ASUS Zenbook 13 UX325EA-AH037T - 2021 Model and FN keys issue with Modern Standby

hi guys,

So a little while ago i had an ASUS Zenbook 13 UX325EA-AH037T which is an impressive little machine, it boasts:

Display: 13.3" (1920 x 1080)
Processor: Intel Core i7-1165G7
Ram: 16GB @ 4267mhz
Storage: nvme fast 1TB SSD (1.5 gb/sec read and write)
Graphics: Intel Iris Xe Graphics

And it's quite a little monster, however i do have an ask / challenge for other owners.

This model comes shipped with Win10 with the "modern standby" enabled by default which i really dislike because you do not have the traditional power plans, etc.

Now, i switched Win10 back to the traditional S3 power mode which unlocks all the usual power plans (high performance, balanced and power saver) - with this:

reg add HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power /v PlatformAoAcOverride /t REG_DWORD /d 0

Everything works fine except for a tiny little thing: When you resume the pc back from sleep the FN keys are no longer working and although not the end of the world, it's annoying. Restart or shutdown and voilà everything perfectly works again. So using hibernation instead of sleep is an option, it's so fast you almost doesn't notice.

This has been checked in depth and it's 100% the issue. Modern standby back, FN keys always work.

I have been told this by Asus:

"This not a bug ,our MKT spec defined UX325 supports Modern Standby , Not S3 mode, So user's operation is unofficial, It will lead some unknown risk."

I don't understand why this is not officially supported.

Well, i wanted to know if anybody else is experiencing this and if there are any workaround - apart from switching back Mondern Standby of course.

Personally i find that Modern Standby is not as relevant for PCs as it is for say a smartphone, etc plus you can squeeze some extra performance from the little monster which is nice, although the thermal throttling still happens on very heavy loads for sustained periods of stress.

many thanks,
Gabrio

 

Btw when you disable Modern Standby, does the Sleep option remain available to you? As in it enters S3 sleep if Modern Standby is disabled with PlatformAoAcOverride ? Or does the Sleep option disappear entirely?

 

hello, to answer your question, with the flag:

- sleep is back normally so yes it does enter S3
- i do have the button on the start menu, near all other power options
- when in sleep, you can observe a small battery drop overnight, etc, which means it's working properly

The following sleep states are available on this system:
Standby (S3)

on that note, do you have any suggestions?

 

I got an ASUS AMD laptop and it has no S3 implemented at all at the firmware level. PlatformAoAcOverride did not work at all - it made the Sleep option disappear entirely from the Start menu. So what I did instead was I opened Device Manager, expanded System devices and under it, double clicked the device called AMD Micro PEP Device. I changed its driver to "Standard Power Management Controller". (PEP stands for Power Engine Plugin).

Now it still uses Modern Standby but does not wake up automatically on its own at intervals. It stays in standby until I wake it up. And I measured the power consumption with a power meter/killawatt style device. It stays close to 3 Watts.

But I don't know if this trick will work on Intel platforms with Modern Standby. Does they have anything called PEP device or something under System devices?

 

hia, there's no PEP in there...

 

Intel(R) Power Engine Plug-in (That's the PEP). If you double click it and try an alternate driver, what options does it show you? Is one of them "Standard Power Management Controller"? Try changing it to Standard Power Management Controller.

Then set Group Policies to disable wakeup from Modern Standby via gpedit.msc ->Administrative Templates -> Computer Configuration -> System -> Power management.

You will need to restart after changing the driver and setting the group policies.

Doing these two finally fixed my AMD system. Now it stays at a low 3W whole night without waking up on its own.

Of course, you may need to delete the value PlatformAoAcOverride and then try these. Then see if it stops auto-waking up, consumes low power and after resume, everything works.

 

hi,

i get this



but the truth is that i do not want Modern Standby at all - i like how it is now with S3 and i get all the different power modes. Your tips are referred to Modern Standby only and for making it not consume electricity during modern standby, or am i wrong?

i do not have the issue of auto wake-up.

Did you enable all power plans?

One workaround for the sleep issue is always using hybernate actually. This laptop is so fast it takes like 5 seconds to resume from hybernate, not bad and i get the FN keys still working, unlike when i put in sleep

cheers,
Gabrio

 

I don't want Modern Standby either. I hate it. It is an abomination. Nobody asked for such a feature. I prefer S3 sleep. Hibernation writes a lot of data to the SSD so I prefer S3 sleep only or full Shutdown without Fast startup.

But on AMD platform, S3 sleep is not available at all with PlatformAOACOverride. That's why I am asking you how things are different on Intel platform as I own only AMD

If you like how it is with S3, then don't change things. I was only suggesting in case you don't prefer hibernate and since you have the issue of Fn keys not working after S3 sleep resume, I suggested other measures.

Anyway thanks for letting me know how things are different on Intel platform. I am thinking of selling this AMD based laptop and getting Intel based which officially supports S3. And definitely not ASUS ever again.

 

OK, got it, well - it's not ideal as i also would like sleep, hibernation isn't bad, i mean it "only" writes 6.5gb on the hdd and i have the 1TB drive so barely noticeable. and gets up in 5 seconds.

If this fix of yours would also make sleep work, then that's something i can try. Do you think it would work also on my situation so fixing the FN keys after sleep issue?

In general, i love this laptop and i came to the conclusion that all the new-ish ultra notebooks have the power throttling limitations so you cannot really run ultra heavy tasks on this machine, although it works for desktop work very very well (i got 99% on User Benchmark and the Nuclear Submarine score), fixed a bit the turbo / overclock.

Bottom line for me when it comes to Asus, as i own 2:

- if you want a laptop that is super portable, very thin and does an excellent job for desktop work, the ZenBook is really a great machine, not perfect, but great.

- If you want a stronger laptop for heavier tasks, the Vivobook is better because has better thermal properties, and should also let you undervolt. I still own a Vivobook from 2017 which i undervolted and can stay under stress for 12 hours always at max turbo boost. the ZenBook can't. but that's by design, even factory told me:

"It's a normal behavior , Because this is a ultrathin NB but Vivo book is normal NB , So for the design , The ultrathin NB is tend to improve the thermal performance ,Once unit into overheating , The CPU will drop frequency to keep normal temperature ."

 

No I think S3 sleep is not supported by ASUS so it is unlikely to work without some issues. I was only suggested above workarounds to lower Modern Standby's power consumption and prevent waking up automatically.

Apparently I am discovering there are quite a few things I need to change to achieve this. Turning off all background apps in Windows seems to be reduce Modern Standby power consumption for example. Then there's a setting in my ASUS Armoury Crate app to turn off keyboard backlight while in sleep. That brought it down further.

 

btw in other news, in order to improve the thermal performance of the little Zenbook i ordered this one:

https://www.amazon.nl/gp/product/B019IU5HI2

any thoughts? I tried to cool it down with the hair dryer after a few heavy CPU stress tests where CPU dropped and it worked, so i think it will make a big difference.

BTW this is an issue of all new ultrabooks without proper thermal dissipation.