G50VT-X1: Two Questions (sound issue, power save question)

Hello, fellow ASUS owners. I need a little bit of help with my excellent X1 I bought about a month ago...

1- I have a problem with the audio initializing properly from start-up. If I boot directly into Vista, I have no sound at all from either the onboard speakers or an external output. However, if I first boot into Express Gate, do something that makes sound so I can check that it works, then boot from there into Vista, the sound works fine. This problem does not happen going from sleep/hibernation back into Vista when the sound's already working. I tried updating drivers, but this remains a minor but annoying issue. Anyone familiar with this or any similar issue?

2- Is there a way to shut down discrete graphics entirely in order to save power when I'm not doing anything graphically intensive, or is the automatic underclocking the best that can be done? I love the power, but sometimes I'm not near an outlet and the 9800M GS is quite the battery hog.

Thanks!

 

Make sure your POST sound is enabled in your BIOS. Hit F2 at boot and make sure under boot settings the POST sound is enabled. You can have volume at 0. You can't disable the video card under any circumstances, you can only reduce its consumption by nvidia profile settings.

 

The stock drivers do not have powermizer enabled, so even in battery the GPU is running at full speed. Try some newer drivers, the ones from nvidia or from laptopvideo2go and powermizer will be enabled.

It makes a lot of difference, notebook runs cooler and battery lasts longer, of course you will take a performance hit, but who plays intensive games on battery anyways?

cheers

 

Thanks, I had disabled the POST sound because I thought that all it controlled was the silly explosion sound that the Republic of Gamers post screen itself makes. Now I feel a bit thick. >_>

As for the GPU, I'm pretty sure it was underclocking with the stock drivers, at least it was according to Everest. Regardless, I recently switched to the 181 laptopvideo2go drivers anyway. Thanks!

 

I have my post sound disabled but my speakers are fine. I was just saying use that to see if its a software or hardware issue with your speakers. But I recall some people saying it off makes no sound for them, which is odd...

As for the drivers... The notebook beta drivers from nvidia seem to be better than the other ones. They are for notebook and they even list the proper video card now instead of the wrong one also... Plus it does not use powermizer but something else now... It still downclocks but works better for me and now on battery I can get full GPU speed while on all the other drivers it wouldnt go past 400Mhz on the GPU...