* OFFICIAL UL80VT and UL50VT / VS Owner's Lounge *

Thanks for the ideas, Deceptic0n. I had checked that originally and had thought I had solved the problem because it wasn't enabled (and wouldn't even eject). So I enabled it in P4G and then the eject worked, but when I put a disc in it still didn't spin up. I had looked in the device manager too and it's not disabled, but it does have exclamation points by the drivers. When I checked the driver properties, the "!" seems to be because Windows isn't sure about the driver itself. I thought maybe it was because I updated to Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 and tried a restore, but that didn't do it either.

Do you or anybody have the "!" next to your dvd drivers in device manager?

I have a technical support request in right now at Asus. Let's see if they will respond.

Thanks,
-Jason

 

Has anyone had issues updating to Windows 7 SP1?
My ul80vt has been running fine more or less but after updating to SP1, my resolution drops to 800x600 and can't increase to more than 1024x768. A reboot seems to fix it sometimes so far but this has happened two times now already and even as I type this.

 

I had to reinstall the custom graphics driver and "hide" the update for the intel grarphics driver (this is the one that kept installing and putting me at 800x600).

http://www.nautisiandesigns.com/drivers/latest/HGMS_N19190_I1994_x32.exe

http://www.nautisiandesigns.com/drivers/latest/HGMS_N19197_I1994_x64.exe

 

What do you mean by hiding the intel graphics update? My windows update isn't set to update automatically but my resolution is still stuck. I've uninstalled it and tried to reinstall Nautis' hybrid graphics(which is what I've had before with no issues) to no avail.

I've also tried using the method stated in the 197.16 hybrid graphics thread to fix the 800x600 resolution but I get an error message about missing files.

As of the moment I have my nvidia drivers uninstalled and now have the original 1366x768 resolution back but reverts it back to 800x600 after installing them. Also the switchable graphics aren't working for me after I install either anymore.

 

Hey Peps,

New Bios out for UL80VT, it says:

BIOS 214
Update thermal protection policy
2011/02/10 update

Anyone try it yet, any comments?

 

Hi,
I had definitive freeze problems and i tried this BIOS 214 two days ago.
For the moment, it works fine.
But I don't know exactly what means "Update thermal protection policy".
I didn't found explanations from Asus support site.
Regards,
Grig

 

my ul50vt hard drive is making a clicking sound..
i think i will get a new hard drive before this one fails..

anyone else has the same experience with their hard drive?

 

yeah that definitely sound like a preeminent hdd failure.
I had one that started making clicking noise every now and then. And then windows wouldn't boot up....

 

ya, it's scary. it doesn't do it everyday. but sometimes, it just starts a "CLICK CLICK CLICK" sound till I turn off the computer.

i think i will upgrade my hdd soon to 7200rpm!

 

Is there any way to install a nvidia driver >=257.21?

I tried Nautis1100's beta driver from here, but it has too many glitches (the monitor can't be turned off and on again etc.). The last update there was on 6/24/10; is there any other project?

It would be ok for me if only the nvidia driver works, I don't use the battery-saving intel-mode very often.

 

Hi All, I hope this is the best place for this:

I purchase the ul50vt december last year and sooo impressed. Very good, mostly because of the battery life and performance for the work I do.

for the first 2 months I got great battery life 10hrs easy on the battery saver settings. Then suddenly in Feb it dropped right off and would not get more than 5hr 22min. It also seemed to dissapear more rapidly than the timer indicated.

I rang up Asus and eventually they replaced the battery and I just got it back and it seems even a little worse. Firstly it won't charge more than 97% and secondly the time on full charge seems to be 5hrs 5min.

I have tried to change whatever power saving settings I can, just incase I previosuly altered it by accident, but it's not making any difference. The only other 2 things i can find is that I should be able to change the power settings in the BIOS but there's not option for power settings when I get in there (pressing F2)... and secondly there is a reference in the manual to disabling the integrated graphics but my model does nto have the switch on the side on of?

I'm really at a loss as to what to do and i've already spent 4 weeks posting my laptop back and forth to asus. I'd really appreciate any help anyone can get cause 5 hours battery life is so not the reason I bought this laptop.

Thanks heaps in advance.
Cam

 

Do you know whether or not these faulty HDD's can be claimed on the warranty?

 

lol got my UL80VT-A1 on my birthday (march 23)... im seriously impressed lol.. sick laptop was able to play COD: black ops at 30 fps lol OCed the video card and the processor(1.9GHz) .. epic laptop is epic lol

 

Yeah it is, the way it can transform from a power sipping fairy to a power hungry machine is very cool. It's non-Optimus too, essentially making it a Decepticon.

 

I just used the recovery CDs to reinstall Windows 7. Does anyone know if there is a method that preinstalls everything? I had to manually install the Asus software and now the LEDs next to the graphics switching button don't light up. The button works but it seems like something is missing and I'm wondering what else I missed...

Does anyone know how to restore the computer to it's factory state and not just a fresh Windows install?

 

This thread looks very promising, everyone who wants to update his graphics drivers should keep an eye on it. It's still experimental:

Optimus on Hybrid Graphics - LaptopVideo2Go Forums

 

A couple days ago my computer started having problems with Hibernate mode. I had the Sleep button (Fn-F1) set to Hibernate, it WAS working but now it takes 2 minutes to hibernate, then 11-12 minutes to resume. When it finished the wifi was disabled. Only way to restore the wifi was to go through the network diagnostics.

I tried a bunch of things, removing the wifi adapter in the system and reinstalling it, reinstalling the Power4Gear software, reinstalling the Wireless Console 3, ran SFC, ran Checkdisk, virus scanners etc. Nothing worked.

After reinstalling Power4Gear I did not finish customizing all the different setups. Under High Performance it was set as "Lid close action- Plugged in: Hibernate". Well, I thought it was set to "Do nothing", closed the lid while I had dinner expecting it to stay running, it went into hibernate mode perfectly. Came out of hibernate mode correctly, the wifi started up, all was well.

It has been very repeatable. The problem only occurs when hit the "Fn-F1" sleep button. I changed other power plan settings for "Lid close action" to Hibernate, and it will hibernate properly when I close the lid, and I also tried setting the power button to Hibernate, it also Hibernates and resumes correctly. It is only the Sleep Button that screws up.

As a corollary- on the UL80VT downloads page the most recent Power4Gear version is 1.1.31, but on the Power4gear page the most recent version is 1.1.44. Can I use it?

Also the Elantech Touchpad drivers- which ones work? The latest on the UL80vt page is 7.0.5.12 but on the site it is 7.0.5.16.

 

I also noticed that a new BIOS version is available- 214, released 2/10/2011.

Anyone installed it yet? Anyone know what it does?

 

The site says "Update thermal protection policy". I installed it without incident. I have not noticed any difference.

 

My laptop (UL50-VT) has been acting up lately. When the battery starts to dip around 11-23% my music playing will start to hiccup and my laptop will have a hard shutdown immediately. This does not always happen but as started to more often. If I try rebooting without an ac connection, I can get to the Windows logon screen, but upon "logging in" it will have a hard shutdown again. However, if I plug in the AC, it will boot up normally. Suggestions?

 

@AzNJJ Maybe your battery is on its way out? If you use a utility like batterybar to read its wear level that might give you a clue. If it's not providing enough voltage to the system it could cause weird unpredictable behavior.

 

Any suggestions on where to look for a new replacement battery?

 

Take the battery out and look at the label, it will have a model number and a part number. You can use those to search for replacements. The asus estore may have one but it will be full price: ASUS eStore

 

Thanks! Just wondering if anyone has experimented with non OEM batteries from ebay and/or anyone has used the 12-cell 7800mah batteries ( 7800mAH Battery ASUS UL80V A42-UL30 A42-UL80 A42-UL50 | eBay) ? Thanks again

 

I'm wondering, is it possible to upgrade the UL80vt's graphics card (and if so, any recommendations?). I don't know as much when it comes to laptop hardware.


I've had my laptop for almost a year now and I'm feeling it's time for an upgrade, I'll probably be adding more RAM and a different HD as well.

 

@AzNJJ those tend to be hit or miss quality, just make sure it's the right voltage and hope for the best. Don't pay a lot unless it's a genuine asus battery.

@cjosh In general laptop video cards aren't upgradeable (there are exceptions), in these machines I don't think you have any options. If your machine is slow your best option is to clean out any software that runs in the background that isn't critical, do adware scan/removals, and physically clean the fan & vent area of dust.

 

I have just installed Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit on my UL50VT. After installing the VGA driver on the Asus download website, the Device Manager reported the NVIDIA GeForce G210M driver was not installed with a yellow exclamation mark and the message "Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)".

The G210M driver downloaded from NVIDIA wouldn't install either.

I think that maybe the online VGA driver is different from the one in the recovery disc. If anyone has VGA working fine on their UL50VT running 64-bit Windows 7, please post a backup of the driver so I can test if it works on mine. Thanks in advance.

 

I don't if this is too old of a subject, but I have searched every where I can't find a solution. I reformatted and Installed W7 Ultimate on my UL50VT I got from best buy.

I have re-installed all the drivers from the support page and I can't get the turbo33 gadget back on my desktop.
I tried newer versions of the power4 gear hybrid and the utility works but there is nothing indicating overclocking or the turbo33 gadget. Is there someone that can help? Thanks

 

Can anyone with a Ul50vt tell me what volt their battery runs on? I have been having a few weird issues with my battery and want to replace it. The battery I got when I bought it just a few weeks ago says it runs on 14.4 volts but also says as ul80 right next to it. It makes me wonder if they put the wrong battery in, causing all my battery issues, or if the battery is just defective. So yea, any help would be appreciated.

 

I have just purchased a refub UL80vt about 3 weeks ago. I am certain that both UL50 and UL80 share the same battery type. There id an original label on my battery : Asus Li-ion Battery Pack A42-UL50 Rating + 15V -- 5600mAh 84Wh. And there is another barcoded sticker says: UL80VT-A1.

My battery, according to HMonitor, has Charge Level of 99% and Wear Level of 4%. I supposed that is good (?).

 

I have asus ul50vt, I was wondering if anyone was getting audio static? Im using dedicated g210m, and the gpu is about 80c playing Leauge of legends(new version of DOTa). But after playing for about 40 min, the laptop has very loud static coming out of the speaker. Whether the (LAPTOP IS ON MUTE, HAS HEADPHONE ON, it will be all staticy. I suspect audio driver problem or video card. But anyone have this problem? pm me so we can talk

 

Please!!!!!

Help me, ive 6 months trying to install video drivers on UL50VT (clean install win7-64bits& drivers from asus webpage), but it doesnt works it just have an exclamation mark on it.

Please i need help, i dont have Original CD cuz its bestbuy refubrished LAP.

Thx in advanced

 

Does anybody have the Asus disassembly manual/guide for the UL50VT? I saw it posted on notebookreview some time ago, but the link no longer works.

Thanks.

 

PLEASEEEEEEEE!!!

Im going to get crazy, what if someone uploads a zip file made with driver genius or something like that? for win7 32bit and 64bit...

I really need to upgrade my OS, im stuck on XP

Saludos!

 

I have an ASUS UL50VT running Windows 7 64.

I did a system restore and now my webcam doesn't work. I can't get the drivers on the ASUS site to function and I can't find any external help. If someone could help me out with a solution, I'd appreciate it.

 

Is anyone still around here? I'm having some freak issues here.

#1: Webcam not working. Device Manager doesn't even have it listed, and I suspect a wire has frayed or something. Just wondering if anyone else has noticed such an issue.

#2. Display drivers have gone stupid. Whenever I plug/unplug my HDMI monitor, it decides to forget that the G210M exists and scales down to the intel graphics. The graphics switch stops working, and then the tray icon completely disappears. Short term solution is to just re-install the driver but I have to do that every single time I plug it back in to the monitor or power.

 

oh yeah reutnes there is a new driver update for GeForce G210m
its 280.26
you can download it .. it might be able to fix most of your problems
good luck
[just get the update from nvidia's main site]

 

tyvm. I'll have to shoot an email to ASUS and ask them to add the new driver to their website so more people don't get confused like I did.

 

I was recently given a used UL80VT by a family member. I've worked on it before, maintaining it, upgraded the RAM, HDD, etc, so I'm fairly familiar with it already.

I ran a factory recovery, removed the bloatware, installed software including setFSB & Nvidia System Tools so I can OC when needed.

I've ran through this thread and searched others here looking for the latest working Nvidia drivers. So far I've found the modded 197.16 drivers and I'm still looking for what else is available that might be newer, because I hate the idea of being stuck with stock drivers from '09. What are people running that is stable or recommended?

 

wittynorseman if you look on my previous post you can see that a new update was release on august 9, 2011.. called 280.26
good luck

 

I did see that; as did I read all 149 pages of this thread before I posted. Problem is Nvidia does not support Hybrid Graphics on the UL80VT and others like it. 280.26 would work just fine on any Optimus based laptop with the G210M, but this is not the case.

 

freezing problem! ASUS UL80VT

this problem has been going on for months now and I dont' know how to get rid of it. typically when I watch videos, use gmail phone or skype my computer will freeze for a few seconds then resume. in that time, nothing will respond. the mouse won't move and the if there's a sound going, it'll kind of stutter and sound like a motor. any mouse button I click or key I type will register after the computer unfreezes.

I sent my computer back to ASUS TWICE. the first time, they replaced my hard drive and the second time they replaced my motherboard..which leads me to believe it might be software. I have experimented with updating my drivers and not updating my drivers but I have no idea what the problem is.

If it was a software issue, I would expect more people to have this problem...I have not really found anyone who has yet though.

Thanks!

Also, sometimes I will get the error message, "Display driver stopped responding and has recovered", as the title, then underneath "Display driver NVIDIA Windows Kernel Mode Driver, Version 186.88 stopped responding and has successfully recovered."

it appears in a bubble on the taskbar.

 

It IS a problem that Asus don´t offer support for the hybrid driver any longer. E.g using hardware acceleration in web browsers are automatically turned off due to old driver version.
Asus please update the driver!!!

 

Upgrade to the lastest flash player. The older release of flash would lock up my computer as you described. But newest update fixed it for most things. But it made windows live messenger lag very bad.

 

I actually downgraded my mouse driver and it seemed to fix it. I'm not sure which version it was, but the newer version had the auto-scroll function and the rolled back one doesn't.

EDIT: so the problem has started to come back..I don't think I changed anything. Are you talking about adobe flash player for a browser? the problem happens in either windows media player or vlc. I'm sure it happens with other ones too.

 

I have this same problem as well and I strongly believe that the nVidia drivers are to blame. I have had various Linux distributions being used on my UL50Vt and all of them using the generic nVidia driver to enable the video card. Not once have I had the freezing problem inside Linux and I have tested that the video card is working by playing StarCraft 2 off Wine (and I get 40 fps on the lowest settings which is the same I get in Windows).

I've even sent an e-mail detailing this to ASUS and they said that they will foward it to their driver's department. This was about a year ago. I'm fully convinced that ASUS just doesn't give a crap about their older models anymore.

 

I'll buy that for a dollar. They, Asus, never updated the driver, these laptops hit the market in late '09 and that is when the "latest" driver is from, '09. Nvidia won't give us a bone and include it in their drivers, so what do we do?

Asus and Nvidia can eat it.

 

then you would lost your dollar then .... cause they updated the video card drive of the geforce g210m 2-3 weeks ago.... so give me dollar!

 

Yes how can we lay pressure on Asus or Nvidia to make an update???

@Kynigos: You're wrong, you're the one who lost! There's no new drivers supporting Hybrid Power technology with Intel chipsets

 

I will not say anything about "Kynigos" that will get me banned, I promise... Such a smart fellow and helpful contributor, about as useful as ashtrays on motorcycles. If he knew so much, then he would know that 280.26 basicly states that the hardware is not supported by Nvidia and that is it supported by the vendor (Asus), then the installer closes...