ASUS Zenbook UX430/UX530
| Device | Status |
| Intel | Working |
| Nvidia | Working |
| HDMI (USB cable) | Working |
| Ethernet (USB cable) | Working |
| Wireless | Working |
| Audio | Working |
| Touchpad | Working |
| Camera | Working |
| Card Reader | Working |
| Bluetooth | Working |
| Function keys | Working |
| Fingerprint Sensor | Partially working |
| Ambient Light Sensor | Not working |
| Battery charge threshold | Not working |
ASUS announced UX430 and UX530 models. Since these models share almost the same hardware (the only difference is screen size and discrete NVidia graphics card), this article covers hardware specific configuration for all UX430UA, UX430UQ, UX530UQ and UX530UX models.
Configuration
Secure Boot (option)
In order to boot any Linux operating system, navigate to BIOS, then hit F7 or click on "Advanced Menu", then the "Security" tab and set "Secure Boot" to Off.
If the aforementioned "Secure Boot" option is a menu rather than an on-or-off option, click on "Secure Boot", "Key Management", then "Reset to Setup Mode" and confirm in the dialog.
Video
See Intel Graphics and Hardware Acceleration. For models with discrete NVidia graphics card, also see Bumblebee.
Audio
See PulseAudio.
Touchpad
See Libinput.
Fingerprint sensor
Install fingerprint sensor driver libfprint-elantech-gitAUR, then see Fprint and you might be also interested in Fingerprint GUI.
Suspend
Linux (4.17 at least) default to suspend-to-idle which isn't very power effective. This is probably due to this change in 4.14-rc1. For better power effective you can use suspend-to-ram by adding mem_sleep_default=deep to the kernel cmdline.
Troubleshooting
Linux kernel 4.13 issues
Bug references: 197469 and 197449
Description: Unstable CPU frequencies staying at minimum of 800Mhz-1600Mhz instead of 400-700Mhz. This wastes battery and generates heat, causing fan to spin more aggressively. Also KVM crashes running Windows 10 VM with all available VirtIO features.
Fix: Use kernel version 4.12.* (or earlier) or 4.14.4 (or further). Avoid any 4.13.* versions.
Headphones audio is too low
Linux kernel version 4.14 and earlier has a bug, where you may notice that the audio through the headphones is too low (upstream bug). In kernel version 4.15 you have to pull out and plug in back your headset after resume in order to fix the low audio.
In order to fix it, install alsa-tools or hda-verbAUR and create the file:
/usr/local/bin/fix_headphones_audio.sh
#!/bin/bash while true; do DEVICE=`ls /dev/snd/hwC[[:print:]]*D0 | head -n 1` if [ ! -z "$DEVICE" ]; then hda-verb "$DEVICE" 0x20 SET_COEF_INDEX 0x67 hda-verb "$DEVICE" 0x20 SET_PROC_COEF 0x3000 break fi sleep 1 done
Then create a systemd script with the following content:
/etc/systemd/system/fix_headphones_audio.service
[Unit] Description=Fix headphones audio after boot & resume. After=multi-user.target suspend.target hibernate.target [Service] Type=oneshot ExecStart=/bin/sh '/usr/local/bin/fix_headphones_audio.sh' [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target suspend.target hibernate.target
And finally, start and enable fix_headphones_audio.service.
Fan spins all the time
See Fan speed control#NBFC. Also see #Linux kernel 4.13 issues
Microcode
During boot you might get the message [Firmware Bug]: TSC_DEADLINE disabled due to Errata; please update microcode to version: 0x52 (or later). See Microcode to resolve it.
Nvidia issues with Bumblebee
It is likely that it's one of these issues:
- You used a power management application (especially Powertop). See bumblebee#Broken power management with kernel 4.8 for more information.
- You suspended your laptop and resumed, and are now unable to start your GPU, see Bumblebee#Failed to initialize the NVIDIA GPU at PCI:1:0:0 (Bumblebee daemon reported: error: [XORG] (EE) NVIDIA(GPU-0)).
Headset Microphone
You may encounter an issue where your headset microphone is not being detected. To fix this, create this file and restart your system:
/etc/modprobe.d/fix_headset_microphone.conf
# Fix an issue where your headset microphone is not being detected: options snd-hda-intel model=dell-headset-multi
No sound
There seems to be a bug in the firmware that prevents the embedded sound card from working in Arch after Windows has been restarted. A complete shutdown of the laptop is required to get the sound card working again.
Tips and tricks
Power saving and performance
As advertised by ASUS, both laptops are capable to last up to 9 hours on battery. In order to achieve this, see:
- BIOS update - It is generally recommended to update BIOS, as it usually brings performance, power-saving and security features.
- Power Saving - List of general recommendations to increase battery life.
- Improving performance - List of general recommendations to increase performance.
- SSD - Tips and tricks for Solid State Drives. Both laptops ship M.2 SSD by default.
- Undervolting CPU - Decrease voltage for Intel CPU (reduce battery drain, reduce heat and therefore - reduce fan speed)
Extract Windows 10 license key
The laptop comes with Windows 10 preinstalled and the activation key is hardcoded into the firmware. If you replace Windows with Linux, then hardcoded activation key is useless. You might want to extract it and use somewhere else (e.g. virtualized Windows 10):
# grep -aPo '[\w]{5}-[\w]{5}-[\w]{5}-[\w]{5}-[\w]{5}' /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/MSDM