Welcome to the FAQ collection of TUXEDO Computers! Here you will find answers to the most frequently asked questions about our InfinityBook Pro 14 - Gen9.
Questions about technical details
Why do some Fn key combinations not work?
On this model, the keyboard does not support full N-Key Rollover. Due to the physical design of the key matrix, certain multi-key combinations cannot be registered simultaneously.
The key matrix is designed so that common combinations (e.g. Ctrl+Alt+Del) work without any issues. However, there are exceptions. These include combinations such as Fn+Tux+Up/Down. In this case, the Fn key is used to convert Up/Down into Page Up/Page Down, but it also acts as an independent key press within the matrix. This can lead to input conflicts.
Unfortunately, there is no technical solution for this behavior. The limitation is hardware-based and cannot be resolved via firmware or driver updates. Alternative keyboard variants for this model are also not available.
What is the alternative in KDE?
In KDE Plasma, window management typically uses Page Up/Page Down key combinations, for example to maximize or minimize windows. Other desktop environments such as GNOME or Windows use Tux+Up/Down directly instead.
In TUXEDO OS, Tux+Up/Down is used by default to snap windows to the upper or lower half of the screen. If a window has previously been placed on the left or right half of the screen using Tux+Left/Right, it can be further arranged into the corresponding screen quadrants using Tux+Up/Down.
If these functions are used less frequently in daily work and you prefer to maximize or minimize windows instead, the keyboard shortcuts can be adjusted accordingly:
- Open System Settings.
- Navigate to Keyboard » Shortcuts » Window Management.
- Adjust the following actions:
- Maximize Window » [Meta]+[Up]
- Minimize Window » [Meta]+[Down]
This allows you to reliably use the desired functions even without the Fn key. Further information about keyboard shortcuts in KDE Plasma can be found in the official documentation.
Driver for Motorcomm YT6801 LAN chipset (with AMD)
The Motorcomm YT6801 LAN chipset installed in the device requires a driver that is already integrated into TUXEDO OS but is often missing in other distributions. You can add the driver to Fedora and Ubuntu using the following packages. Please note that Secure Boot must be disabled in the BIOS/UEFI for the driver to load successfully.
Power Consumption in Sleep Mode with a Samsung 990 Evo NVMe
On the InfinityBook platform, a Samsung 990 Evo NVMe SSD may exhibit high power consumption of up to 4 watts in the s2idle sleep mode.
Cause: Issue with the „Simple Suspend“ Mode
This behavior is caused by an issue with the „Simple Suspend“ mode of the NVMe SSD. A patch enabling the „Force No Simple Suspend“ flag is set to be integrated into an upcoming Linux kernel. With this patch, power consumption in s2idle sleep mode can be reduced to approximately 1.4 watts.
Temporary Solution: Use a Boot Parameter
If you are not using TUXEDO OS or are running a custom kernel, you can resolve the issue by using the boot parameter nvme.noacpi=1. This parameter disables the ACPI integration of the NVMe SSD and reduces power consumption in sleep mode. Adding the Boot Parameter to GRUB:
- Open a terminal and edit the boot manager configuration with root privileges:
sudo nano /etc/default/grub
- Locate the line starting with [GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=] and add [nvme.noacpi=1] to the existing parameters. Example:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nvme.noacpi=1"
Save the file (in nano, use CTRL+O, then Enter, and close with CTRL+X).
Update GRUB with the following command:
sudo update-grub
- Restart your system for the boot parameter to take effect.
Future Solution: Kernel Update
Once the upcoming kernel with the fix is available, the boot parameter will no longer be necessary. Make sure to update your kernel regularly to benefit from the official solution.
Device Immediately Wakes Up After Suspend
With Tomte version 2.39.0, a fix was introduced to address this behavior using the boot parameter acpi.ec_no_wakeup=1. If your distribution was not installed via TUXEDO WebFAI and therefore does not use Tomte, you can manually add this parameter to your boot manager.
We’ll explain this using Grub as an example: Open a terminal and edit the /etc/default/grub file with a text editor that has administrative rights.
sudo nano /etc/default/grub
Locate the line starting with GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT and add the parameter acpi.ec_no_wakeup=1. The line will often look like the following example:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash acpi.ec_no_wakeup=1"
Save the file with Ctrl+O, then press Enter, and close the editor with Ctrl+X. Then run the following command to apply the changes and restart the system:
sudo update-grub
If you are using a different boot manager, such as Systemd-boot or rEFInd, you will need to add the parameter according to its specific configuration.
Background on design and configuration
Why did you change the chassis design?
We consider the new design to look a bit more modern, while the predecessors had a very classic design. While this is of course a matter of taste, from a technical standpoint, the new chassis design has several advantages:
Ports placement / cable management: The new design allows us to place ports also on the back. On the IBP 14 - Gen9, ports, which are not meant to be unplugged frequently like LAN, external monitors via HDMI or USB-C DisplayPort, are placed backwards to route the cables to the back to free desk space on the sides for your mouse hand and for a more pleasant and clean setup of your desk.
Less hindered airflow: On the old design, the hinge was pretty close to the fan exhausts. It did not fully block them, but this design had the fans blowing the hot air against the hinge and the bottom display bezel where the panel electronics are located. The new design allows the hot air to be blown out of the exhausts unhindered.
While cooling still consists of two small fans due to the extremely thin chassis (space for cooling is barely more than 7 mm) this unhindered airflow, combined with other detail improvements like slightly thicker rubber feet to create more space between desk and bottom panel and sucking air through the keyboard, allows to increase CPU power/performance to up to 60 watts (IBP 14 - Gen8: 40 watts) or presumably (not tested yet) quieter fans when you limit the CPU to the same 40 watts like on the predecessor.
Wider opening angle / less hinge torque resistance: The predecessor’s classic design constraints the display’s opening angle to around 140° while the new designs allows an angle of nearly 180°. While not everybody needs this, this gives more flexibility for laptop stands, where the notebook is in an almost vertical position.
But there is another advantage, too: With the old design, we had some hinge problems in the RMA because many customers do not open the display gently to the max angle, but rather with a swing, which puts quite a bit mechanical force on the hinge. When opening the new InfinityBook’s lid to the same ~140°, the hinges are far from their stop position, so that less mechanical resistance force acts on them.
Why did you go from magnesium alloy to aluminum?
The new InfinityBook Pro 14 and 15 feature very rigid and high-quality all-aluminum chassis. This is a clear step forward in quality into the premium range which our InfinityBook Pro series stands for. The new series of laptops (IBP 14/15, Stellaris Slim 15, upcoming Stellaris 16) are the best laptops we ever had in terms of build quality! Of course, the magnesium chassis had also good quality, but the focus with that material is on absolute minimum weight at the cost of some rigidity.
We don’t rule out to bring laptops with this material again in the future, but especially ultra light and portable laptops are normally constantly on the go: They get „thrown“ into bags, slapped out and on the table, moved to different locations and it is not always easy to take the care it deserves. So we consider the material change to the more robust aluminum as a clear step forward, especially since the weight has increased virtually imperceptibly on both the IBP 14 and IBP 15 (compared to IBP 16 - Gen8).
How does the color look like?
This was quite a hassle in production to get colors come out correctly. The IBP 14 - Gen9’s color changes significantly according to angle and light conditions. We would describe it as „metallic grey/gunmetal grey“. It is definitely clearly darker than the bright silver from the previous IBP 14/16.
Why did you downgrade the battery from 99 to 80 Wh?
Short answer: Because InfinityBook Pro 14 - Gen9 has added a second M.2 SSD drive.
Long answer: IBP 14 - Gen7 was offered in two editions. One with 1x M.2 and 99 Wh battery and one with 2x M.2 and 53(!) Wh battery. Although the first one sold much better, there were still many customers who chose the „storage edition“ although they had to give up almost half the battery capacity!
In other words: In a chassis this extremely small and light you get dual fan cooling (single fan cooling on a chassis this thin would be awful in terms of fan noise, fan on/off cycles and temperatures), 2x upgradable RAM slots, 2x upgradable M.2 SSD slots and a 80 Wh battery: There is not enough room for more.
According to latest internal battery tests, the InfinityBook Pro 14 achieves ~7 hours during YouTube 1080p streaming via Wi-Fi and ~9 hours during local 1080p video playback (both at 150 nits and 60 Hz display settings).
If you need the 99 Wh battery, please consider our still highly portable and very lightweight InfinityBook Pro 15.
Why no powersaving CPU for better battery life?
Actually, IBP 14 - Gen9 still plays in the same performance class - which we would call „fast/upper mainstream performance“ - like its predecessors. The Core Ultra 7 155H is the successor to last gen’s Core i7–13700H. AMD’s pendant in this performance class is the Ryzen 7 8845HS.
On the one hand, we have only limited CPU choice for certain devices, on the other hand, the InfinityBook Pro series stands for strong CPU performance in a maximally thin and light form factor.
Please also note, that both Intel and AMD have improved their low power efficiency quite a bit during the last few years. You CAN throw heavy workloads at them, but you can also use adjust/lower powerlimits to your liking via our inhouse-developed and pre-installed TUXEDO Control Center.
Last but not least: IBP 14 - Gen9 is charged via USB-C. The 100 watts power supply is really handy and very light.
If you seek for extreme levels of portability, but also rigidity (aluminium chassis) and good performance to also get some heavy workloads done without slowing down, the InfinityBook Pro 14 is the way to go.
Why no dedicated GPU anymore?
There are several reasons for this design decision. If you need significantly more graphics power, we simply have to refer to physics: You need a bigger chassis to cope with the additional heat.
Reason 1: The large majority of IBP 14 laptops we sold, were the version without dedicated graphics.
Reason 2:The chassis design/cooling was/is not meant for dedicated GPUs: Due to the extremely thin and light build, we had to throttle down the RTX 3050 to 45 watts (and of course the CPU heavily as well during cross loading) which is just slightly above NVIDIA’s lowest allowed power target (official range: 35 to 80 watts). While this meant still much better performance than the predecessor’s Intel Xe graphics, the price-performance ratio was rather bad, because despite getting not even close to the RTX 3050’s full performance, you still have to pay the full market price for the component.
Reason 3: Intel Core Ultra 7 155H and Ryzen 7 8845HS feature much better graphics than the predecessor’s Intel Xe graphics. On both new iGPUs, we talk about ** a roughly doubled performance**. Therefore it was decided to go solely with the iGPU version.
If you need (significantly) more graphics power, we simply have to refer to physics: You need a bigger chassis which can cope with the additional heat.
Solution 1: Connecting an external desktop GPU enclosure (eGPU) via Thunderbolt4/USB4 allows you to massively boost graphics performance at stationary use while maintaining the InfinityBook’s extremely portable form factor on the go.
Solution 2: If you prefer the all-in-one laptop solution while maintaining the thinnest and lightest form factor, we recommend to take a look at our Stellaris Slim 15.
We are aware that in times where every laptop vendor fights for attention with always „thinner and thinner“ and „lighter and lighter“ claims - just to surpass the competitors by 1 or 2 mm or 100 grams on paper - we should get proportions right: These marketing tricks do not aim to bring customers real added value, but to attract attention to their products.
The extent to which the industry has drastically changed the ratio of performance/power draw to chassis thickness/weight over the years is not only more than remarkable and has boosted portability a lot, but from a technical standpoint it is not the best way to go.
Adequate cooling needs space and weight, but allows lower skin temperatures and not only quieter fan noise in all load scenarios, but also often more pleasant, lower pitched fan acoustics due to taller fan blades.
Please be sure to think about all aspects of your next laptop: Which portability in terms of chassis size and weight do you really need, which kind of rigidity and build quality do you expect, how important is it to you to have a dedicated graphics card and/or a powerful CPU and how important are fan acoustics to you?
We have various notebooks and every one serves different preferences. If you need assistance, please reach out to our customer support team or get in contact with us here. We are always happy to help!
