*Official UL30VT-X1 Owners Lounge*

Has anyone came up with a fix for the hanging on boot with the graphics? I thought I'd figured it out but every odd boot it black screens and hangs. As well it doesn't always switch from the intel to nvidia gpu. It seems almost as if the switcher app is hanging.

 

UL30VT R.I.P ... Mine is going back to Asus due hardwareproblems tomorrow...

 

The UL30VT-A1 is available in Canada for pre order at PC Canada http://www.pccanada.com/viewitem.asp?id=24987
and at Infonec Computers http://www.infonec.com/site/main.php?module=detail&id=450397

 

I just reinstalled Win7 Ultimate on my A1 and on return from hibernate, I keep getting 'invalid boot media.' But ctrl-alt-delete fixed it right back. It's annoying, but has anyone experienced this?

 

Yes... Me... see longer up on the page... I have to send it to asus. I got "reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device and press a key" even now AFTER reinstalling the win 7.. And new Bios did not help either.

So.. Contact asus asap.

 

Janne, I did remember reading your post. I tried searching in this thread but found nothing. It kept telling me no search result. Did they fix it?

I did swap out my stock 5400rpm hdd with a 7200rpm seagate with g-force shock protection (st9500420asg). Wonder if that's the issue? Was yours with the stock hdd?

 

Mine is the stock hdd. I haven´t send it yet because i havent received any UPS shipment papers. So the same is poping up EVEN if you changed hdd? THATS strange!

 

I truly think it's a software issue. Perhaps it's the chipset software? I did use Asus' driver CD to reinstall most of the important drivers. I'm going to do a clean install again, and then use intel's chipset software instead and see if that make a difference.

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=18494&lang=eng

The ULV chipset uses the Mobile Intel® 4 Series Express Chipset Family.

 

make sure you are in High Performance mode I believe.
HDMI won't work on the intel graphics. gotta be on the g210.

Then it should work plug n play after you hit Win+P

 

Hey guys, I don't recall seeing this posted, so I thought I would share...

Newegg has the 30VT-A1 in stock. The catch is, it's $899 + shipping.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220686

It's worth keeping an eye on, I suppose.

 

the a1 is popping up everywhere, what about the x1?

 

Can anyone comment on the A1 running with a SSD. I'm debating on the Intel SSD but need some convincing to take the plunge.

Thanks

 

How bad is the screen? I'm assuming all the UL's have the same screen? I use Photoshop alot and I will probably have an external monitor as well but is the screen good enough for digital imaging and drawing and whatnot?

 

Well I went to my university techstore today and checked out the Ul30a and specifically took a good look at the screen. Honestly, (maybe my current laptop has a bad display too), I don't find it to be bad. It wasn't awesome, but with the 10minutes or so I spent with it, I couldn't find any reason that the screen would be a deal breaker. I'll agree that the viewing angles are bad, but I'm pretty sure one spends most of their time directly in front of the screen anyways...

I find the screen pretty comparable to most average consumer screens out there. And unless you're conditioned to viewing colours from a non-TNpanel screen, I think it would be good enough.

But thats just me from my 10minute experience. Maybe someone who has actually tried photoshop on the unit can give their 2cents.

 

Anyone else update to the 204 bios yet? I just did and and noticed the Easy Overclock option.

 

How do we access the BIOS anyways? (I press F2 on boot-up, but it doesn't go into the BIOS)

iwill how was your new keyboard?

 

I'm considering getting an ssd drive for my A1 too but right now it's just too expensive. I'll just wait til later this year when prices are cheaper.

I went into the bios of my A1 and it's already on 204...

 

F2 is what I keep pressing immediately when the ASUS logo shows up.

New keyboard is GREAT. No more space bar issue

 

The question is, what does Easy Overclock do? I noticed it on mine too, and wasn't sure whether I should mess with it.

 

Why get the x1 though? just the color? Most people would rather the larger battery than a preference in color. I think that's why the A1 is everywhere and the x1 is not.

 

I updated the BIOS to 204 and messed with the Easy Overclock, 0% and 5% + Turbo Mode and tried running the super pi program, the time it took to do 1M calculations were the same. Also, it didn't show any changes to the CPUz program.

So in the end, I just leave the Easy Overclock at 0%.

 

doublepost

 

I'm not sure if they changed the screen, but the vertical viewing angle is fine for student purposes. I can sit up, slouch, stretch my neck or back without having to change the viewing angle. It is comparable to my 14" compaq and 15" gateway laptops. No complaints here.

Another complaint however,is the touchpad sometimes registers the base of my thumb and palm when I type. I have the sensitivity of the touchpad set close to the lowest. They could've avoided this problem with a recessed touchpad.

 

yeah just the color, i don't know i'm just really not a fan of the silver haha

 

+1, in love with the black. It's easy to upgrade the battery after the fact, and honestly I doubt I'll ever make a claim against the warranty anyway.

It's hard to swallow that for only a few bucks more I could get the A1 with extra warranty and battery, but I'm hoping that the X1 pricing will come down a little too once it's back in stock ($770 would be nice, to make it ~$50 less than the A1).

 

Black is nice but look at it this way, silver wont show as many fingerprints or dust and wont show scratches as easy. Personally cosmetics is last on my list of priorities.

 

I've gotta tell ya, silver is the MUCH higher productivity color!

Why?

Because you won't be spending a lot of time cleaning smears and fingerprints off the glossy black .

Seriously, I've had five or six ASUS notes and the UL30VT-A1 is the only one that is NOT a fingerprint magnet. Oh, they are still there I'm sure; it's a gloss surface after all, but the point is you cannot see them. Pictures don't show the slight fishnet effect on this model; it's not uniform, but has a very subtle pattern of a lighter color embossed or painted on the surface. That plus the neutral silver/grey makes it hard to nearly impossible to see prints and smudges.

Add that to the year longer warranty and the bigger battery and I think the few extra bucks are a bargain.

 

I got a 128GB UltraDrive in mine and it kicks . With a windows rating score of 7.3 what's there not to love?

What I should probably mention to anyone that is installing an SSD and doing a clean Windows 7 install is that in BIOS you have to change BOTH the boot order AND set the USB flash drive as the first hard drive. I must have spent half a day failing to boot from the USB until I finally figured out that both steps were necessary.

 

Thanks. My previous laptop was a HP tx2500 tablet so I'm sure it wouldn't be worse than that, with its grainy screen, bad viewing angles and all. Which I was perfectly okay with.

 

Just put it away after 36 hour "torture" burn-in, so no pics, but overall I'm even happier than I thought I'd be. Windows is very snappy on this machine, and performance was better than I expected. I'm coming from an ASUS 10J netbook and wondered if I'd have any of that "caught in amber" feeling but none at all. World of Warcraft plays absolutely beautifully, with everything maxed except shadows and textures @ 50%. Left 4 Dead does pretty well at suggested settings, but there I do notice a little pixelation and very slight hesitations from time to time in game.

Obviously bigger than the 10J it doesn't really feel heavier at all, the build is great with no flex (love the aluminum), keyboard is solid with good touch and travel, the screen is again better than I expected after reading reviews dissing it (yeah, off axis color isn't great but guess what, I don't sit off axis!). Heat is NOT an issue, under normal (non-game use) I can't even hear the fan, gaming it ramps up a little but is no distraction at all.

Trying to think of something I don't like... well beside the crappy .3mp camera probably the screen resolution: I'd prefer something just a bit finer. Sound is both better and louder than my G51J. Oh, yeah, in the CON column put down the fact that the new JT model should be out in a couple of months with better CPU/GPU for probably the same money!

If David succeeds with the backlit keyboard mod the UL30VT will be as close to a perfect thin and light as I can reasonably imagine at anywhere near its price point.

 

FYI -- for anyone who goes this route. Asus DOES NOT stock the ul30vt-x1 therefore if you are warrantying for a replacement they can't do it. Learned the hard way and now I'm returning through Amazon; except there's none in stock

 

I wonder how I get into these messes!

I decided to try the clean install method (bootable USB), followed by specific ASUS driver and utility installs. I don't have an optical drive, so once I had the "basic" Win 7 installed, I went to the ASUS site and got the specific files. Everything seemed to go smoothly until I installed the NVIDIA driver.

I didn't know about a problem until I restarted to see how things were. It got stuck at "Please wait" for a LONG time when coming back up, so I finally gave up and restarted again. This time it came up, but there are some unusual errors. I get 4 message boxes that display, each one having "Security Warning" at the top, and asking if I want to run an executable. It asks twice for igfxtray.exe, once for hkcmd.exe, and once for igfxpers.exe. I just say yes and allow them to execute.

It appears that these .exe files were all part of the NVIDIA driver install. Is the NVIDIA driver on the ASUS site correct? That's what I used.

I think things are working well, but I can't be sure. What is the most obvious way to see that both integrated and discrete graphics are working? I can switch power plans and see changes in the brightness, but is there a way that I can actually be sure that both all working?

If so, why am I getting these errors? Did anyone else encounter this problem? Or do you have any suggestions on how to fix it? Thanks.

 

From the Asus rep on amazon regarding Canadian UL30VTs:
"Sorry all, the units showed up and shipped out, but there were more orders than inventory. More units will arrive the first week of February. I am also working on getting the sliver UL30VT-A1 to Canada, but I'm afraid there is no ETA -- probably middle of February. Sorry again, but thank you for your interest."

durrrr.... at least it seems the american supply is getting ramped up. X1 will be in stock soon for those who absolutely want the X1.

 

I'm having problems playing HD video, tried playing both 720p and 1080p with VLC player, both stutter a bit in some parts of the movie, I seem to remember someone saying he played high def movies with no problem, is it just a software problem? is there anything I can try?

Working with the UL30VT with the dedicated card on.

 

You could try changing the VLC video output to a GPU-optimized option like OpenGL or DirectX. See what that does.

 

Try plyaing the video using windows media player. It has hardware acceleration thus you can play 1080P video even at 800mhz on battery power.

 

I received my UL30VT-A1 yesterday!! First comments, its really small and light. Start up time is ok and for now after maybe 3 hours of web surfing I still got more than 5 hours left on the first charge. Made my order tuesday and got it friday in Montreal at www.ordicentre.com if you are in the area .

 

Nice sticker removal! Do they come off just peeling them or do you need to work it to get it off?

 

On mine only the nVidia and Intel stickers left residue; working on getting that off right now.

EDIT: A little WD40 on a rag did it eventually but it was a mess for a while.

 

Cool. I hesitate to ask, but on my A1, if I tilt the laptop so that I am looking at the status lights directly, eye level with the palm rest, there's an ever small gap between each of the 4 status lights. I can press on that silver plastic trim above it and it moves a bit, closing the gap. The status light LED leaks out from the gap a bit. Not a big issue, but just a little disappointed at the lack of tightness in the the chassis built quality.

Does anyone else have that issue?

 

All easy except Intel and nvidia one that left glue on it. It came off with lighter fluid. Anyone know if the trackpad stay sticky after removing the sticker?

 

Didn't on mine.

Lighter fluid would have been better than WD40 but I didn't have any.

 

Yep. Never would have noticed if you hadn't pointed it out, so thanks for that - lol.

 

Oops! Sorry! I noticed the lights looking strange last night and that's when I checked it out... I bet a small drop of superglue will fix it right up!

 

Didn't on mine either.

 

Funnily enough that's made things worse, when it was on default it played but only stuttered on "busy" parts, changing it made it do all sort of other, bad things.


Windows media player doesn't even recognise the mkv file.


Thanks for trying to help though.

 

You can install K-Lite Codec packs and it will enable you to watch mkv files on Windows Media Player.

 

I have the same issue. Only certain parts stutter. I think the ULV processor, even overclocked to 1.73 is not fully able to keep up, although processor usage is not close to 100%. I don't understand why the discrete graphics card is not helping either. It's a bit disappointing.

 

Is there a place to get 720p/1080p sample videos? I would like to test it.

 

I've installed the k lite codec pack (full) and just ran the 1080p clip I've used to test it, with windows media player classic, works like a charm.

Thanks proview3r!