Intel NUC - ArchWiki

Jump to content

# Intel NUC

From ArchWiki

Next Unit of Computing (NUC) is a small-form-factor (SFF) PC designed by Intel and is based on soldered-on low-power Celeron, Pentium, i3, i5 and i7 CPUs. Its motherboard measures 4 × 4 inches (10.16 × 10.16 cm).

The barebone kits consist of the board, in a plastic case with a fan, an external power supply and VESA mounting plate. Intel does offer for sale just the NUC motherboards, which have a built-in CPU, although (as of 2013) the price of a NUC motherboard is very close to the corresponding cased kit; third-party cases for the NUC boards are also available.

## Installation

Follow usual installation guide procedures.

It is highly recommended to update the board BIOS prior to installation. See official Intel BIOS update instructions for details.

Note: Prior to BIOS update, review the community response to the latest BIOS version compatability with the specific NUC model, as some versions are known to cause new regressions.

### NVMe

Intel NUCs support NVMe drives connected to the PCIe M.2 connector. See Solid State Drives/NVMe.

Tip: If supported by the NVMe and/or other devices connected to the PCIe-slot, you may want to enable Native ACPI OS PCIe Support in the Power section to allow power saving and possible cooling the device in idle.

### Graphics

Most NUCs use integrated Intel graphics. See Hardware video acceleration to use it on supported NUC models.

### Wireless

Most NUC wireless adapters should work out of the box. Make sure relevant firmware is loaded. See Wireless network configuration#iwlwifi for details.

### LEDs

Some NUCs have LEDs which can be controlled by software by installing the kernel driver intel_nuc_led-dkms-gitAUR [1]. To use this, Software Control must be enabled in the BIOS Power settings.

## Performance

### Boot

Fastest boot times are achieved with UEFI boot and disabling legacy boot in the BIOS settings.

### 4K

If you want to use 4K graphic output, open the BIOS settings and set Devices and Peripherals -> Video -> IGD Minimum Memory to 512 MB and IGD Aperture Size to 1024 MB.

## Power management

It is possible to reduce power usage, see TLP and Powertop.

## Troubleshooting

### Hades Canyon NUC - No External Microphones

External microphones being plugged into the front or back 3.5mm jack may not appear in PulseAudio (only the Internal Microphone array will be used).

To fix this, create `/etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf` and add this:

    /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf

    options snd-hda-intel model=dell-headset-multi

Reboot the device, and three new input devices should be listed under Input Devices, Built-in Audio Analog Stereo - Internal Microphone, Headset Microphone, and Microphone.

### TPM

The Intel specifications for some NUC devices indicate that TPM is unavailable. However, those devices are often capable of TPM 2.0 features through a firmware-based implementation called Intel PTT. Storing and retrieving values works as one would expect from a TPM chip.

### Poweroff

After issuing a shutdown, the NUC might remain in some state which is not completely shut down, as indicated by a remaining blue power LED. In this case it is necessary to power off the unit by holding the power button for a few seconds.

The workaround for this issue is to disable all wake-on-CIR (infrared sensor) options in the BIOS. In some cases it might be required to disable the CIR sensor completely to fix the issue.

## Resources

- Official Intel NUC Support Community

Category:

- Mainboards and BIOS