U30JC discussion thread

[Quatro]

Others have said that the 4400mAh and the 5600mAh batteries are the identical size in all respects.

[Kroep]

@ Brussel

I had the same problem as you had: no recognition of 310m in controlpanel, only intel graphics card is listed. After some google-ing i've found out it has something to do with the Bios. Try this in bios:

load default settings
{screen pops up)
load optimized settings ==> first try no and look in windows if he reconise it by looking in the hardware list

It doesn't work? Try to load optimized settings by choosing yes.

Good luck. I had the same problem yesterday; watchting a video and suddenly i've had a blue screen. After a new start up the 310m wasn't there. I fixed it in matter of minutes.

[Serendipity545]

So, I'm about a week into having my U30JC-B1, and I have some questions.

I can't seem to get more than four hours out of my laptop. I've tried every different setting, from the ones Windows provides to the Power4Gear options. I even created a custom battery plan, but no go. Also, when my cursor hovers over the battery icon, the time readouts fluctuate dramatically.

I just took it off the charger on balanced, and it read about 4 and a half hours. Then I switched it to quiet office, which changed it to 6 hours at 91%, Then a few moments later, it says 7 hours and 34 minutes at 90%. Does anyone know what is causing this? (Note, the only program I'm running at the moment is Google Chrome)

[Quatro]

So, I'm about a week into having my U30JC-B1, and I have some questions.

I can't seem to get more than four hours out of my laptop. I've tried every different setting, from the ones Windows provides to the Power4Gear options. I even created a custom battery plan, but no go. Also, when my cursor hovers over the battery icon, the time readouts fluctuate dramatically.

I just took it off the charger on balanced, and it read about 4 and a half hours. Then I switched it to quiet office, which changed it to 6 hours at 91%, Then a few moments later, it says 7 hours and 34 minutes at 90%. Does anyone know what is causing this? (Note, the only program I'm running at the moment is Google Chrome)

7 1/2 hrs on quiet office is good. Yes, there is lots of fluctuation, but the more I used mine, the more it seemed to stabilize. I assume you have the 8-cell 5600mAh battery?

Unless you're doing something to activate the discrete GPU, the battery recallibrates itself every 1% that passes.

Have you fully charged it, put it in battery saver mode, turned brightness to about 50% and then turned off wifi & use it for 60 min and watch the battery "guess-timate" to see what it reads? It should settle down and begin to give you a consistent reading. Try using it for a long session like that and tells us your readings. Then use it for an hour with the WiFi on and watch the battery readings. I did that for 2 hrs and kept Notepad open and recorded the time, battery percentage and "time left" every 10 min or so, just to see what was happening.

But if you go online and go over a web page with a flash ad on it, that can activate the nVidia GPU and the battery reading will drop.

What nVidia driver are you using? The newest 258.96 drivers work well for me on my U30Jc. You can find it HERE.

Under the new 257.xx drivers, in nVidia Control Panel, you can set the nVidia GPU to never activate while using your browser. That will save you battery. I can watch HULU, etc with my Intel HD very well. No skipping.

Right now, I'm online (obviously) with Firefox open, I have bluetooth & WiFi on, 50% brightness,"Battery Saving" mode and my battery reads "5 hrs 59 min (83%) remaining." If I do nothing else, that time decreases consistently with the passing of each percentage.

BTW, if you don't like P4G turning off your wallpaper & Aero each time you engage Battery Saving, you can easily change that in P4G.

There is a cost to power saving. P4G turns my i3-350M 2.26 GHz processor down to about 1.2 GHz in Quiet Office and down to 931 MHz in Battery Saving. To gain battery life, you must lose processing speed..

[brobrobrobro]

Alright, I just got my U30JC-B1, and am planning on doing a clean install. When I do that, what drivers am I going to need to install? The driver disk that came with it includes multiple drivers and I know I don't need them all, so which ones?

I'm also not sure about the optimus ones. Do I install both the Intel driver AND the nvidia driver? In which order?

What about the various ASUS programs? Do I need any of those?

Help appreciated.

[Quatro]

Unless you are upgrading the HDD, you may find it easier (and less adventurous) to just remove those apps, bloatware & trialware you don't need.

It'll take you an hour, which is the minimum of what you'll take to reinstall, etc.

The trialware apps & trialware games are obvious and easy to remove.

The bloatware is relative. Look at each ASUS app before you remove it. Some are actually useful.

I continue to find those who are new and reinstalling their OS but forgetting certain crucial drivers and then leaving out apps that are linked to hotkeys on the keyboard.

If you want to make your HDD one partition (with one hidden for the OS restore) instead of the two it comes with, just launch Windows and at boot up, press F9. This will start the recovery partition's reinstall of the OS. In those beginning steps, it will ask you if you want one partition or two. Choose one, and it will do the rest.

Doing this still restores the trialware, etc which you'll still need to remove.

If you've a HDD upgrade like an SSD and need to reinstall the OS or just want to do it anyway, see my short post of do's & don't's HERE, write back and we'll share what we know.

As to Optimus, yes, you'll need the drivers for BOTH the Intel & nVidia GPU's.

I own a U30Jc-A1 and am presently using these drivers and they are working well for me:
Intel: 8.15.10.2182. You can find it HERE.
nVidia: 8.17.12.5896 (258.96). You can find it HERE.

As for what drivers to install, the driver install is smarter than that. It only gives you choices of what is possible. I would just check them all except TrendMicro AV (unless there are certain ASUS apps you're SURE you won't use) and then let it install. It's automated and reboots after each driver install. It doesn't install any trialware that way (ecept TrendMicro, which you shouldn't check.)

If you insist on picking & choosing, BE SURE to reinstall "Intel Management Engine Interface" (IMEI) as several have missed that one in the past.

Fn+C: ASUS Splendid Utility provides color tint templates that work via Fn+C. It's a nice app. I like it.

Fn+V: ASUS LifeFrame which activates the webcam via Fn+V and lets you set it up.

ALL of the available ATK drivers must be installed to have the hotkey functions work like sound, brightness, etc. I think they are compressed into a single install file on the DVD.

Fn+Spacebar: cyles through Power4Gear power mode. P4G provides a GUI that you can use to quickly access power saving specs. (It is not essential. Ypou can reach all of those settings under Power settings>advanced, but it's pretty and it gives you the main things to change quickly in a simple GUI.

Of course, you'll need to load drivers for the sound, touchpad though Windows 7 will do a lot of that for you, though the DVD may have newer & better drivers. The video drivers are the ones that get updated the most.

[brobrobrobro]

Okay, so Optimus will automatically start working when I install both the separate drivers for each graphics chip? Is there any way to be sure it's working?

And yeah, I have a larger, 7200 RPM disk I'm going to put in. I just spent the time making the 4 DVD backup, so from what your post in that other thread says, it is safe to delete the hidden partition, correct? In addition to all that I have my own copy of Windows 7 Ultimate which is what I'll be installing on the new disk.

Basically what I should do is install Windows, run the setup on the Drivers CD, and install most of the things except what I know I don't need. Correct? And about the touchpad/sound, are you saying that the driver cd doesn't automatically install those?

Thanks!

[Quatro]

Okay, so Optimus will automatically start working when I install both the separate drivers for each graphics chip? Is there any way to be sure it's working?

Optimus software is part of the nVidia driver install. To check & tweak it, right click on your desktop and select NVIDIA Control Panel. There you will see lots of ways to set up Optimus; tweak it to be sure & use whatever GPU you wish to use with any program. It will do it's own guessing by checking your HDD first thing to see what apps & games it recognizes, which you can keep if you agree with Optimus.

Each driver release, Optimus gets a little better. In the first drivers, it wouldn't run WinDVD 2010 nor PowerDVD 9 Ultra with the nVidia GPU, even when I told it to do so. In a later driver, I suddenly found I could select nVidia GPU and it would run it, but WinDVD then kept crashing/closing. In this latest driver, it now sees my WinDVD 2010 and has that it will run it ONLY with the Intel IGP. I couldn't change that option. It had learned that the program crashes when run with the nVidia GPU. Clever.

Also, do download two more tools: nVidia System Tools (which will let you o'c the GPU) HERE and go HERE to get the Optimus nVidia Test Tool. When launched, it's a desktop gadget that tells you when the nVidia GPU is active (in case you're wondering if a certain game or program or browser page is using the nVidia GPU or the Intel IGP.)

And yeah, I have a larger, 7200 RPM disk I'm going to put in. I just spent the time making the 4 DVD backup, so from what your post in that other thread says, it is safe to delete the hidden partition, correct? In addition to all that I have my own copy of Windows 7 Ultimate which is what I'll be installing on the new disk.

Yes, if you're changing out the HDD, no need for that partition. I just repartitioned & reformatted my old drive & put it in an external USB enclosure as a backup & storage HDD. And you're reinstalling from an external DVD anyway, which is better IMO.

Basically what I should do is install Windows, run the setup on the Drivers CD, and install most of the things except what I know I don't need. Correct? And about the touchpad/sound, are you saying that the driver cd doesn't automatically install those?

Correct. Yes, the driver DVD does automatically suggest you install them. It will give you a long list of checked apps & drivers. Uncheck what you don't want only if you're sure you don't need it. (Believe me, it's better to be safe than sorry.)

[brobrobrobro]

Okay, I think I've got it. Thanks for the tips!

[Helpmyfriend]

Im loving the laptop, I just hope in 6 months from now the i3 CPU isnt outdated and regret not waiting for the i5 model.

I notice the vents are on the side and from what i see none on the bottom. So would it be ok to use this on my lap when in bed?