Power4Gear Hybrid keeps resetting itself to 100% minimum processor state

I think I've finally found the culprit that is keeping me on hang when shutting down/restarting in W8 on my Zenbook. I think it is the minimum processor state, which is apparently staying at 100%. I changed it to 5% and restarted/shut down, and it worked perfectly. But now I notice that it has again gone back to 100%.

I checked and changed in the Power4Gear hybrid utility, and also in the Power Options. Both keep going back to 100% minimum.

How do I fix this?

 

Oh.. I don't know. You just stop the Windows 8 power profiles from automatically overwriting the p4g profiles at startup. Optionally stopping the routine that scrubs the power-profiles after they've been updated by "unsigned" software. Which may or may not be possible as a normal user, depending on the Windows version you own.

It might also involve a long round of different fixes between Asus and Microsoft, and you being a beta-tester for their software for a few years, until a new version of windows turns up and some other similar migration problem takes over, while someone figures out a way to hack the registry to stop the problem in the meantime.

But I'm sure it's easy to fix, and that it by no means slipped through Asus' q&a (like the entire "elevated privileges in win7 breaks the OSD control"). Also, I'm certain that it's a completely unknown problem that almost no one will have, and Asus isn't really that interested in knowing about.

 

I have the same issue. I'm using Windows 8 on a Zenbook Prime and my preferred advanced power settings, at least for the "processor power management," change to 100% min and max and active cooling policy for the power saver setting. Which is strange because those are not even the default settings for the power saver power plan. I checked the resource monitor and it seems that switching from balanced to power saver does reduce cpu usage. However, if I set high performance and then switch back to power saver the cpu usage remains in the 100% plus region. I thought power4gear was the culprit, but I have since reformatted my computer and the problem persists without power4gear. I have updated all the processor drivers and still no luck.

nipsen, it seems you have a couple of ideas about what the problem could be. Do you think you could elaborate a bit? How do you "stop the Windows 8 power profiles from automatically overwriting the p4g profiles at startup. Optionally stopping the routine that scrubs the power-profiles after they've been updated by "unsigned" software." Though given that the problem is present even without p4g, perhaps your first suggestion is more helpful.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

 

Just picked up a UX31A with preinstalled Win 8 and bios 214 ... same issue .

I even uninstalled Power4Gear, and set the laptop to use the balanced profile with a 5% CPU min, its works for a while
but randomly it gets set to 100%. Cant understand how some program is changing the power profile without user permission?

I use CPUz to monitor the freq , easy to see the issue.

Some reported it here
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/687758-asus-ux32a-fan-goes-off-off-3.html

 

Jack_VT - that's discouraging. I was hoping the new bios would solve the issue. I'm still running BIOS 212, the website does not have the 214 version up yet...

 

Hi..I did a refresh in Windows 8. I now don't have Power4Gear, and I am running 'Power Saver' in stock W8. For the first week since I refreshed it, it was going good. However, for the past 4-5 days, the fan goes on, off, on, off just like that thread is titled. And my minimum processor state AGAIN resets to 100% as well.

Does anyone have a quick fix, that thread is too long and I don't know if the solution is discussed in there (yet).

 

I seem to be facing the same problem. Has anyone managed to find out why this is happening? It's really bad for battery life. The frequency scaling doesn't exist for nothing!

I have a zenbook u500vz (I believe it's the ux51?) which seemingly shares the same problem. From what I figure a driver is the culprit. The ux32 and this ux51 share some of them.

I have done a clean windows 8 install and installed most drivers from manufacturers and some from the asus website. Almost none of the asus tools are installed just to be sure. I just installed the keyboard filter and wireless filters and such to get all functionality. None of the power4gear or other stuff.

I will try coming up with a re-producible test and then try and figure out which driver or program is causing the problem.

update--
Seems that the Asus Smart Gesture is the culprit. Since I killed those processes everything is behaving exactly as I set it and keeps doing so. Before it would keep jumping back or even switching my settings for on battery or plugged in around!

Will keep testing. But for now, it's gone from my u500..... Please fix this ASAP Asus, this is probably the reason reviews gave this laptop a bad battery rating!

update----
Currently testing the newest Elantech drivers. They stupidly do not provide a direct download link like Synaptics . But softpedia has an awnser for that. They seem to be a lot newer then what asus provides us (For the u500 or any other laptop). Hopefully this has a fix for the problem within them. If you also wish to test. Please remove the Asus Smart Gesture and download the drivers using the following link : http://drivers.softpedia.com/dyn-search.php?search_term=elantech&Submit=Search&lastupd_filter=0&results_per_page=20&sort_field=2 The newest one should always be listed on top. I installed the 11.6.6.002. They also install a utility which, from what I can remember, provides all the same features as the asus tool. Including multi-touch gestures.

Further it provides an extension to the "mouse" settings tab of windows. A few more features seem to exist then with the Asus driver. For instance, you can turn off the Elan software when an USB mouse is connected. Or change the keyboard timeout value when typing. Also in the installation directory there are tools called "ETDDeviceInformation.exe" and "ETDHValueMonitor.exe". Both nice tools to read the values your touchpad is sending and to test some stuff.

 

Hmm... leaving P4G installed and disabling Win8 power profiles in MSConfig, perhaps? I haven't been able to test this myself.

 

I also don't like the SmartGesture touchpad either way, I tried the ELAN touchpad on my sister's cheaper ASUS laptop and it blows mine away, so smooth. Mine doesn't register small movements and glitches back and forth for these precise movements..and no inertia controls too, very limited features.

But are you sure it is the problem? How can I get these ELAN touchpad drivers, they are not showing up on the UX32A download website.

 

UPDATED DRIVERS

I had the same issue even without Power4Gear installed. Great find that Smart Gesture was the problem, as soon as I switched to the ElanTech version the battery settings for minimum processor state and system cooling policy no longer changed (5% - 100% / passive - active).

I've been keeping an eye out for updated Smart Gesture drivers as the ElanTech version has issue, for me at least, with pinch to zoom in Chrome and IE.

Asus pushed out some new drivers for the UX31A that appears to resolve the issues with Smart Gesture.
BIOS 216
ATKACPI 1.0.0025
TouchPad 1.0.36 (dated 12/03)

Uninstall old drivers and reboot.
Load ATKACPI, reboot
Load Smart Gesture 1.0.36 (dated 12/03), reboot

 

Thanks for the precious information.

I was having the exact same problem with my Asus Taichi 21 and was wondering which process was the culprit.

Turns out the Taichi comes with Smart Gesture 1.0.35 and the 1.0.36 version is not yet listed on its download page.

Installing it now.

I can't believe how incredibly stupid it is that no one at Asus had noticed this problem, considering the impact it has on battery life. You're basically running your CPU at full speed and voltage for absolutely nothing. Great idea on an Ultrabook.

I remember that ATI used to have a similar bug with a service that came with their drivers.

 

Well although the 1.0.36 drivers have improved things, after 24 hours my min proc state is back to 100% and cooling policy was reset to active again.

There appears to be something else going on...

Anyone else observe the same thing?

 

Have you checked the Task Manager to see what services/processes are running at the time of the spike? Perhaps you'll need to contact Asus for insight and see if they have a fix.

 

I'm also experiencing the same issues with my ASUS S46CM. Not only does it reset the the minimum processor state, but it'll also reset the lid close action to sleep for all three options, even after I've specified I don't want it to sleep on lid close.

 

I realize that this is a rather old thread, but I'm also experiencing problems with power options changing when ASUS Smart Gesture is installed. Even with the 1.1.3 version of the software. I've been testing for the past hour or so, and found that it's the "three finger swipe up" (show and navigate running applications) that sets the processor minimum state at 100%. I monitored the CPU frequency with CPUZ and as soon I'd do that gesture, it jumped to 3.2GHz and never went down.

 

I'm experiencing the same problem with my UX32VD even after installing the 1.0.36 Smart Gesture driver. The maximum processor state automatically change to 100% and the system cooling policy changes to active all the time.

Any help for this??

 

There's a new version out: 2.01
ASUSTeK Computer Inc. -Support- Drivers and Download Smart Gesture

I'll test it out and update.

Edit: tried for about 10 minutes. So far it hasn't gone back to 100% even after testing out all the gestures. There's also an interesting task switcher if you swipe with 3 fingers up + left/right. Lets so switch between metro apps and desktop apps and which in each you want to open. Its kinda slow and seems to use a lot of processing just for that.
Steps I took:
uninstalled current version and restarted
installed 2.01 and restarted
Opened the active power plan advanced power settings and restore defaults

Edit2: I also managed to catch the minimum processor state at 100% while I was doing the three finger gestures. Once an application is chosen after the three finger gesture, it goes back down to 5.

 

Interesting find. Can you recreate this across multiple versions of the driver as well?

 

I want to say that I have fixed this issue updating the following in an Asus UX32VD:

Asus Smart Gesture - Versión V2.1.4
Power4Gear Hybrid Utility - Versión V3.0.2
ATKACPI driver and hotkey-related utilities - Versión V1.0.0029
and BIOS 214 for Asus UX32VD.

I don't know which of them fixed the problem (maybe more than one), but now, the laptop switches correctly from "Power4Gear Battery Saving" and "Power4Gear High Performance" when plug and unplug the power adapter and the cpu frequency is correctly scaled in both modes having a correct behaviour.

Like some of you I've noticed that when I make three fingers up gesture my CPU gets maximum frequency, but this is cause of when you make this gesture and current open applications are shown, a new process called "Asus Desktop Manager" is opened and gets 100% of CPU, so I think in this situation, it is a correct behaviour to increment the CPU frequency.

 

Sorry to resurrect this thread, but I think it's relevant: I've been having the same issues with the latest version of the Asus Smart Gesture (v2.2.2). It seems whenever I scroll, zoom, etc., it sets the minimum CPU to 100%, even with many of the multitouch enhancements disabled.

Has anyone figured out a fix, or figured out the best touchpad drivers for the UX32VD yet?

EDIT: I made a scheduled task to run every two minutes from logon to reduce the minimum processor state to my desired values. It's working great! The Asus Smart Gesture will crank it up to 100%, and then I just run two powercfg commands in the background and reset the minimum states to what I want. Hooray!