threepointone, bobalot,
I meant to reply to bobalot, but got interrupted. To get the volume icons on-screen, and possibly improve your volume button results, the following driver on the Lenovo Consumer site is what I've used successfully for many months on a g530-4446-36U:
Conexant/Realtek 4.98.6.62
This download is supposed to be both 32 and 64-bit compatible; presume it loads the appropriate pieces depending on which way you're set up - it is definitely large enough to contain both.
This driver, like the original, gives some interesting functionality as well, which I mostly don't use as Windows 7 works fine without it. Be careful in particular if you use the microphone Voice Enhancements on the first tab of its Control Panel. They require adequate microphone volume, which means using the extra Boost which I set to 30db with a '50' setting on the Microphone volume, otherwise will soft gate the quieter instants of your voice, giving a very muddy and unpleasant sound from the internal microphone which is otherwise quite reasonably good. Yet, they can work with careful adjustment, if you need them.
This was the same on the pre-Windows 7 driver, and in fact I think it may have been improved. An external mic is better when you have one, because it won't have the low-level hum from the fan.
As far as things not working after standby or hibernate, I haven't seen much of any difficulties - all just works very well, and I close the lid and return many times a day. In particular I have not seen difficulty with the brightness keys.
However, once in a blue moon I come up with a black screen on return from standby, perhaps when I had been in a real rush to shut things down, and had closed the lid on some completing operation. Though things are clearly operating normally in Windows 7, the screen just doesn't show.
In that case (you see how seldom it happens), I use I think Alt-F4 after disk activity stabilizes, which either shuts down or logs out, and afterwards the machine always boots up just fine. Alternative would be to press the power key after disk activity stabilizes, to ask for normal shutdown, and then start up again. Windows 7 quick bootup is very welcome as always. - how did we ever live with the other kind ;)
This problem was also there for a long time before the BIOS upgrade, so I don't think it's anything to concern about. I also don't think a BIOS is likely to be involved here.
In my case I actually think it's to do with the display driver, which has never been quite perfect with some of the complex software I use, so I think it may be implicated here - that's after all what is not turning on.
This would definitely not be my first experience with faulty from-mfg display drivers vs. complex graphics programs on a laptop.
Release notes from Intel show they are slowly working forward on a number of problems with their display driver, some of which sound related to mine.
I think the overall messages are: many small things are not likely to be Lenovo's fault -- and, there's a point at which one should just draw the line and say, this works fine for me. I'm certainly at that state with my g530 and Windows 7, which is actually just a joy to work with, and I do it a lot each day.
Good fortune, both you guys,
Clive