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
Wi-Fi
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 graphics cards (Intel & NVIDIA) and UX303LA with only an Intel graphics 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.
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.
Some environments and GUI toolkits may need adjustment: see
HiDPI
for possible fixes. Using 192 DPI or 2x scaling 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 Wi-Fi 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#Audio
.
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.