Asus UX430UN i7-8550u, 150MX GPU, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD $999 Costco.com

@Antonio Maria Guerra , how are you holding with the PWM? Still getting headaches? Try this PWM utility I found online: https://github.com/BALEHOK/PWM/blob/master/PWM tool.zip
Haven't tried it myself but according to this video it should be working:


In my case I haven't noticed the PWM, but I guess it varies by user. Alternatively you can also go to Intel Graphic Settings > Display > Color Settings, and Reduce the Brightness Slider. While in the laptop keys putting the display at full brightness. Make sure you have adaptive brightness off, otherwise you won't be able to increase the brightness to full where there is no PWM.

I got my unit recently. What can I say, the build quality is good, the bezels are small and that is cool, and overall looks and feels like a great machine. However, I've been getting the fans on all the time, and they are loud and producing and annoying whistle sound. I tried downloading Notebook Fan Control, but didn't find the correct profile for the laptop, not even the old version for UX430UQ. Any suggestions how should I use it? Also, has anyone found out if there is cable on top of the fan producing the noise?

I also tried gaming, and at the begging it was working like a charm and after 15 min I started getting the micro-stuttering. FPS would drop around 10, in rocket league. So, I am another user waiting for the update BIOS to increase the throttling temps. Can't believe they can release this laptop with such a glaring fault. Hopefully it will get solved soon.

 

I do know when significant windows update drops there is an initial extra load that last an hour or more when windows recompiles a few libraries - I forget which - but these one time processes to run when the PC is mostly idle. Could it be those you're seeing running (and draining power)?

~koog

 

Long Update: I used this app to control PWM https://github.com/BALEHOK/PWM/blob/master/PWM tool.zip. I put it to run on 3000hz, as suggested by the most serious study I could find ( http://www.bio-licht.org/02_resources/info_ieee_2015_standards-1789.pdf) pg 44/45 where it says there isn't any effect whatsoever on human eyes at that level. Using my camera I can confirm the flickering is greatly reduced, and barely detectable with the camera. Running at 3khz Might affect the long term laptop screen durability, but prefer protecting my eyes of any potential effects. So that's the end up story regarding PWM.

For controlling the fan noise I installed the Notebook Fan Control. I couldn't find initially the profile, and then in the newest beta I found the profile for the UX430UQ, which works for this one. After this I was able to maintain fan noise low. I still hear a bit of a whistle, but its not bothering me as much to open the laptop and tie the cable that could be on top of the fan.

I also made the power button do nothing, since I pressed it by mistake a couple of times when I tried to use de DEL key. You can do this in the power options menu>change advanced power settings.

I did get coil whine, when using the trackpad. Doing any movement, or a bit worse when I scroll down. Its a bit annoying in complete silence, but I can live with it. Also a bit of noise when using the SSD. According to others reports if I installed a new SSD, this noise would be gone. But not sure if I want to spend money in an NVME, where the higher speeds are barely noticeable during normal use, or replace the solid existing options. Both track-pad and ssd coil whine are nothing major.

The speakers are great. I haven't such good laptop speakers in a while, it even has some bass. Also the screen is sturdier than any other laptop screen I´ve used, so there is very little wobble.

Overall I am quite happy with the laptop. It will become my daily driver. Needs a couple of tweaks here and there, and you are good to go. I usually use two external screens and its great you can connect two via micro-hdmi and type c DP port. I hate that other new laptops require dongles for everything, to connect you USB A mouse, to connect to a screen, to use an SD card. I think this laptop has enough ports for my needs so I don't have to carry dongles around.

The only thing missing is increasing the thermal limit of the GPU and it would be a great machine. Hopefully this gets released soon!

Also, I wanted to install a "permanent" micro sd on the laptop to increase the storage, using a shorter micro SD card adapter. I measured the SD card reader around 16mm. I tried looking for a good adapter and only found these two that could fit:

https://www.amazon.com/8MOBILITY-Al...rd_wg=jQwdr&psc=1&refRID=RFPYCYE2N640T43VT3TQ

https://www.amazon.com/aluminum-mic...sr=8-1&keywords=short+sd+card+adapter+zenbook

But both apparently reduce the speed of the reader. Any other alternatives? I found this that could fit ( https://www.amazon.com/Transcend-Je...-fkmr1&keywords=short+sd+card+adapter+zenbook), but it seems way overpriced.


Also for those who wanna read more on the laptop, here is a very detailed review in a Polish site ( https://www.purepc.pl/notebooki/test_asus_zenbook_ux430u_core_i78550u_i_mx150_na_pokladzie) Just google translate it. He also mentions the problem with the throttling.

 

Hi Alejo!

Many many many thanks for your help about pwm, I will use the tool and check if I still get headaches!

One info pls: I'm going to put a shortcut to the pwm tool in the Windows startup directory. Do you know how to keep the 3000hz setting?

Many thanks again!

 

Hi,

Just run it once at 3khz, add the shortcut to startup, keep it running and then restart. Then the next time you start the computer it starts automatically at the rate you last ran it at. You screen will briefly flash before it starts. I tried and it works for me. Let me know how it went with your headaches, I´m interested to check if it works for you

Alejo

 

is anyone else having a problem with the trackpad upon waking up from sleep?
my trackpad does not work upon waking up from sleep, my keyboard works though

 

The finger print reader doesn't seem to work for me after waking up. I haven't spent time debugging it though.


@alejo099 I did notice the speed difference with an nvme drive. Especially when loading bigger games. Course I can't really play those games quite yet.

I did play about with The Division (everything on low... runs along at about 25-30 frames) the base gets really hot though and of course does a chug-a-lug frequently for a few seconds... I had added a few pads on the GPU and run of piping to the fan and fan area so it's basically now in contact with the base plate.

~koog

 

I also bought this laptop and cannot believe how bad the throttling is! Literally goes from 1400 MHz down to 150mhz when it hits 74 degrees. It’s continually jolting and jarring. Tried quite a few games and different profiles on ThrottleStop.

Also could only get the i5 down by -30mv. My guess is the 8 series are tightly tuned from factory as I’ve tried a few and they all undervolt poorly compared with 6 and 7 series.

It’s shocking that they even allowed this sort of hardware to be released. It’s completely useless for gaming. Using the integrated intel 620 gives much better (stable, reliable) results.

Very disappointed. Also mine was manufactured 11/17.

Paul

 

I bought this Laptop a few days ago.

Swapped in a Samsung NVME SSD (512 GB)

Read/write speed with the standard SanDisk was about 450/450 mbps (Read/Write), something like that.

Now its around 1400/1400 mbps (Read/Write)

Haven't been throttle testing on it yet, just did a Clean Windows 10 Pro 64 bit on the new disk.

 

Seriously, Of course its not great at gaming its a bloody ultrabook for god sakes and with a MX150 its meant for light usage with multimedia capabilities

 

I had a few hickups when win 10 upgraded but after clean OS install all is golden

 

Yeah makes sense, that or for loading big data-sets. But not sure I want to invest an NVME for faster loading times, I guess it depends on your taste. What I am getting really annoyed at, is the coil whine. I can really hear when in silence. I opened and checked and it indeed is the SSD. I tried changing it for another one, but I couldn't remove the screw inside the laptop for the SSD. I was using the same screwdriver point that I used under the 2 pads screws, which should work, but apparently my SSD screw was really tight. Did you guys use the same screw point for the pad screws and the SSD screw? What is the correct number? @HTWingNut I saw your video but it didn't say for this specific screw. Can you tell me? Thanks! I didn't wanna keep trying to damage the screw, but I really want to change the SSD to avoid the whine.

I also tried it without the thermal pad that came with the laptop and the coil whine noise was worse. I turned on another laptop that has the exactly the same ssd, and there is coil whine, and similar npise when you scroll down in the trackpad. Just in the other laptop is not as noisy as this one.

UPDATE: The coil whine is really reduced if the laptop is in battery mode and I reduce the power slider lower than Best performance. Under "better battery" life is completely undetectable. Still not an ideal solution.

@fischju Just adding your thermal pads removed the coil whine for you? What brand of thermal pads was it?

Yeah it might not be ideal for cutting edge gaming, but at least it shouldn't have random FPS drops every 10 seconds. Even my 4 year old Zenbook UX32VD doesn't do that. Most ultrabooks don't do that. They should release a fix soon!

I reduced my PWM rate from 3khz to 600 hz because the screen was making a weird noise. 600hz should be a safe enough level.

 

Sorry don’t agree. I’ve had a few ultrabooks that can handle casual gaming. My last Asus from 2012 with a 620m would get warm but not throttle like this POS. This is faulty design. Even using adobe throttles in the same way.

Asus used to make these really well. This is a variant of what I have. It is actually a better casual gaming laptop runs games much better.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Asus-Zenbook-UX32VD-Ultrabook.75591.0.html

 

I must be the only one who likes the temp limit, I want this laptop to last a few years and the limit should help the battery last a good while longer

Does anyone know a way to set a CPU temp limit?

 

The temps generated in stock form are fine. I’ve monitored the battery temps and they are good. For context the Asus I linked runs close to 90 on both cpu and GPU and I’ve used it hard and long for four or five years without any issues. It throttles when it needs to. The battery is still pretty good too. Recently I cleaned out all the dust in the fans with canned air and realised it was full of dust.

Setting a CPU temp can’t really be achieved I don’t think. If you’re really concerned, I’d use throttlestop to max the cpu speed to 2.8 ghz (or so) on all cores and then undervolt till stable. At 2.8 you should be able to get a decent -80mv or so. This will result in low cpu temps and battery consumption.

Cheers

 

Sweet thanks I have it set to 2.4 and its 20.C cooler and fast enough for what im using the PC for
Just wondering why I cant set clocks in Intel XTU but I can in throttlestop

 

So hello guys. I played with this Asus ultrabook for a while and I want to share with you my personal experience and hassles I have experienced. First of all I have an UNR version and the bios 203. FOr me the intel XTU utility just screwed things up, because after any type of tuning, the ultrabook at sleep was not stable it many times restarted and also the keyboard, or trackad, or the fingerprint sensor went crazy or doesn´t worked at all. I was really sad about the throttling specially when I tried out to play some games.
Unfortunately now I resolved many of the problems and here is the guide how I adressed it.
I uninstalled intel XTU and now I am using Throttle Stop. The system seems to be rock stable after a week of use, no trackpad or any other problems with -115mv undervolting CPU core.
Only thing you have to do is to set the throttlestop in windows to startup automatically after system startup and user logon, because the settings are not kept after reboot or at sleep so you have to start the program all the time.
Also I made my gaming experience a lot more better by disabling during gaming turbo boost, because if you play a game wich runs OK with 1.8Ghz CPU speed you really save a lot of CPU heat and your fan can cool your Nvidia GPU more effectively. But if 1.8GHz is not enough for a game, just tune the turbo boost and never allow the CPU to go over 3.0Ghz because this clock speed with a fully utilized GPU just can not be cooled down and it will result in throttling, which you do not want.
Also I use Riva tuner to set the GPU FPS to render only 30FPS at maximum, so this can also make you GPU a little bit more cooler.
At last I use fan cotrol downloaded from Github. Because I noticed, that the fan during gaming rarely goes up to 100% speed after I tuned down the CPU clock. So OK it is not an ideal solution and it makes a lot of noise during gaming, but it makes a difference when you set it up to 100% fan speed and after that you run the game.

So I hope I helped a little bit and also sorry for my english, because it is not my native language.
Overall I love my UX430UNR and it is a great ultra portable notebook.

 

Nice glad you’re having some luck playing games. Interesting - I had issues undervolting with XTU as well. I’m using throttlestop now.

 

No dice with today's 302 bios release for ux430unr (or at least my unit did not get higher thermal point). Any idea how I could change the limit (which program to download and try change the value)?





Edit: Sad, nvidia inspector keeps lowering the Thermal limit to 74 regardless on what I try to set it. So Asus did not change anything regarding GPU on 302 update. Wonder if there is ever going to be change for this 85c would be better than 74.

 

Hmmm that's not good news. I wonder what the 302 bios addressed...

Also why date it end of Nov? Maybe thats not the one to fix this...

 

I wouldn’t hold my breathe that the will raise the limit. The chassis and cooling system can’t handle the heat as it is. Let alone if they raised it.

The only thing you can do is force a slower GPU clock using an undervolt method (msi afterburner). That and using the fans on full might stop it throttling so aggressively.

 

Anyone else have a lot of coil whine/buzzing sound coming from their unit? Basically my laptop is constantly buzzing even if it's just sitting there with the desktop view on the screen. On the bios screen the whine/buzz is barely audible but in Windows even at idle I can hear it from several feet away in a quiet room.

I changed the SSD to a bigger one and did a fresh install of Windows 10, but can't say it made it any more bearable. Maybe changed a bit when it happens and I think it didn't actually make so much sound in the background, but was more loud when moving the cursor etc. Anything I should try?

 

Could you go into a bit of detail about your optimal thermal pad setup? Could you post pics? It sounds like replacing the stock pads on your CPU had the most cooling impact. Also which thermal pads did you use?

I bought a laptop cooling pad with 2 fans and side intake vents for long gaming sessions for now.

 

Yes its quite annoying. I tried using thermal pads ( https://www.amazon.com/ARCTIC-Therm...F8&qid=1518199486&sr=8-5&keywords=thermal+pad) but no luck. @fischju reported using thermal pads that made it quiet it for him. I asked him for the brand but haven´t heard back yet. I think mine helped for gaming but not for the annoying sound. I put on the SSD, the CPU and GPU.

The only thing that worked for me to shut the noise, was unplugging the laptop and using it under "better battery" in the power slider but of course its not a long term solution. I think someone reported using an NVME SSD replacement and activating it in the BIOS and it was gone. What brand of larger SSD did you use?

I can also report I used this as a micro sd adapter ( https://www.amazon.com/aluminum-mic...9708&sr=8-1&keywords=micro+sd+adapter+zenbook) and it has no slowdown in micro sd speed. So its great, I just wished the SD card reader itself went faster. Still I installed steam games on it and it worked great.

Also I updated the laptop with the latest BIOS, and now I don´t see a fall in FPS, every 10 seconds for a second or two, but rather, a big fall in FPS for 20 seconds and then an increase to regular FPS for a minute and then a fall for 20 seconds again. Its not as annoying as before when it was a stutter, but now it still annoying. The only way I found to avoid this, is to put fans at full speed, and then lift the laptop from the desk. I am able to get stable 1400Mhz use, but its quite loud, with the fan running at full power.

Overall I still like the laptop, but it has more drawbacks that I would like it to have, not sure if I would buy again. The thing that is annoying me the most is the coil whine, especially at night when watching a movie or so. Any other ideas for this?

 

I now have Samsung 960 EVO which is an NVME drive. How do you activate it in the BIOS? Can't seem to do jack with the BIOS on this laptop, since there doesn't seem to be any way to change anything. Even the NVME configuration page only shows the name of the drive grayed out and not any way to configure anything. The drive seems to be working fine though.

I also put a 1.5mm thermal pad on the SSD, but that doesn't seem to affect the sound it's making. Also I notice that the noise quiets down a bit when I choose the "better battery" option, but not to the point I wouldn't still hear the screeching noise in the background while watching videos/movies from the internet. EDIT: Correction, the thermal pad definitely does make the screeching noise a lot quieter, but it does not eliminate it completely and it is still clearly audible to my ear.

I don't really mind the whole throttling problem since I don't intend to game with this thing, but the coil whine honestly borderline ruins the whole experience. Worst part is that it seems to be something that happens to a lot of laptops no matter the price or the brand, so there is not much point to take this thing back only to get another one and find out it makes the same noise. Seems like that is exactly what has happened to many people when I read these threads.

Guess I'll hold on to this thing and keep looking around for different solutions. If these people who claim they got rid of the coil whine aren't half deaf, there's still hope that it might be something that can be fixed.

 

Its annoying me quite a lot. To the point I am using my old laptop in quiet environments. Some suggestions that come to my mind to solve this:

-Undervolt. Since better battery seems to quiet it down a bit.
-Put a thermal pad under the ssd. Since the noise seem to come from under....Although not sure if it can cause problems to the laptop. There is a special tape under the SSD that could help tough.
- Try another brand of SDD?

Also @HTWingNut said there was a reduction in noise when he changed to that NVME. Maybe he can tell you how to change the options.

What drives me crazy is that my 4 year old zenbook doesn't have coil whine at all, 4 years after they produce a worse quality item. PWM, coil whine, thermal throttling at low temps, stuttering while gaming, AC adapter where you can't hide the prongs, no adapters included....

 

Nothing to configure although you can use the samsung nvme drivers instead of the MS ones... you can find the drivers on the samsung ssd site. Also grab samsung magcian software and set a 10% empty zone (I forget the name) which gives your drive a bit more lifespan... make sure you do NOT enable RAID mode..

 

@ALL I updated my Asus forum post:
https://www.asus.com/zentalk/thread-189861-1-1.html

Was there someone here with bios editing skillz that can update that throttle limit on 302? I'm willing to experiment since the h/w does not meet my needs so nothing to loose.

 

Its strange that you all are saying that it has PWM-problems. I did a side by side test with my asus vg248qe witch has alot of pwm flicker. It showed nothing from the laptop. Why is that? I have video proof is anyone is interested and i live in sweden (Maybe they use another screen here?)

Coil-whine is there tho. But 0 screen-flickering even at 10% brightness.

I recorded at 120fps with 6400 ISO

Or is it harder to track low PWM? I changed the values of the camera as much as i could and couldnt find a single point where it flickered.

 

I have to admin I've not really noticed it. Evidently some people are sensitive to it and others are not... It's akin to seeing the pulse on some florescent lights (which I can one some but other can't).

It's also something you can measure by adjusting the frame rate on camera which massively exaggerates the effect and to which people then react to by saying it looks really bad even when @ human frame rates it's not noticeable.

 

Yea but i cant notice it at all.
I have uploaded the test for you on youtube now. Tell me if you see any flickering.

The test is kinda bad done tho. Camera at 60hz and 6400ISO at this shoot. Ive tried with 120fps and only the asus vg248 screen got worse. No flicker from the asus laptop.

Im closer to the laptop in this clip but i have tried different distances also.

(The grainy screenlook is because the ISO on the camera is so high)

 

Yeah I agree I don't see it... the bigger issue for me is the thermal limiting on the GPU which still isn't addressed..

 

I talked with asus support and they said that some models have no pwm (later batches)

I dont do heavy gpu-stuff but they should atleast push it to 83

I have another ”issue” with the hinge making a small click every time i open the laptop, anyone noticed this? I dont want to rma it for such a small issue

 

I think I solved the coil whine issue, or rather a partial solution.

So I found this FAQ about coil whine:
https://www.notebookcheck.net/FAQ-Coil-Whine.225152.0.html

And they mentioned the noise was related to the cpu speed.

I used this guide here:
https://surfacetip.com/how-to-unlock-power-plans-on-surface-devices/

To unlock the power plans. Then created a power saver plan with all its defaults. And now when plugged in, there is no coil whine when I choose this plan. Basically the base clock speed is lower so its making coil whine. This works when I'm watching movies, surfing, or reading, which is when I need silence. When I have to work, I need faster base clock speed, and the coil whine comes back in. Only solution then is headphones.

I've also been gaming, but some games have the stutter that drives me crazy. FPS drops in half for 10 seconds or so. I have the fans at 100% using notebook fan control, and put some thermal pads in. Still no luck. Doom is unplayable, but other games like Titanfall 2 work. Sometimes it happens in Rocket League in the most crucial part of the match... I refuse to use a cooling mat on a ultra portable, it defeats the purpose. The only way I found away from the stuttering is playing unplugged, but of course for obvious reasons this is not sustainable .

Can you check the screen reference in device manager? Maybe for your region they changed the screen. I hope they did. Can you check also if you have stuttering when playing? I also don't have any click when I open the screen.

 

About powerplan settings i did this first time i got the computer, for heat reasons tho. Didnt notice until now that it got rid of the coil whine also lol.

About the pwm i talked to asus support and there was no pwm on my screen according to him. He checked my serialnumber and this model variation didnt have that. He also told me that some variations of the model had it. I have the grey one called purex3 and it was bought in sweden like ten days ago.

Edit: It also shouldnt be regiondependent according to my reseller (didnt ask asus this)

For stuttering im guessing your gpu is throtteling (more heat when plugged in). Try fixed fps. This can be done ingame (vertical sync) or through steamconsole. Set it to 60. Lower your graphics.

On this tiny screen 720p-gaming is good enough. I set all games to 720p and even medium settings. Works fine.

Im doing a RMA on my unit next week for my ”hingeclick” i dont want to drag the issue out so asus dont blame me for it. When they fix that for me im more than happy about this ultrabook.

 

Hello, made an account just to thank everyone for their inputs in this thread. I've been looking for a capable ultraportable laptop for awhile now, and this discussion helped a lot in deciding whether this particular laptop fits my requirements. Special thanks to WingNut for the comprehensive review and further information.

I'll be purchasing the UX430UN in the coming days. If time permits, I'll update this thread with my impressions and discrepancies with versions from other regions (I will be buying this from the Philippines). I'll look out for PWM, coil whine, cooling issues, and BIOS version.

 

Doom in the lowest setting and 720p stutters a lot. It goes from 50 to 25 for 10 seconds and drives me crazy. According to this benchmark for the MX150: https://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDI...pecs-of-the-GT-1030-for-Laptops.223530.0.html

Should run at 60fps on average on lowest setting 720p. We are far from that due to the stuttering. Note that the benchmark comes from the ZenBook 13 UX331UN. So ASUS is able to make a ultrabook without stuttering or nonsense. Just not for us owners of the UX430UN.

 

Just bought it! The model here is the UX430UNR, i7-8550u, MX150, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD. Not the best deal compared globally, but locally this is probably the best you can get for these specs. I couldn't find a Lenovo 720s anywhere, in comparison.

PWM seems to be pretty bad. I'm seeing rolling shutter effect even just on my Galaxy S8 camera preview. Increasing brightness makes the effect less noticeable, but it's still there (likely due to increasing PWM frequency). I'm not sure how this'll affect my eyes yet, as I've never been keenly aware of PWM before, but it seems like I'll find out soon with this unit.

HWiNFO reports that the panel is BOE [Unknown Model: BOE0718], with manufacturer model NV140FHM-N62. Date of manufacture is 2016 apparently.

Coil whine also exists. I can hear it very, very slightly right now around 2 feet away. Seems to be related to SSD reads/writes as stated by others, but I can't conclude it yet. Using the trackpad doesn't trigger the whine. So far I'm not bothered by it.

Have yet to test for throttling. I'll slowly get to this over the coming days.

BIOS version shipped was 203, from August 2017. Flashed it to 302 from November 2017, succeeded without a hitch.

Here are some of my random first impressions (many of which others have already stated):
- It's as light and portable as I'd hoped. Definitely an everyday bag laptop for me.
- Power button is in an unfortunate place. As with another user here, I disabled it entirely right after trying to press Delete, and causing the laptop to sleep.
- Fingerprint scanner is a luxury I didn't know I'd like a lot. Super easy to log in.
- Keyboard is decent -- not as bad as I thought it would be.
- Sleep/wake cycle is really fast. Very satisfied with it. We'll see how it fares once it's loaded.

Overall my first impressions are positive. I bought this for its weight and its specs, and those two factors haven't disappointed (yet). My biggest concern is PWM -- if you're planning to buy this here in the Philippines, know that their version here has it, and it's pretty bad. I strongly suggest seeing a demo unit first, or testing if your eyes are sensitive to it.

I'll chime in again after some time once I have a game or two installed.

 

The model i received here in Austria is the UX430UNR, i7-8550u, MX150, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD. I am coming from UX303LB

Short version:

Pros:
-Build quality : yea nice
-14 inch display in 13 inch case: cool thing
-very light
-Sound: very good
-Hinge: no problems
-Coil whine: I did not hear it and i better not concentrate on finding it

Cons:
-Noise: it is there unfortunately
-Heat: it is there unfortunately
-Throttletemperature 73°C: in place
-PWM: did not check


Software and BIOS:
I updated the BIOS to 302 in the hope to get around the throttling, but no luck.
Also i let Windows 10 do all the updated. Also i unlocked all the power plan options.

Throttling:
I was testing basically with Witcher 3 to see how it throttles and it does.
The frequency of the gpu starts with 1470MHz and then goes down to an average of 1250-1300.
Still there are some situations where it goes to 600 Mhz which makes the game slow down/stutter.

The tools I use:
- Speedfan with UX430UQ Profile:
browsing the web thefan is off
installing stuff the fan turns on (was not the case on my UX303LB with 940MX)
in games the Fan is set too low and the throttling is heavier than it should be
- Throttlestop
i disabled the turbo
undervolted the cpu by 80mV
- MSI Afterburner
i played with overclocking by 200Mhz or underclocking by up to 200Mhz, but i think it has no real effect as when trottling is in place it jumps to whatever it likes

After tweaking around I was thinking that all this should not be needed and it should work out of the box without slowdowns. I think Asus set the throttle temp on purpose to not have too many RMAs.
I have very mixed feelings about this Laptop and especially coming from UX303LB i am not sure if I should keep it. I mean yea Witcher 3 is indeed playable medium quality, but the noise and heat of this notebook in normal situations are worse than on my old UX303LB.
Overall I think when looking at the UX430UNR i have to say that we are not there yet... The Quadcore and the 25W gpu add too much heat to this slim bezel. I was thinking of ordering a Lenovo 720s in comparison, but from what i read this notebook is even noisier.

So even if some hacker ups the throttle temp in the vbios the cooling/noise situation will stay.

By the looks of the device and the sound it has i have to keep it... i am really unsure.

 

Some great info here, I would like to thank all. Last week we got the UX430UN, i5-8250u, 256GB SSD, 8GB RAM, GeForce MX150 Quartz Grey, bought in Romania and I would like to share my thoughts about this ultrabook.

The overall design is nice, it’s thin and incredibly light, I think the quartz grey version looks the best out of the four available. The screen must be one of the selling points. At 14” with thin bezels, it’s great, has accurate colors, very good viewing angles and brightness and very important for us, it’s matte. It is the same BOE panel which exhibits PWM, change the shutter speed on your phone camera and you’ll notice it as soon as you drop the brightness from 100% (no PWM there). Our eyes can’t see it and if one doesn’t read about PWM and is a healthy person he’ll most likely be fine. The light sensor which is placed near the camera and the mic above the screen works very well at adjusting the brightness if you choose to use it.

For our needs and typing skills the keyboard is perfect and the touchpad is great. The fingerprint scanner works as advertised and it’s very fast, not that anybody would really need it.

If you put your ear very near to the keyboard you’ll hear during certain computer tasks what is generally referred to as coil whine. As you normally don’t use the notebook with your ear glued to the keyboard, from time to time a faint distant scratching noise might come out of the Zenbook just to remind you that it’s alive.

The fan noise is barely audible when doing light stuff, like browsing the web, word editing or playing video. The noise increases when the processor reaches its maximum turbo speed and under heavy load but for me it’s not too loud.

Unlike most ultrabooks, the cooling grills are placed under the screen hinge. It’s a design choice and while it looks good to have no grills on the back, obviously this affects the thermals of the CPU and the GPU which brings us to the throttling issues. It has to be said that even under heavy load I don’t feel excessive heat on my palm rest but underneath and on the upper left side it gets rather hot. There is no way around the thermal limit of 73 C and the core clocks on the MX150 will start to bounce back and forth pretty soon as you fire up a game resulting in frame drops and occasional stutter. While the UX 430 was not designed for gaming, the GPU comes handy if you use applications that utilize the additional graphic power, video editing in Premiere comes to mind. You can also game decently with a few tweaks and some less demanding games. The idea is to transfer as much load as possible from the GPU to the CPU. First lower the game resolution to 1368 x 768, then lower the settings. We play mostly Dota 2 and it runs smoothly and given the great screen it looks decent at that resolution and medium settings, MSI Afterburner shows a GPU load fluctuating around 30%.

Under heavy load the CPU will also throttle based on power and thermal limit but it’s something that you shouldn’t be worried about as the 8 threads make up for the lack of constant high turbo. For example in Handbrake which is the closest you will get in the real world at using the maximum your CPU can muster, while doing video transcoding all cores loaded at around 100%, the clocks stay stable for the whole duration of the task at 2.6 GHz. The same file transcoded with Handbrake on a Sandy Bridge i5 four cores clocked at 4.3 GHz was about 15% slower and on a Kaby Lake Pentium 2 cores, 4 threads 3.5 GHz machine it was around 45% slower.

Did not time the battery life but to get an idea it used some 15% per hour with a USB powered audio interface hooked up, high screen brightness, Wi-fi on, working with a DAW program and browsing. I checked the battery wear level at some point and it shows 6%, it did not change during the course of a week so I’m guessing it was already there when we bought it.

It is also worth mentioning the SSD is an SK Hynix and not a Sandisk. Overall we are happy with the machine, nothing’s perfect and in this time and age when ultrabooks cost an arm and a leg, I think the ASUS UX430UN offers a lot in its price range.

 

What is it you would like them to address? Almost every manufacturer outside the Swift 3 has underclocked the GPU. You are putting a dedicated GPU into a single fan very small notebook. There are 2 reasons for the underclocking, to keep base temperatures down (hence why its the base clock thats really limited) and secondly to increase battery life. It still boosts to within 10% of the mx150 base clock speed. I think thats still pretty darn handy.

I dont personally see the problem.

But I understand. If it really bothers you, at your own risk, there are multiple overclocking tools like MSI afterburner and you will want a fan speed tool. Just save a profile for when you are gaming and you should be all right. At your own risk

Personally I prefer the ux331UN which is newer and has none of the issue the UX430UN does, but I did nearly by the 430UN, its still a good notebook despite its minor flaws.

 

I personally don't see the problem with the under-clocking, that's understandable. I can run games with lower detail. What drives me crazy is the stuttering. My 5 year old Zenbook, didn't do that, most laptops don't do that. This for me is unacceptable. There should be a way to fix it. Last BIOS it stuttered every 2 seconds, now every 30, it stutters for 10. I don't understand why a newer version of a Zenbook operates way worse than previous versions.

 

What improvements exactly brings BIOS 302?

 

Well you know there are ways around this, but do them are your own risk.

 

I can only think you are hitting the CPU ceiling, what games?

The swift 3 is not underclocked. The problem for the Asus machine it runs a single fan. Thermal properties might be better on the 430un than the 331un just due to being a bigger chassis (the old 13" chassis). But if I was to be messing about with it Id be keeping a very close eye on thermals at your own risk or you could bake it.

You have to keep in mind, these are not really gaming machines, they are ultraportable productivity machines the GPU is in there to help with applications that require it ie photo/video post processing.

Sure it will run Civ 5 ok. But if you are expecting it to run Witcher 3 or similar, you bought the wrong notebook

 

Right this pisses me off. It appears its not an underclock by Asus but done by Nvidia, an mx150 max-q if you will. Read this.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Nvidi...12-variant-onto-some-Ultrabooks.289358.0.html

 

That MaxQ MX150 is way better than the full MX150 UX430UN if it doesnt thermal throttle. Yes, the thermals on this laptop is bad, but the problem is greatly exacerbated by the fact that the thermal limit is set at an unreasonable 73 degs C.

 

Bought this laptop and have been using it for awhile. It thermal throttles a lot in games like Witcher 3 and the CONSTANT stutters make it very annoying to play. 73 degs thermal limit is ridiculous since the card is capable of handling much higher temps. People have complained about this to Asus but they refused to do anything about it.

It's a shame really, because for the few seconds that the MX150 isn't thermal throttling, i can see that Witcher 3 runs smoothly at 40ish fps on med settings on 720p. It then dips to 11ish 20ish every few seconds, making for very jarring gameplay. A waste of an MX150 and needlessly so. This is even after i'd undervolted the CPU by -0.085V, the intel HD by -0.09V and Undevolted and underclocked the max clock speed of the MX150 to 0.8V and 1200Mhz respectively.

Have bought thermal grizzly kryonaut and will be repasting it when i get the time. I shouldn't have to spend extra money and time messing with the hardware though.

Besides the graphics problems:

Coil whine - it's there if i place my ears beside the laptop. However, as a normal person, i don't use my laptop with my head beside the chassis, so i don't notice it if used normally.

PWM - Lots of Reviews say it's there. However, as a normal person, i don't notice any flickering.

Fan noise - When doing light work, i can't hear anything. When running benchmarks or playing Witcher 3, can hear it but your game sound will drown out the white noise anyway.

 

i sent mine back - the throttling is a joke...

Now i have a MSI GS43VR with skylake with 1060... you get much more for almost the same money and no throttling.
You can get it quiet in windows, but it can get very loud in games.

btw... review is up of the ASUS on NC:

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-...50U-GeForce-MX150-Laptop-Review.289492.0.html

You can go there and complain with commenting on the throttling like i did

 

I picked this up 2 days ago from Costco for $899. I updated the BIOS but also still get the throttling at 73/74 degrees. However I installed throttlestop and that seems to have taken care of the issue. I still get dips now and then but nothing severe. I wish the MX150 would run at full speed but it seems all MX150's have the same issue with the exception of the Acer and perhaps the Xiaomi mi 13 but that one seems to have thermal issues with the chassis getting quite hot.

I did also have the HP13 envy from Costco with the mx150 but the Asus does have better gaming than that one even with throttlestop installed.