*Official UL30VT-X1 Owners Lounge*

Yes, I bet there is, but the method I've used before is a Registry hack that I've long since forgotten; I was remapping the hotkeys on a Gateway 7811FX and I know it's in one of the Gateway threads, it's probably very similar with an ASUS.

Maybe somebody else here knows how to do it?

 

Why isn't there a UL30VT-A1 thread?

 

Because the differences between it and the X1 are so small and few?

 

Wonder why the thread title isn't just "Official UL30VT Owners Thread"

 

wondered about that too haha...
most of the other lounges only have the series name and not the model suffix after it.

Wonder if it contributes to the A1 vs X1 questions that keep popping up on here every several days...

 

I recently bought the UL30VT-A1 and I'm having problems with the laptop unexpectedly shutting down.

I have not made any settings changes, when I close the lid it's set on hibernate. When the lid closes the laptop proceeds to turn off and enter hibernation. Opening the lid at this point shows a blank screen and I need to push the power button to resume windows.

However sometimes when I push the button the screen it shows that Windows has unexpectedly shutdown and it brings up the screen where you have to pick whether to start up in safe mode or start windows normally.

It happened again today when I close the lid and put it in my bag, went home and upon starting it up I get that menu telling me that it had unexpected shutdown. Its getting annoying because I'm loosing my work!

Anyone know why this is happening?

 

I had the same issue....it turned out to be a problem with the wireless card drivers....I updated the wireless driver software via device manager....and the unexpected shutdown issue went away. Good luck!

 

http://www.everythingitunes.com/os/windows/2008-01-04/mmkeysdll/

I couldn't get it to work, might be conflicting with the ATK stuff.

 

Do it. Installing a good SSD provides an amazing performance boost. You will not regret it.

 

I'm assuming the ATK stuff are Registry entries which enable the softkeys and currently point to Windows Media; I think the fix is to find them and switch the pointers to iTunes. If the ATK stuff are actual apps that are hard-coded to invoke Windows Media that won't work, of course, but I really doubt that's the way it is. Unfortunately I'm no programmer or Registry whiz, and that's who we need.

EDIT: According to this link ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=380681) the ATK Media program controls the softkey link to Windows Media, so try un-installing it before installing the program above. I have not tried it so YMMV.

 

I have found a review of the new Kingston's SSDNow V Series 30GB on Anandtech. You can see the SSD stripped here:
http://anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3773&p=3

Its tiny!

-Is there a way to mod the UL30vt and to squeeze the liitle ssd in so it will have a ssd for the operating system and the spinning hdd for storage?
-I'm looking for a technician's diagram of this laptop in order to see how to open it and to educate myself better on the internals. Does anyone know how to get one?
so basically I'm looking for a free space to install it and also to actually connect it to power+data connection.
any ideas?

 

This does not work in Ubuntu 10.04 AMD64 beta 1. I get "make: Nothing to be done for `default'." from make.

 

Just buy a larger sized SSD like the intel 80GB. These 30GB SSD's are a complete waste of money.

 

just got a lightly used X1 (3months) for $615.... good deal???

 

Ya, I think thats a pretty good deal, cheapest I have found was $698 used on Amazon. Where did you get it for that cheap?

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ASUS-UL30VT-X1-...iewItemQQptZLaptops_Nov05?hash=item3a58ef1192

+ 8% BCB

 

@Mr. tallan, or any of you A1/X1 Guru's who have done an SSD swap from the 500GB HD, either OEM or replacement, what is the best procedure for doing it? :confused2:

I've read so much the past day about the different ways to do this thing that my mind is a bit befuddled right now....and first, and foremost, I want to update to the newest Firmware also, which I *do* understand is best done before you add the OS and your applications, and/or Clone the SSD from an archive (image) file from a utility like Paragon's Partition Manager Personal 10.x./Drive Backup Personal 9.x.

Previously when I have changed HD's I've always simply Cloned the old to the new with my Paragon utilities, but when there's a firmware update involved I am not clear how to proceed, exactly...that is the No.1 reason for my questions(s)...

I would appreciate any/all best-case scenario answers to these questions, it goes without saying. FYI my present HD system has about 55.2GB of critical files, data, licensed programs and media on it, and I'd like to, if possible, Clone all of that to the SSD, as that would save me a TON of time, and energy, and strategies for doing a complete reinstall of everything... :yes:

muchos gracias (in advance!)...

I ordered a new Intel X-25M Mainstream 160GB SSD last night, on a sort of weird but interesting note...XXXX Photo & Video Store owed me an almost $600 credit on a lens for my Pentax K7 studio camera, for a high-end lens (a "normal" lens that I ordered 9 weeks ago, and they just can't seem to get it in stock in the brand that I prefer...they charged my cc a 'deposit' of almost $600 which has been sitting in their coffers since my order, ie the lens costs over $2400 and they wanted 25% up front to order it) so I asked them to apply the $$ to their promo price on the 160GB X-25M Mainstream SSD of 449.95, and to cancel the lens order for now, until it becomes more plentiful and it's not so hard to get. This AM I got an email that told me that management had accepted the switcheroo, and my X-25M would be delivered 2nd-Day UPS Air on Tuesday the 23rd of March...

Thus I am trying to plan out my SSD installation now so I will have it down pat by Tuesday when it arrives.

 

I'm not sure how you'd update the firmware on the drive before it's installed. I suppose if you have a USB enclosure you could pop it in there and see if the update program can find it... shouldn't be an issue. But I did my firmware update (which you DO want to do because the Intel optimization program won't run on anything but the latest firmware) after I had installed the drive and it was totally non-destructive, very easy, and very fast. The updater runs off a CD you have to create, but as I remember you have an external CD drive so there should be no problems. As I say if you wanted to try doing the update before installing the drive I don't think it'd hurt anything, should either work or not. But I didn't go that route so can not speak from experience.

 

I actually installed the X-25M 80gb variety not to long ago, and it was a breeze.

Firmware can be found here.

My suggestion is to attach the SSD to one of your desktops, and be sure that it is on the native controller, your board's SB (typically sata ports 0-3). You may need to activate legacy mode in your BIOS, but I highly doubt it (needed for older nforce and intel chipsets). The download link will drop a bootable iso on to your desktop. Burn, boot and let it do its thing. You should then have intel's latest firmware with enhanced TRIM (but no NCQ.... I think).

After that, a cloned image should be able to be restored to your new SSD. However, I would go into device manager and check storage devices and controllers to be sure that your drive is recognized correctly.


Also, I have run chrome from day one without incident.

 

Thanks Mr. tallan.... Let me combine your ideas with mine and see what you think about this plan here...

So I would then go about it this way, and you say that the update to the latest firmware is "non-destructive" to my Data and OS, correct? So I'd do this then:

1) Remove my 500GB Hitachi HD, install the SSD into my X1 computer, then hook up my twin-USB-cabled USB 2.0 external HD enclosure with my backup HD with an ARC (archive is a full backup image) image of the boot HD, and proceed to have Paragon Drive Backup's "Copy Disk" routine Clone the ARC image to the SSD via the Recovery Environment of my Paragon Rescue Disk, ie boot the computer off the Rescue Disk which will be installed in my external USB optical drive.

Thus I would have both my backup HD and the optical drive hooked up to the computer at the same time, correct?

2) Then once that is accomplished, and the computer boots off the SSD, insert the CD ROM with the ISO flash image/Boot ROM files into the optical drive, then reboot the computer again, hold the ESC Key down so that it boots off the external optical drive, then apply the update to the SSD.

3) Shut down the computer/SSD after the update is accomplished, then disconnect the optical drive and boot the computer normally, do the usual Registry Clean Up with Glary/Registry Mechanic et al, and BAM! Mission accomplished, OS is intact, as are all my files and programs, but the SSD would then be updated to run TRIM and all the nice Utilities/Intel optimization programs etc etc... :smile:

4) And all would be well, IS THAT ABOUT IT?

I sure hope I've got that right, because it looks like I'd have exactly ONE CHANCE to pull this off and make it work, and it better be done correctly the 1st time! Hah-Hah! :wink:

Thanks, Mr tallan!

Hope I got it right, correctamundo, yah?

 

I'm not familiar with the Paragon software (I use Acronis myself) but other than that yes, THAT'S ABOUT IT!!

And, by doing the clone you have redundancy just in case anything should go wrong, but it won't. Intel is great about stuff like this: it just works.

You're going to have to chain your lappie to the desk after or it might just launch away it'll be so fast! Good luck (you won't really need it).

 

I would strongly recommend against updating the firmware AFTER you have restored your cloned image. There have been many users who have experienced poor performance (OS & drive), data loss and anomalous behavior in doing such. A clean slate is a far safer option, not only from the perspective of data safety... but also OS & drive performance.

 

Not arguing but just to be clear are you saying that all Intel SSD owners should clone their drives, quick format, update the firmware, and re-clone each and every time Intel updates the firmware, from now until the end of the drive's life?

 

Thank you Po$er my man, for attempting to straighten us out here, but I wonder just who is right in China in this scenario after all? :confused2:

Hmmm, so...

With YOUR VERSION of my scenario, I'd first install the new SSD into my X1, then do the Firmware Update by booting off the Firmware CD ROM and installing the Firmware on the bare SSD, correctamundo? :smile:

Then shut down the computer, SSD now updated, remove the Firmware CD ROM, and insert my Paragon Recovery CD ROM, hook up my USB External HDrive with the ARC File (full Drive backup image), then Boot from the Recovery CD ROM, Clone the ARC File (full backup image) to the SSD, then reboot off the SSD when the operation is finished, do a Registry Cleanup with Glary/Registry Mechanic and Disk Optimizer, and BAM! :wink:

Mission Accomplished! :rolleyes2:

THAT is the order you'd prefer I do the updating and Cloning, such that there would be no 'degraded performance' or "anomalous behavior" of the newly Cloned SSD HD, correctamundo?

Either way is fine with me, I just don't want to do the one that will result in problems, and I can see just as many potential problems doing it THIS WAY as doing it the way Mr. tallan and I discussed doing it...ie there's just as big of a chance of having various errors and anomalous behaviors creep into the situation this way as the other way, don'tcha think so, too? :yes:

I sure do!

 

I ended up having to reinstall windows anyway - the graphics kept on acting up. Now everything seems to be running fine though, and I've been running Chrome for two days without any problems. Hopefully the reinstall takes care of both of my problems.

A small thing though: when I'm running the profile "Quiet Office" and unplug I lose aero peek and the borders become non-transparent. I haven't been able to find where I can change it. I've put all P4G-settings for Quiet Office plugged in/unplugged the same and aero peek is enabled in the windows settings.

 

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...T_A1_UL30Vt_A1_Notebook_Computer_Silver_.html

There you go nice people: the UL30Vt-A1 for $748.95 @ B&H Photo & Video, which I think it is the LOWEST PRICE on the 'Net for this model Asus that I know of right now.

I just happened to catch this tonight as I was browsing the B&H site for bargains after I had ordered my Intel X-25M 160GB SSD from B&H earlier in the day...and what do you know, the lowest price yet on the A1 that I am aware of.

Good find for all of you interested in the Silver A1 model, right? Right!

rexrzer727 out for now...

 

Rex, I don't think you'll have problems either way. However you DO want to research alignment and TRIM regarding your new drive. Win7 and Acronis definitely are alignment and TRIM aware; I'm not sure about Paragon, and if the actual partitioning will be done by that program it could be a big deal.

Alignment means that the partition offset is aligned on a 4Kb reference; if it's not performance can be cut, sometimes by as much as half I've read. It's far too technical to go into here, but Google it and read up. The SSD thread here on NotebookReview is a great place to start.

TRIM is less of an issue, Win7 has support for it built in, but I have read that some disk controller software can cut off support for TRIM making the recommended weekly running of Intel's optimization routine a necessity. Once again do a little reading and you'll be up to speed.

Nice price on the A1 from B&H - good find!

 

Better price over @ J&R ($749) with 5% bing cb brings the total down to around $712 for the ul30vt-a1.

 

You fence sitters waiting on the new models better race on over here because you're not going to see discounts like this on the new stuff for months and months!

 

Better price @ Beach Camera via Amazon, I just purchased it from there yesterday (hopefully should start shipping today.) Anyway, price was $748.95 + free shipping. I'm so excited for UL30VT-A1 to arrive.

 

Did anyone have issues with their UL30VT-A1 not recognizing a double tap as a double left click? I have to do it multiple times often before the system will recognize it. For example, when trying to open an icon on the desktop I often have to try three of four times before I can double tap to open it.

Edit: Apparently I have to triple tap on a desktop icon to open it, has anyone found where this can be configured?

 

turns out it comes with a free samsung external dvd... sweet

 

Hi everyone, new UL30VT-A1 owner here and loving the laptop.
Just one small problem though: some time ago I have read a post by Sagi about using the Synaptic touchpad driver instead of the Elan the laptop came with, and how it is supposed to improve the recognition. And just yesterday I have read an article on Lifehacker ( http://lifehacker.com/5493849/get-mac+like-scrolling-and-gestures-on-a-windows-laptop) talking about the exact same thing. I downloaded the Synaptic Driver right after (both the legit one from the Synaptic website and the modded one provided by the article), uninstalled the Elan driver I had and installed the Synaptic Driver. However, unlike what the NR post, nor the article on Lifehacker described, I did not find the option to configure the basic multi-touch gestures such as two finger scrolling or three finger tap. Tried both modded and legit drivers and tried to download the driver from different sources, nothing seems to be working, it seems that the Synaptic Driver just simply doesn't work with my touchpad...
Upon further investigation, it seemed that the driver installed is for a "Wheel Mouse" instead of the touchpad...and the options given to me supports that finding as well. What is going on? Does the Synaptic Driver just not work with the UL30VT-A1 in general? How did it work for Sagi?

tl;dr : Synaptic touchpad driver seems to be incompatible with my UL30VT-A1

 

Absolutely not. But given the opportunity to update the firmware on a virgin disk, or one with information "written" to it... given murphy's law, I would definitely choose the "virgin" iteration. To be fair, many of the firmware issues were related to the 50nm process generation, not the 34nm drive that RR is purchasing.

I use acronis for my disk management tasks, however, I think (not sure) that PPM still uses the 512b reference size. Win 7 backup is actually pretty functional and a reasonable back up protocol to employ, plus it is uses the 4kb reference.

Now a power management question. As a matter of practice, when using "any" laptop in a situation where power is available... I have always removed the battery to prevent excessive charge wear. I know there have been strides in both power management at the software level as well as hardware improvements... but do our UL30vt's have a protocol in place to keep the battery from overcharging?

 

I just ordered my UL30VT-A1, But it looks like Beach Camera doesn't ship out on the weekend, so I have to wait till it ships on Monday. I opted for 1 day shipping so I'm hoping that it may come Monday afternoon, but more likely Tuesday. Has anyone bought anything from Beach Camera before, are they pretty prompt with shipping?

 

Not quite sure why you bought the ul30vt from Beach Camera. You could have gotten it for $40 cheaper from J&R.

 

I see you finally came around to the dark side. Welcome into the SSD fold! I can't wait to hear how the UL30VT performs with a fast SSD drive AND 8 GB's of ram. I've been tempted to splurge and go for a RAM upgrade, but since we just got a new car and are moving from NYC in a couple of months, reason tells me I should probably lay low on that end. I'll just have to live gratuitously through your endeavors... Keep us posted.

 

Okay, here we go again. I did a complete reinstall about two days ago and everything have been smoth sailing until a few hours ago. I had the computer in sleep mode for about 5 hours, restarted it and found that the graphics switch key didn't work. No on screen graphics showing either - nothing. So I figure I should reboot. It takes about 1.5 minutes - instead of the usual 25 seconds. I try to uninstall (to reinstall) P4G but I get a message say "Runtime Error Program: C:\Program Files\P4G\GadgetInstaller.exe This application has requested that runtime terminates in an unusual way" (or something like that, I can hardly read what I wrote on the piece of paper ) and right after that error message I get another one saying "Fatal Error". I can't uninstall it in Safe Mode either. So, I try a rollback to the settings I had yesterday and when it's done and rebooted (another 1.5 mins) the screen just goes black. I can still see the mouse, but everything else is black. Reboot - this time it works, but P4G still doesn't work and still doesn't uninstall.

I really have no problems with a complete reinstall again, but I'd like to know what happened so I can avoid it. Anyone?

 

Yes, a couple of things and they were extremely prompt shipping both.

 

All modern lithium ion batteries are "smart" batteries. You'll notice that the usual charge hovers around 95-97% when plugged in; this is exactly the overcharge protection you're asking about. Occasionally it may go up to 99% especially if you use it unplugged for a bit and it falls below 95%, but it'll drop back quickly to the "full but not charging" status of 95-97%.

Thanks for the response on SSDs; I was concerned because it seemed to me with their somewhat limited lifespan reformatting and reinstalling everything with every firmware update would be unnecessarily shortening - theoretically at least - the drive's life.

 

Any luck with Intel wifilink 1000?

 

Just to be clear, it is no longer necessary to remove the battery, as the battery will cease to take a charge with charger plugged in and a threshold above 95% ?

Correct. Some believe you'll get maximum life if you discharge to about 40% and store the battery in a cool place when not in use - I've even heard of people keeping them in the freezer - but a properly functioning battery in the UL30 will not over charge, and as for the rest can YOU say "obsessive-compulsive disorder?"

I popped the Intel Wifi Link 1000 into my A1 last week: I don't have any benches for before and after but it seems a bit quicker, signal strength is a little better (but I re-routed the 2nd antenna as well, so...) and I definitely picked up a couple more routers than before in my usual location so I'm sold on it as a worthwhile upgrade, but I could not prove it objectively.

 

How did you re-route the antenna, did you make it longer, shorter, just moved the location?

 

I have the wifi link 1000 cards and am debating the upgrade myself. I also have a couple of tyco antennae... but I would want to route them to the lcd panel... but if you have good reception in the HDD bay, that also may be an easier and effective placement. If I decide to do it... I will do some before and after benchmarks.

Though to be honest, I have not run into an application where the atheros card was not adequate.

 

I had it running around the back of the HDD bay but it was very tight and actually chafed a little insulation off the antenna so I relocated it towards the front, snaking it towards the speakers.

 

The battery "discussions" above are accurate regarding two things, memory effect, and damage to the battery by never using it and it being in a constant state of charge...however that is negated by the battery "smart circuits" and also by the battery charge controller in the notebook which prevents overcharging 100% or higher.

However, there is another way to assure long battery service, and that is recommended by all the major manufacturers, be it Apple Computer, Lenovo, HP, Acer, and others, and that is to "Level the Battery" fairly often, a general recommendations is once every 3 months, minimum, and this is how it is best explained.

1) Adjust energy saver controls to read "Never" for all functions, be it Sleep, Hard Drive turn off, all of it

2) Unplug the power plug, and allow the computer to fully discharge the battery down to where the computer goes into Hibernation, both to protect the battery and the computer ROM, and desktop activity

3) After the computer is fully discharged (usually when the battery has between 4%-7% left in its Reserve Power) and Hibernated, then charge it fully, and leave it turned off for that initial full charge after a complete discharge to Hibernation status

This does two things, which has nothing to do with memory effect or "conditioning" the battery:

1) It discharges the battery fully so that the battery will take a full charge

2) It "flattens" the battery so that the battery control circuitry recognizes the battery's fully discharged state, which helps the battery take a 100% charge

Doing this does NOT harm the battery, or the computer, and you will not lose any data, or desktop functionality. HP recommends this is done every 3 months or sooner; Apple computer recommends a full discharge once you notice that the battery is no longer taking 100% charge, or sooner, or at regular intervals. Personally, I fully discharge to Hibernation once a month, and I've found that this technique can improve battery run time and allow a battery that was not taking a full charge to do so once again. YMMV, and it's NOT mandatory to do this technique, just recommended for overall xlnt battery performance.

I emphasize that this has nothing to do with the old technique of fully discharging a NiCad battery to discourage memory effect in a battery pack of multiple cells. There's a lot of bad recommendations floating around for getting the most out of a Lithium Ion battery or battery pack, but this is one method that is universally recommended by virtually all major computer manufacturers.

I thought I'd mention it since people are bantering about "battery science" a bit here in this forum, and I wanted to get this discharge to Hibernation technique out in the open in case there are members here who wonder about getting the most out of a Li-Ion battery, and what's a good way to do it.

 

All your questions answered here: http://batteryuniversity.com/

 

If anyone was curious this went away after I did a clean install.

Anyone had any luck further customizing the multi touch? I'd like to set a three finger tap to be the equivalent of a ctrl+left click.

Edit: Nevermind, that option is there- "middle button".

 

This is a quote from quite a ways back in this thread but I've noticed the same thing with my machine. Has there been any discovery on this since then? I haven't been able to find anything in the thread.