GeForce G210M cutting out in my ASUS UL80VT

[manchuwok]

Hey all,

I've tried getting support from ASUS on this issue but they aren't helpful at all, so I figured I would post here before packing up this laptop and returning it. Here's my issue...

Yesterday I had the laptop hooked up to an external display to try some Team Fortress 2 for the first time. About 5 minutes into playing, the screen suddenly went black. I had to disconnect the monitor and then restart my laptop. When I did, I found that my graphics card was not being recognized. After some fiddling, I got it back.

So I tried again and after a few minutes of playing, same result. At this point, I got my graphics card recognized again and contacted ASUS tech support.

They told me to download the latest driver for my GeForce G210M, which I did. But upon installing the driver, my computer now no longer recognizes my graphics card at all. I can only display in poor resolutions, and when I try to run the nVidia utility, it gives me an error message saying I don't have a graphics card hooked up.

Upon calling ASUS technical support, their advice was to use the Recovery Console to restore to factory settings. I don't think this is a very helpful solution, so I'm hoping someone here might have some better ideas!

Any help would be super appreciated - I'm really frustrated by this laptop right now.

Ben

 

[irishtea]

Hello!

First off, let me just say that you are NOT ALONE. The same thing happened to me when I attempted to connect via HDMI to my HDTV. So, being the reasonable person that I am, I followed the same steps that you have followed, and came to the same dark end: A useless mobile graphics card because the latest drivers for the nVidia G210m are a load of crap on the model we are using. This results in rendering issues and resolution problems galore. However, I took it one step further, (on a recommendation from a friend), and installed older drivers on the nVidia G210m. This was a GIGANTIC issue for several days and I DO NOT RECOMMEND THAT. Please, whatever you do, DO NOT DO THAT.
*sigh*
But I digress, what you need is the solution. Little did you know, but ASUS provides a complete set of drivers on a disk with their computers, and you can use those to install and get back on your feet in no time. If you don't have the drivers, try searching for the "hybrid graphics driver UL-80vt G210m" in google or something and I bet you'll find something. But the reason why we can't update the drivers to something newer is because the unique hybrid graphics system of the UL-80vt DOES NOT HAVE ANY 1st party support from nVidia with any sort of consistent updates, leaving only the hacking community able to do anything about it. Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, little is being done about this particular model's problems, so in all I suggest looking for a new computer without this feature in the future.
To sum it all up, either you can return to the original driver or deal with a really ridiculous graphics card setup. No matter what you do, no one can update that card with the hybrid graphics setup because nvidia doesnt support hybrid graphics like they should... Thanks for reading. Feel free to email me at irish_tea@hotmail.com for more information. Worst case scenario, I could probably send you the driver.

 

[dr3c]

Hello!

First off, let me just say that you are NOT ALONE. The same thing happened to me when I attempted to connect via HDMI to my HDTV. So, being the reasonable person that I am, I followed the same steps that you have followed, and came to the same dark end: A useless mobile graphics card because the latest drivers for the nVidia G210m are a load of crap on the model we are using. This results in rendering issues and resolution problems galore. However, I took it one step further, (on a recommendation from a friend), and installed older drivers on the nVidia G210m. This was a GIGANTIC issue for several days and I DO NOT RECOMMEND THAT. Please, whatever you do, DO NOT DO THAT.
*sigh*
But I digress, what you need is the solution. Little did you know, but ASUS provides a complete set of drivers on a disk with their computers, and you can use those to install and get back on your feet in no time. If you don't have the drivers, try searching for the "hybrid graphics driver UL-80vt G210m" in google or something and I bet you'll find something. But the reason why we can't update the drivers to something newer is because the unique hybrid graphics system of the UL-80vt DOES NOT HAVE ANY 1st party support from nVidia with any sort of consistent updates, leaving only the hacking community able to do anything about it. Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, little is being done about this particular model's problems, so in all I suggest looking for a new computer without this feature in the future.
To sum it all up, either you can return to the original driver or deal with a really ridiculous graphics card setup. No matter what you do, no one can update that card with the hybrid graphics setup because nvidia doesnt support hybrid graphics like they should... Thanks for reading. Feel free to email me at irish_tea@hotmail.com for more information. Worst case scenario, I could probably send you the driver.

Hey,

I'm having the same problem. I installed a new nvidia driver and now my computer won't even recognize the nvidia card. I have my originial ASUS CD, but it still won't recognize the card after I installed the original driver. Can you give me some guidance?

Thanks

 

[manchuwok]

Hi dr3c,

I can only tell you what worked for me, and that is totally uninstalling all video card drivers, then re-installing the original drivers from the CD. It sounds like you already re-installed the original driver. Did you make sure to uninstall your existing drivers first? If you don't do so, the issues persist (in my experience).

What I've learned is that the ONLY driver that will work with this laptop is the one that came with the computer. This is the only driver set up to work with ASUS' proprietary Power Boost technology. This driver has never been updated, and probably never will, so we simply have to avoid installing ANY new video card drivers. Doing so makes the computer stop recognizing the card altogether.

Yes, this sucks. But it's what we're stuck with.

Hey,

I'm having the same problem. I installed a new nvidia driver and now my computer won't even recognize the nvidia card. I have my originial ASUS CD, but it still won't recognize the card after I installed the original driver. Can you give me some guidance?

Thanks