same as I have done, and score 8GB RAM.

You can never have too much RAM, as far as I am concerned anyway!

 

As already mentioned, there's no way for us to restore the recovery partition. It's possible to transfer the Windows 7 Recovery Media DVD to a USB flash disk and boot the notebook using the flash disk to reinstall Windows and then install all the other Asus drivers and utilities, but it won't be the same as restoring from the recovery partition.

If you want to create a bootable USB flash disk containing Windows 7, read the following guide: http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2009/12/-the-usb-flash-drive.ars

 

One response above said this offer had an ending date of 2/28, but this link says 2/18. So I think it's over, but that doesn't mean it won't come back.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000479561

 

I have confirmed that it does not detect CUDA with the Asus driver, but after following o8x8's suggestion and updating with the mixed driver, it detects CUDA and works just fine with the mixed driver. It does run slow though, but that's to be expected since the G210M is no CUDA powerhouse.

What's awesome is that it IS possible to update the Asus hybrid driver to the official Nvidia 195.62 notebook driver using the manual driver mixing approach. CUDA and DirectCompute are available now according to GPU-Z, and 3DMark06 has a slight boost although it's not as high as when installing the 195.62 directly. I guess there are some registry tweaks in the 195.62 INF that needs to be applied to achieve over 3620 in 3DMark06, but I can get 3558 after tweaking in the Nvidia control panel which is better than the 3460 score I got using the original Asus driver. Furthermore, CUDA has been confirmed to work (although slow) and I imagine hardware accelerated HD Flash video is also available now with this driver.

Many thanks to o8x8 for the suggestion. This is great news for ULxxVT owners since we are no longer entirely dependent on Asus for updated hybrid graphics drivers. Now we can make our own updated drivers.

 

mini guide for updating nvidia driver:
The driver from Asus is 8.16.11.8688 and it doesn't work with CUDA. If you want to update to current version, you can't just take the one from Nvidia since it won't work after reboot due to the hybrid setup. This guide gives you an option. I didn't go through the nvidia INF to see any other changes such as registry, so use at your own risk. In case things go wrong, you should be able to go to safe mode and roll back the driver. Now here are the steps:
1. download 195.62 win7 x64 driver for 200m
2. run it and it'll expand to a folder, then cancel when it about to start setup since it wouldn't find a match to your system anyway.
3. you should have the Asus driver in C:\eSupport\eDriver\Software\Display\NVIDIA\NB9X_NB10X_MV_HYBRID\WIN7_64_8.15.11.8688\DISPLAY\, if not you can download from Asus website. Make a copy of this folder as c:\test
4. copy the following files from nvidia folder in step 2 to c:\test (overwrite the old ones):
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 802,325 nvcuvenc64.dl_
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 1,354,150 nvcuvid.dl_
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 1,316,311 nvcuvid32.dl_
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 5,488,265 nvd3dum.dl_
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 6,554,229 nvd3dumx.dl_
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 813,967 nvcuvenc.dl_
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 165,007 nvdecodemft32.dl_
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 3,012,388 nvcuda.dl_
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 2,986,193 nvencodemft.dl_
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 2,790,322 nvencodemft32.dl_
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 6,114,280 nView.cab
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 6,693,371 nvlddmkm.sy_
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 188,065 nvdecodemft.dl_
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 2,478,381 nvcuda32.dl_
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 39,557,880 NvCplSetupInt.exe
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 6,240,276 nvoglv32.dl_
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 7,613,776 nvoglv64.dl_
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 645,736 nvudisp.exe
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 2,416,548 nvwgf2um.dl_
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 3,099,536 nvwgf2umx.dl_
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 4,765,069 nvcompiler32.dl_
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 42,302 OpenCL.dl_
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 43,274 OpenCL64.dl_
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 6,611,977 nvcompiler.dl_
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 104,394 nvcod.dl_
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 712,275 nvapi64.dl_
11/20/2009 06:34 PM 611,457 nvapi.dl_
5. you can use my attached txt file and save as c:\test\nv.inf. It was updated from Asus NVMVAM.INF to have a newer version and copy 4 new files.
6. go to device manager, display adapters, nvidia G210M, right click and update driver, then select browse my computer, let me pick, have disk, and point to c:\test\nv.inf.
It'll say give warning since as we modified the INF file, but it should load. Without reboot your driver should already updated and you can try CUDA apps to verify.

As for the Intel portion, I tried some test and the latest Intel driver didn't work after update.
Known problems:
1. external monitor couldn't get native resolution (for example, 1680x1050 not showing up, although a 1080p HDTV works fine, with sound through HDMI)

 

Excuse my stupidity, but I honestly don't see any benefit to doing this at this time...other than bragging rights about having a working 195.62 WHQL driver that basically gives the same performance that the Asus driver does...

If there was an immediate 500+points or more benefit in 3DMark06 perhaps it would be worth doing, but as of right now I'll stick with the Asus driver. Maybe 0808 can write a new driver? Homogenized?

Seems like a lot of work for nil at this point. I'm very conservative when it comes to this sort of thing, so don't mind me or my thoughts really, just thinking out loud late at night, literally!

Can doing this screw up the System in any way, ala corrupting the
Registry files etc etc?

OTOH it *is* nice that somebody is showing the possibility for doing something like this is there, but the results aren't showing at this point...maybe further on in this movie of 0808's things will be more appealing.