Gotcha. Same here, unfortunately. My understanding is that our laptops' onboard sound hardware is completely incapable of bitstreaming the HD audio formats (Mine is an HP Compaq 8510w with SoundMax HD Audio, which, ironically, will not bitstream HD audio).
Honestly, I guess I am satisfied with the passthru of the older formats for backed-up material at the moment, which is evident by the fact that I don't have the ASUS card in my HTPC. I also have the option of hooking up analog 5.1 for the PC, and AFAIK it
can decode the formats internally.