ASUS Zenbook UX303

This article or section does not follow the Laptop page guidelines.

Reason: Missing an Accessibility section and the Function keys table. (Discuss in Talk:ASUS Zenbook UX303)

Hardware	PCI/USB ID	Working?
GPU (NVIDIA)	`10de:1341`	Yes
GPU (Intel)	`8086:0a16`	Yes
Audio	`8086:0a0c`	Yes
WiFi	`8086:08b1`	Yes
Bluetooth	`8087:07dc`	Yes
Webcam	`064e:9700`	Yes

This page contains instructions, tips, pointers, and links for installing and configuring Arch Linux on the ASUS Zenbook UX303 Ultrabook.

There is a lot a models but 2 main models, UX303LN with 2 graphic cards (Intel & NVIDIA) and UX303LA with only an intel graphic card. The previous models UX32LN and UX32LA share a lot hardware with minor differences, e.g. the touchpad (Elantech).

Touchpad

The touchpad is a FocalTech model exposed through PS/2 at /sys/bus/acpi/devices/FLT0101:00, supported by Touchpad Synaptics and libinput. Check which one by running with grep -e "using input driver " /var/log/Xorg.0.log

The sensitivity settings may need to be adjusted, because of the large touchpad area. If the touchpad is not responsive, try changing these settings:

If you use Touchpad Synaptics,

/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/50-synaptics.conf

Section "InputClass"
        ....
	Option "FingerLow" "30"
	Option "FingerHigh" "35"
EndSection

If you use libinput,

/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/40-libinput.conf

Section "InputClass"
        ....
	Option "AccelSpeed" "1" # Recommended
	Option "AccelProfile" "adaptive" # Optional
EndSection

Graphics

See Intel and NVIDIA for details. The secondary card is combined with the main graphics in a hybrid NVIDIA Optimus configuration. Bumblebee can be used to take advantage of the NVIDIA card.

Ambient Light Sensor (ALS)

This article or section is being considered for removal.

Reason: The needed AUR package was dropped. (Discuss in Talk:ASUS Zenbook UX303)

The included Ambient Light Sensor can be accessed using the als-dkms^AUR^{[broken link: package not found]} kernel module. There is also a userspace program als-controller-git^AUR, which has the purpose of automatically adjusting the keyboard and screen backlight. Usage of the Ambient Light Sensor is described in more detail on the wiki page for the ASUS Zenbook Prime UX31A.

Note that the userspace program currently does not work correctly on the UX303 as the reported brightness values differ from the Zenbook Prime.

QHD+ PenTile display

Some models include a 3200x1800 (faux-3200x1800 RG/BW PenTile) screen, which displays very tiny characters, and can make them difficult to read due to its incomplete subpixel matrix.

Gnome3 is able to work out the correct font size on this display, but other environments and GUI toolkits may need adjustment. See the general HiDPI wiki page for possible fixes. Note 192 DPI or 2x works well in most cases.

Power management

Suspend/resume

Suspend (Fn+F1) works out of the box with expected behavior.

If suspend fails sometimes (kernel crashes when trying to suspend), it might be due to a bios/kernel bug. Try blacklisting the kernel modules mei_me and mei meanwhile.

Battery

Battery has a design capacity of 4429mAh, and is able to provide just over 3 hours of autonomy under normal circumstances (average load of around 0.3 and WiFi enabled, brightness lowered to mid-range) without serious power saving tweaks. Battery stops charging when it reaches near-full capacity on AC and acpi tool will show "discharging at zero rate" message. This behavior can be observed on a brand new battery. ACPI tools are able to correctly detect the battery state:

On AC power with the battery near full capacity:

$ acpi -i

Battery 0: Discharging, 98%, discharging at zero rate - will never fully discharge.
Battery 0: design capacity 4429 mAh, last full capacity 4076 mAh = 92%

On AC power while the battery is charging:

$ acpi -i

Battery 0: Charging, 94%, 00:11:53 until charged
Battery 0: design capacity 4429 mAh, last full capacity 4110 mAh = 92%

On battery power (while the battery is discharging):

$ acpi -i

Battery 0: Discharging, 98%, 03:22:03 remaining
Battery 0: design capacity 4429 mAh, last full capacity 4076 mAh = 92%

Battery life may depend on the type of LCD panel. The above values are shown for the model with QHD display.

There have been suggestions that "discharging at zero rate" while on AC is a battery calibration issue solvable by allowing the battery to fully discharge and then charging it back to full capacity.

It is also recommended to install laptop-mode-tools^AUR. On a UX303LB laptop (Broadwell) this increases battery life significantly. See Laptop Mode Tools for more details.

Audio

If the sound card power-saving capabilities are enabled, you can experiment some annoying click sound right before a sound is played. See Power management#Pops when starting and stopping playback.

Function keys

All function keys except the backlight and "plane" mode seem to work out of the box. To fix, add acpi_osi= as a kernel parameter and see Backlight.

USB 3.0

If the USB ports are only working with USB 2.0 devices, disable XHCI Pre-Boot Mode in the UEFI configuration, under Advanced > USB Configuration.

Note: After deactivating XHCI Pre-Boot Mode the ports will only work in USB 2.0 mode.