G50V... Express Gate...

I have a G50 and I'm very happy with it, except that I have to take the battery everytime I turn it off so Express Gate doesn't suck it while I'm not using it.

Just a question: How do I turn it (Express Gate) off?

I know I can:
-Take the battery;
-Uninstall Express Gate.

But it's there another way? I mean, just turn it off when I go to bed or something like that...

I called Asus (well, you know... you give your name, they call later... later=8 hours later or next day... in this case, both... but it's ok, I don't mind) and on the first call they told me to unistall it and on the second the guy told me "there's an option to turn it off on the program"...
AllI can see is the Exit button (leads to Windows) and Power button (turns the PC off, but not Express Gate), not to mention the other buttons (game, web, etc...)

Please, HELP.

PS: Just a detail (not about the same subject) on Computer it shows 4 HDDs, each with 149Gb. Is it ok? I mean, it should be 2 of 300, right? If you know how I can put it that way (2 of 300Gb), please, let me know. If you don't know (or just don't care or don't want to bother typing ), no problem, it just bugs me a bit.

 

That stupid expressgate light won't ever go off even if you remove expressgate. At least I've not figured out how to get it to stop. It's the kind of thing they'd need a BIOS option for and there doesn't seem to be one.

In terms of ur hard drives, those are partitions, not physical drives. You can use your recovery cd to blast away those partitions and install to one full drive, or you can set up RAID 0 across both drives (so they show up as one), there are a few options you have. You can also delete a partition or two and extend your other partitions. But that isn't the cleanest way to go about things.

 

I just suck it up and let it drain at this point. I'm usually plugged in with this laptop wherever I go anyway.

 

can you use express gate when using raid 0

 

Doesn't seem to work for me. I tried installing ExpressGate just now and shut down. When I hit the expressgate button it throws an error message and reboots.

 

Does anyone even find it useful at all? Why does anyone really need to listen to music on their laptop in 5 seconds or to use Skype or whatever? It would be a lot better if it gave direct access to files on the hard drive, like word documents, but I don't think that's possible.

 

Great point Jim, I would like to access doc and mp3 and stuff from the hd. As for the point of it is for others to use your laptop without getting into the system and to be able to use it using minimal power so that you can use it longer. It is a great idea and feature but at the same time it needs time to mature.

 

I'd rather have a more mature linux distro built into hardware. Like if i could boot suse or ubuntu and have it totally seperate from my hdds as an "insant on" that would be more useful. As of right now I've only used it maybe twice .

 

There is a term called RTFM

You can not turn off the light, its part of the hardware design, it says so in the manual.

You can not use Express Gate with Raid 0, it says so in the manual.

I highly doubt that little led is draining much battery power, if something is draining power its not the light. Test it yourself find a low voltage led and hook it to a little AA battery and see how long it lasts.

I personally dont use it (I dont even have a choice I have Raid 0) but there is nothing really to complain about.

 

In the manual, it says: "It is normal to see a dim light on this key even when the Notebook PC is powered off" and don't say anything about turn it off.

I had my G50v turned off with the battery on it for two days. Now I only have 80%.

btw, hey guys

 

I'll have to check this out when i get home as I was wondering the same thing.

My laptop was fully charged last night and when I put it on this morning I was sitting at 94%.

Interesting.

 

I think a button close to the Power button would do it without trouble. Dam those sweet looking blue leds.
A led may not draw that much power (in my case, maybe not the led, I can't remember how much it had when I left it, but I remeber it had 17% when I turned it on), but it still drains power. Anyway, lots of people complain about it (not just in this forum), so believe it's not just my problem.
Fact is: even if you use the ExpressGate, it's useless to have a glowy button standing there forever, but I guess we can do nothing, right? Just keep looking at that led and make it useful or take the battery off.

PS: I tried using Express Gate, I randomly hitted the Game button and it just froze on the black screen with the ExpressGate logo. Was it because I have no games or should I worry?

I love my G50 (I would love anything costing as much as G50) but I simply hate that ExpressGate. Even an "Instant Calculator" would be more useful.

 

I would rather a play movie feature on Express Gate for DVDs / Bluray... I haven't tried the music player with a music CD yet.

I did try the web browser and it works like a charm.

 

If some of you guys are running Vista, the default action for Vista when you shut down is to enter a sleep state instead of fully shutting down. You may want to modify that if you want it to fully shut down instead of entering that sleep state.

 

it doesnt even work right after it boots into express gate. it takes another 10sec or more for the wifi to initiate. Using vistas hibernate feature you can recover much faster with full functionality. its not like express gate saves you any battery life

 

I could be wrong, but pretty sure when your running off the AC adapter, it does not ALWAYS charge. I see mine cycling from 100% to 95% and back up again. I read this somewhere either on these boards or in the manual that it does this so you don't keep charging the battery which would reduce its life somewhat if you always have it plugged in.

 

aviper is correct. Say you plug into AC at 50% battery. It will charge all the way up to 100%, and then turn off the charging feature. But it will continue to run off of AC power and not the battery. The battery will eventually self-discharge, or you will use the battery, which will reset the circuit.
Basically, the charging circuit is disabled from 100%->95%. If it hits 94% it will turn on again.

 

I always plug in the AC no wonder the battery status always display 95%
At first I thought is my battery life get reduced until I read this post.
Thanks for the info.

 

Well, technically, the battery life will be significantly reduced if left in a highly charged state for extended periods of time. The battery will last almost three to five times longer if left at approximately 40% when not being used.

 

People!!! You'r going offtopic

A way to turn it off...

 

Hey, just registered to the forum because I have a G50v-A2 and I have experienced this battery drain.
In regards to the people who are talking about there batt not charging past 94-95%, I have seen this one this laptop as well as others. It has to do with the battery not being properly calibrated. Your battery needs to be fully discharged (to a safe full discharge that is, about 5%) then fully recharged. Don't put it down to 0% as that is bad for the battery.
The expressgate DOES drain the battery, and I am sure it is more then just the little blue LED that is doing it, there is no way it could draw that much power. When I leave my laptop off over night it goes down 5-10%. I have only had this laptop for about 2 weeks so I have been using it every day. I bet if I left it off for more then a couple days it would go down quite a bit.
I turned my laptop on today... don't think I used it since night before last and it was at 89%. That is a pretty serious drain. Has anyone removed expressgate and compared battery life? I may try and do this.

 

A note: if not caused by the LED, the drain may also be unrelated to ExpressGate.

As to battery calibration, there is also an option in the BIOS.

 

Yeah, it could be unrelated. But I am seeing consistent repeated drain.... ::turns laptop on:: it is at 95% now, when it was at a full 100% when I turned if off yesterday, it will now charge up to 100%, something it would NOT do if it was a battery calibration problem. If the battery needed calibrated it would sit here at 95% until I drained it and then charge it back up.

I'm sure it's not just the LED, but I could see how having the touch button constantly on... I don't even know what all is needed to be active for that button to be constantly available.

 

I agree about your battery assessment. If it were poorly calibrated, it would never charge past 95%.

For a button to work, I would expect that actually nothing has to be activated... it's a simple electrical switch. Similarly for the LED.

It might just be some device that is left turned by mistake.

 

And how to remove the ExpressGate? I would try it if I just knew how.

 

Sadly if you uninstall the software, it will still power on the laptop instantly with the button and just crash.

 

HMmm... I wonder what else could be on? The button is a touch button... which need to be constantly monitored, waiting for your touch. LOL that sounds wrong... I am not sure how much power that requires but I'm betting a lot more then a simple LED.

 

Ah, I thought it was a mechanical type of button. Yeah, that would need some (perhaps marginal) amount of power. Since I don't know how the technology works, I can't say more than that with certainty. But it stands to reason it shouldn't be an amount of power that depletes the battery within 5 days. Otherwise as a designer I'd just go for an old-style mechanical button. Unless the marketing department would be all over me, that is.

 

for me whenever i press the express gate button on my asus g50v A1, it goes straight to windows media center. I have never been able to use express gate. Does anyone know how to fix this problem?

 

You need to press the Express Gate button when machine is off and it will boot into Express Gate.

 

I want to remove Express Gate too! I agree it's pretty useless. Is there any way to do this besides Formatting?

Maybe it would be nice on an EEE but on this full PC it's pointless.

 

I also hate this button when laptop is off.
What if i put it on backpack and it accidentally turns on with this touchscreen button - this is extremely stupid button - then laptop will be dead - it will overheat.
I started express gate once and i didn't wait when browser opens - where is 8 seconds??? - Vista hibernation works at same speed, so i have never used none of this Linux software, then i rip off all partitions and install 64bit Ultimate on RAID0.
There is 2 ways: Maybe Asus puts in new BIOS edition this to turn OFF.
Second I'm thinking about to go and fix this physically in in some service department.
The only good thing about this button is that i can power on laptop by pressing this button, then any key and I don't have to press power button

 

2 buttons instead of one. Where is the advantage?

 

E.B.E. - i mean that i touch ExpressGate button, then load fails, then i press any key on keyboard when asked. There is hope that ExpressGate touch button some day will die

 

My remark still holds.

If it doesn't die fast enough, use a bigger finger. Or a hammer

 

I think Your remark could be addressed to ASUS and i think it is ASUS mistake and should be fixed in BIOS as ON/OFF option!!!
The sub-good thing is that i can power on laptop by pressing touch button

 

Finally ExpressGate touch-button is unaccessible - no light.
Great, i don't have anymore worry about this problem!
I installed VistaUltimate64bit, and installed ALL drivers.
Then removed all and moved to 32bit operating systems.
And ExpressGate is gone forever i hope

 

Im pretty sure its almost impossible for the laptop to turn on by itself when its closed... Even if the button touches the LCD, Im thinking it wont turn on because of the capacitive buttons...

what do you guys think?

 

I cannot say since I don't even know the location of the button (and I'm too lazy to find pictures now...) but it it is on the outside, I guess it depends on what kind of material touches it.

 

I felt that ASUS will do so - they have to keep power to this button - answer from tech.support.
But this is strange - i left for 3 days laptop with battery in it and remaining capacity from full charged was left 75% - so i can keep this laptop without attention ~11 days.
Then i booted several times to different operating systems, and i didn't check when this LED button light disappeared again. This button is nolight at several restarts. After 2 days without battery in it i put it back, i'll check how long will there be no light...

 

I was just cleaning the LCD screen for the first time (using the handy microfibre cloth provided by Asus) and near the bottom I somehow activated Express Gate! I'll check later, but it seems that just the weight of one edge of the cloth was enough to trigger the button).

I agree that this button should have a BIOS option to disable it or make it do something more useful.

 

It is not the weight, it is the electrical properties; since I think this is a capacitive touch sensor, see e.g., http://www.planetanalog.com/features/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=181401898

 

If this button reacts to electric objects, then there is no problem to power it on with piece of DUST - which is not finger and not even cloth
It's just question of probability...
I need line in BIOS to rip this thing off!!!

 

Well there shouldn't be so many objects out there with the same electrical properties as a human finger... but I expect there will be some. Still, it doesn't react to any "electric object" (btw, technically speaking all the objects are electric objects, since they contain electrons and protons, which are electrically charged particles )

 

any way of getting express gate without buying an asus???

 

Apparently not, seems like Splashtop (Express Gate) is commercial. Why don't you use a Live CD/DVD or Live USB key with a free distro such as Knoppix, Slax, or even Ubuntu?

 

Hello, I just wanted to tell all of you out there that have ASUS G50'S with RAID 0 you can use ExpressGate. What you have to do is upgrade it to version V1.0.2.0. I have Vista 64-bit and I'm running ExpressGate with a RAID 0 and WiFi WPA2 PSK AES perfectly. My notebook is a G50VT-X2. Just go to ASUS support website and type ExpressGate in the search bar then download version V1.0.2.0 and install it. I actually have a dual-boot RAID 0 so I installed it on my default OS and it works. Thank you.