ASUS UL30 Owner's Lounge

I tried that link and it goes directly to a download, which I don't trust... Are there driver updates needed for the Ul30, and if so, aren't they available at the Asus site?

 

Yes, all drivers are available from the Asus website, however Asus does not always keep their drivers up to date with the latest manufacture drivers. Your best bet is to go directly to the part manufacture website and download the newest driver there.

 

Have a look at http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Processors-Benchmarklist.2436.0.html for a comparison of the 2 processors.
for example:
3d mark 06 scores
SU7300 = 1165
SU2300 = 1000

That plus an extra 1GB of RAM is not worth paying £200 extra for.
Both have the 4500 chip, can play 1080p hd videos.

 

That's the one the Asus support guy linked me to. Could do a virus check on the file if you want?

The driver is a Synaptics Pointing Device, little old 20th October 2009 v14.0.11.2....
You could try a newer one direct from the Synaptics website...
http://www.synaptics.com/support/drivers

edit: The ones on the synaptics website are older...

 

Are you sure this is correct? I don't think the model available from carphonewarehouse has the dedicated 512mb graphics cards, just the onboard graphics?

 

I think you are getting a little confused. Both of the ones that I am talking about have the 4500 onboard chip. The UL30VT was not officially launched in the UK so its hard to get hold of. The closest one is the UL80VT with the onboard and Geforce 210. However the new one UL80JT is on the way possibility next month. Also UL30JT and UL20JT but not sure which are getting released in the UK..... You could check out the equivalent Acer laptops, there was one with dedicated graphics card [timeline series] on ebay argos clearance refurbed with 12 months warranty for about £370 with the 8hr battery but with single core processor.... I don't game that much so dual core works out better for me...

 

How do you replace the hard drive on the UL30? I didnt seem to recall seeing it in the previous pages. Is there a how-to for it?

Thanks!

 

Hi Guys, im new one in town of UL30 i need information do you have option in bios to boot from SD card ?? My UL30vt see only when usbstick is plugged.

 

On the bottom of the laptop, there is a hard drive panel secured by 3 screws. Remove the screws and panel to reveal the hard drive compartment. Then pull leftwards and upwards on the black tab to remove the hard drive.

Most BIOS's do not support SD card booting. I believe this is also the case for the UL30 series.

 

Thank you for prompt response. This mean that the card reader is useless ( Maybe Asus Support add this option in next bios update, i think asus netbooks have this option.

 

Yes, many Asus netbooks support booting from the SD card reader, but notebooks are a different story. However, this doesn't make it useless since media cards can act a storage device and offer an easier means of transferring files from your digital camera/phones or other devices. I can understand how it may be convenient to boot from an SD card, but in reality, SD cards don't make great booting drives since their read/write speeds are significantly slower than a standard hard drive and even USB stick drives.

 

I just wish it had a slot for Micro SDs. All my gadgets, these days, use those and I always lose the adapter.

 

Sweet thanks!

And also does anybody know if the battery life will be decreased after putting in a 7200k RPM hard drive? My local Fry's is having a sale on a 320Gb 7200k RPM Hitachi hard drive for $45. And also is it worth getting?

Thanks!

 

Why not just keep the adapter in the notebook? It doesn't stick out.

 

I was going to suggest the same

 

That's a good idea. Sounds like a plan, once I next find it.

 

Just picked one of these up for £385 with the SU7300 & 4GB RAM in black. Can't wait for it to arrive!

 

Congrats [toPh] . I've got the UL30A-X5 with the specs/color you ordered and I'm really digging it. My advice to a fellow owner of the black one: Get some electronics cleaning wipes. People weren't joking when calling it a finger-print magnet. I give mine a good cleaning once per week.

Can anyone recommend a good (but inexpensive) sleeve for it? Preferably solid black, no branding text/images, and with a snug fit. My research shows that some sleeves have zippers, rather than gliding on/off. Does anyone have any opinions on which is better? Thanks.

 

Gte the Zeroshock 13.3" from ebay

 

The version I have is sold as ASUS UL30A UL30A-QX131V.

Is that X1? A1? X5? A2? What does it all mean?

 

Has anyone posted a disassembly guide yet? Specifically, I want to take the brushed aluminum lid off the top so I can get a small dent out...

 

I don't use a sleeve for my UL30VT so I can't point out specifically which sleeve would work best, however from experience, I find sleeves with zippers provide a better sense of security. It may not be as convenient as the ones with an open pocket, but given the nature of most people whom purchase one (protection while walking short distances), I would get a better piece of mind knowing my arm swaying motions could never force the laptop out of the sleeve while walking briskly to my next class/meeting.
I'd also tend to avoid sleeves with a magnetic button closure since most of these mechanisms takes little effort to open.

The suffix after UL30A denotes the different hard drive and battery capacities, color and even warranty.The UL30A-QX131V appears to be the same as the UL30A-X4. Asus often uses different SKUs for different countries despite the identical hardware found in each system.

I have posted a general description for disassembling the UL30 series here which should provide some insight:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/5979592-post2468.html

 

I'm deciding between the UL30A and the UL30Vt. As owners of the UL30A have you found situations that you wished you had the UL30Vt other than video games?

 

From the perspective of a UL30VT owner, I find it extremely useful to have a dedicated GPU as I tend to use Photoshop with hardware acceleration enabled. This is also useful when watching higher resolution videos on hulu and YouTube.

 

Where did you get that from? Thanks.

 

Thank you for your input.
What benefit might I find other than the graphics card?

 

Not much else. The only difference between the UL30A and UL30VT is the graphics card.

 

Thank you. That is what I expected. I'm leaning to the UL30A for the battery life and lower cost. I'm hoping that there will be a rebate after the release of the UL30Jt.
Do you think that is wishful thinking?

 

If there's an overstock of the UL30A, then I'm fairly certain Asus will be providing rebates for it when the UL30Jt is released. However, the issue is we don't know how many of the UL30As are still in inventory.

 

I was very lucky, found it on eBay. 2 weeks old with original receipt included for £550 so 24month warranty still available. It's as new basically, well pleased.
The guy just didn't want it and wanted something else pronto.

 

Hey UL30 owners...

What battery life do you get with Brightness full, WiFi on, Bluetooth on...???

Thanks

 

I don't remember EVER using brightness on full. 1/2 brightness is more than adequate for 98% of the time. I have the A2, so no bluetooth. But even after five months of everyday usage, I can still get 9+ hours for normal usage.

 

Battery life will also depend on what tasks you are doing. For example, if you're playing HD videos the entire time, it will drain your battery much faster than word processing.

 

Just to say, I've been running HD videos from my Ul30-a2 into the TV via HDMI cable, and there is absolutely no problem, looks great. Having a full 500G of hard drive means I can keep a lot of vid on the drive for watching when I want. This 'pooter makes the TIVO obsolete.

 

Hey all, I'm looking at a secondary travel laptop I can carry in a backpack around town/planes/trains.

http://www.darty.com/nav/achat/informatique/portables/portables/asus_ul30a-qx105v.pl?m=ASUS&
This strikes me as a decent deal. I want to know if it'll do a good job of basically, websurfing, uploading pics on photobucket and facebook, watching the odd DVD on an external DVD player etc... Nothing CPU intensive. Oh and music from MediaMonkey.
The other choice I have is this one http://www.darty.com/nav/achat/informatique/portables/portables/hp_dm3-1150ef.pl?m=HP&
which INCLUDES an external DVD player... But the Asus seems faster...

 

Get the ASUS. HP is low quality and they are junk.

 

I've just put my SCHD card in and it doesn't show in my computer, does the UL30A accept SDHC, or just SD?

Also, how can I switch the bluetooth off but keep Wi-Fi on?

 

Well I've just tried a normal SD card and that doesn't register either. I've uninstalled and re-installed the Alcor Card reader drive and still nothing, any ideas?

 

Just uninstall it. I never installed that driver and my card slot worked fine with whatever default driver was used from windows update.

 

do you think there would be a major difference installing a 7400rpm hard-drive to replace the 5400rpm one within the asus ul30?? i read how some people have done that, but not quite sure how much of a difference it'll make. so hopefully someone can shed some light please.

thanks in advance

 

I did a clean install to Windows 7 64-bit Professional on the A2 and reinstalled the Power4Gear Hybrid. However, whenever I make changes to the profiles, like dimmest setting for Power Saver mode, it'll revert back to full brightness later on when I use the Express Gate button to scroll through the power options.

Does anyone know how to fix this? Any help would really be appreciated

 

I have the A2 and got the incase sleeve designed for a 13" macbook and it is a nice snug fit. Only gripe is that it's a little too snug and the zipper sometimes holds the laptop back in the sleeve after unzipping cuz the corner gets caught. I expect that to go away after enough use where the sleeve might stretch a bit (hopefully).

I must admit though, the incase sleeve is very nice and clean and simple. It's running around $40 or $30 range on ebay.

 

hey guys,

just made this thread - http://forum.notebookreview.com/wha...n-processors-su2300-v-su7300.html#post6255848 - in another section and i guess it wouldn't hurt to ask here as well.

the meat of that thread is, can the ul-30a, packing the Intel Celeron SU2300 Dual Core 1.3 Ghz - 1MB Cache processor, handle the following comfortably and simultaneously:

iTunes, several Firefox tabs (some with Flash videos) and Word. uTorrent and AVG in the background.

 

Newfang, the UL30 can handle more than that easily.

I have a driver question. Has anyone succesfully updated the driver for the Atheros wireless? I'm doing music production, and I found out that the wireless card is causing latency on my UL30. Found out using this latency checker:

DPC Latency Checker

Of course I can disable it while recording, but I want to try upgrading, but I can't seem to find a better driver? Anyone?

 

yours might, but the su2300 is the most basic processor it comes with. so i'm just making sure

 

Hi,

I'm going to buy one one of the UK CPW UL30's this week, was just wondering if anyone who has bought this spec (SU2300 processor, 3gb RAM) can tell me which brand of DDR3 Ram they come supplied with.

I would like to perform a simple upgrade of going from 3GB (1 x 2GB & 1 x 1GB) to 4GB (2 x 2GB matched pairs) for that little performance boost. Ideally i would like to just buy one 2GB stick to match the existing 2GB stick, can anyone take the back off theirs and have a look for me.

Regards

 

From Review O2 Offers The Samsung N150 And Asus UL30A 3G-enabled Computers Gizmodose:

Has anyone installed a 3G modem inside the UL30A yet?

I think one of the most beneficial improvements to the UL30A would be an integrated 3G modem.

 

Is there a guide on how to install an OS on the UL30 without a CD drive anywhere?

 

Can you guys tell me what Synaptics driver/software you are using for the touchpad please?
Thanks.

 

What settings should I change to get max battery life?

I turn off the discrete graphics, and set the laptop to power saver mode but the most I can get is around 7 hours.