Power4Gear Hybrid turns itself on, regardless of whether the power scheme was set to the recommended "Balanced."

Asus, like most other PC/Laptop manufacturer install their own programs (commonly called 'bloatware), many of which duplicate Windows application settings, Power4Gear has similar setting to Windows 'Power Options' InstantGo' is Asus app, not a component of Windows and duplicates settings found in various Windows settings.

As you say this can cause conflict because the device is confused which settings to follow.

I also have a Asus laptop and have uninstalled many of the Asus apps, that the setting can easily handled by Windows settings. I have done this for all PC/Laptops that I have had. Most manufacturer apps can be uninstalled without any detrimental consequences to the running of the PC/Laptop.

If you are confident that you do not need a manufacturers app or appears to be causing problems, uninstall it.

This is my personal choice and opinions.

I agree, but before doing that, I found the settings with the Intel Graphics had to be manually set to the same options as the power options in the control panel to stop most of the unexpected shutdowns. Power4Gear still automatically starts up, but the stability is acceptable. Although the machine can crash spontaneously if plugged in while fully charged. I have not isolated the problem with that just yet, but following such a crash, I pull the battery so that the startup is a full startup, rather than an InstantOn startup. The stability problems with Windows 8.1 running a continuous Windows 7 emulator seem to be reparable, but since these crashes do not send reports, I do not know how Microsoft will figure out the patch.