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z13ctl

RGB lighting, performance profiles, battery limit, fan curves, TDP control, CPU undervolting, and display settings for the 2025 ASUS ROG Flow Z13 on Linux.

License

What z13ctl does

  • RGB lighting — set color, mode, speed, and brightness on the keyboard backlight and edge lightbar, independently or together
  • Performance profiles — switch between quiet, balanced, and performance via the asus-wmi sysfs interface
  • Battery charge limit — cap charging at any percentage (40–100) to extend long-term battery health
  • Fan curves — set custom 8-point fan curves via the asus-wmi hwmon interface (both fans cool the same APU and share one curve)
  • TDP control — set CPU/GPU power limits (5–93W) via asus-nb-wmi PPT attributes, with an automatic fan floor (50% PWM, rising to 100% at 80 °C) above 75W sustained
  • CPU undervolting — reduce voltage via AMD Curve Optimizer for lower temperatures and power draw without reducing performance (requires ryzen_smu kernel module)
  • Boot sound — enable or disable the POST beep via the asus-armoury firmware attributes interface
  • Panel overdrive — toggle display overdrive for reduced motion blur

All features work without root after a one-time setup step, and all persist across reboots when the daemon is running. The daemon also re-applies keyboard lighting automatically when the detachable keyboard is removed and reattached, and puts your fan curve back when the kernel discards it — which it does on every system power profile change (see Daemon).

New to Linux? Use the GUI

Most users — especially those newer to Linux — should install z13gui, a touch-friendly GTK4 overlay that controls every z13ctl feature (lighting, fan curves, TDP, undervolt, profiles, battery limit) through the daemon — no command line required. The raw z13ctl CLI is great for scripting and advanced tuning, but if you're not a Linux veteran you'll have a far smoother experience with the GUI. Install z13gui alongside z13ctl for the full experience.

Background

Linux support for RGB control on the 2025 ASUS ROG Flow Z13 is limited. OpenRGB does not support this model. asusctl does not work with it. rogauracore only controls the keyboard backlight. HHD works on Bazzite kernels but requires out-of-tree patches that reduce performance on CachyOS.

z13ctl implements the Aura HID protocol directly against the Linux hidraw interface — no kernel patches, no external daemons. The protocol was reverse-engineered from g-helper (MIT). A full protocol specification is available in the Protocol Reference.

Requirements

  • Linux kernel with hidraw support
  • 2025 ASUS ROG Flow Z13 (USB IDs 0b05:18c6 and 0b05:1a30)
  • Read/write access to the relevant hidraw and sysfs files — either run as root, or use z13ctl setup to install udev rules granting access to a group

Next steps

Head to the Installation guide to get z13ctl on your system, then follow the Quick Start to configure lighting, fan curves, and performance profiles. For the full CLI reference, see Commands.