Intel® Nuc software studio

Intel® NUC 11 Performance NUC11PAQ,

NUC11PAH, NUC11PAK
Intel® NUC 11 Enthusiast NUC11PHK
Intel® NUC 11 Extreme NUC11BTM

User Guide
V1.1 23 August 2021

Systems Product Group

Client Computing Group, Intel® Corporation

Page 1 of 20 Intel® NUC Software Studio - Intel® NUC 11 Performance, Intel® NUC 11 Enthusiast, Intel® NUC 11 Extreme / User Guide
Legal Disclaimer
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Copyright © 2021, Intel Corporation. All rights reserved.

Page 2 of 20 Intel® NUC Software Studio - Intel® NUC 11 Performance, Intel® NUC 11 Enthusiast, Intel® NUC 11 Extreme / User Guide
Revision History
Version Date Description of Changes
1.0 November 2020 Initial Release
Updated document with support to Intel® NUC 11 Performance, Intel® NUC 11 Enthusiast, Intel®
1.1 August 2021 NUC 11 Extreme

Page 3 of 20 Intel® NUC Software Studio - Intel® NUC 11 Performance, Intel® NUC 11 Enthusiast, Intel® NUC 11 Extreme / User Guide
Table of Contents
Legal Disclaimer..................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 2

Revision History ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 3

1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 5
Overview ................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. 5
Supported Products ......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 5
Supported Operating System ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 5

2 Installation .................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 6
Application Installation ................................................................................................................................................................................................... 6
Performance Driver Installation .................................................................................................................................................................................. 6
Application Uninstallation ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 6
Performance Driver Uninstallation .......................................................................................................................................................................... 7

3 Intel® NUC Software Studio – Interface ............................................................................................................................................................. 7

Opening the Intel® NUC Software Studio .............................................................................................................................................................. 7

4 Intel® NUC 11 Performance NUC11PAQ, NUC11PAH, NUC11PAK ....................................................................................................... 9

Home Screen ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 9
LED Manager......................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 9
Performance Tuning ...................................................................................................................................................................................................... 10
System Monitor ................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 11
Known Errata ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 12

5 Intel® NUC 11 Enthusiast NUC11PHK ............................................................................................................................................................. 13

Home Screen ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 13
LED Manager...................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 13
Performance Tuning ...................................................................................................................................................................................................... 14
System Monitor ................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 15
Known Errata ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 16

6 Intel® NUC 11 Extreme NUC11BTM ................................................................................................................................................................. 17

Home Screen ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 17
LED Manager...................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 17
Performance Tuning ...................................................................................................................................................................................................... 18
System Monitor ................................................................................................................................................................................................................ 19
Known Errata ..................................................................................................................................................................................................................... 20

Page 4 of 20 Intel® NUC Software Studio - Intel® NUC 11 Performance, Intel® NUC 11 Enthusiast, Intel® NUC 11 Extreme / User Guide
1 Introduction
Overview

The Intel® NUC Software Studio allows an end user with Intel® NUC 11 Performance Kit, Intel® NUC 11 Enthusiast Kit, Intel® NUC 11 Extreme Kit to
monitor system settings and control and tune LED settings and Performance settings.

Supported Products

 Intel® NUC 11 Performance NUC11PAQ, NUC11PAH, NUC11PAK

 Intel® NUC 11 Enthusiast NUC11PHK
 Intel® NUC 11 Extreme NUC11BTM

Supported Operating System

 Windows 10 version 21H1

 This application has not been testing on Windows 11.

Page 5 of 20 Intel® NUC Software Studio - Intel® NUC 11 Performance, Intel® NUC 11 Enthusiast, Intel® NUC 11 Extreme / User Guide
2 Installation

Application Installation

1. Search for Intel® NUC Software Studio application in the Microsoft Store.

2. Click Get.

Note: Make sure that the system OS is in the whitelist as mentioned in Supported OS.

3. Once the application has been installed, you will see the following message:

Note: If the system OS is not supported, an error message is displayed when the Launch button is clicked.

Performance Driver Installation

1. From Intel Download Center https://downloadcenter.intel.com search for ‘Intel® NUC Software Studio - Performance Driver’.

2. Click Download

3. Extract the package and double click the MSI installer

4. Click Yes to restart the system

Application Uninstallation

1. Open the Windows Start Menu

2. Right Click on the Intel® NUC Software Studio icon.

3. Choose Uninstall.

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 Performance Driver Uninstallation

1. From Windows Start Menu, search for ‘Add or Remove Programs’

2. Under Apps and Features, locate the ‘Intel® NUC Software Studio Service’ and select Uninstall

3. Click OK to restart the system

3 Intel® NUC Software Studio – Interface

Opening the Intel® NUC Software Studio

1. Click on the Windows Start menu icon

2. Select Intel® NUC Software Studio

3. Accept the Software License Agreement which redirects you to the Intel® NUC Software Studio home screen

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Page 8 of 20 Intel® NUC Software Studio - Intel® NUC 11 Performance, Intel® NUC 11 Enthusiast, Intel® NUC 11 Extreme / User Guide
4 Intel® NUC 11 Performance NUC11PAQ, NUC11PAH, NUC11PAK
Intel® NUC Software Studio supports the below features on Intel® NUC 11 Performance Kit:
1. LED Manager
2. Performance Tuning
3. System Monitor

Home Screen
On launch of the application, the home screen displays a summary of current settings. User can modify the supported settings from this page.
Clicking on the → button directs you to the detailed settings page.

LED Manager
This feature allows the end user to control the programmable LEDs on the system. Supported options are:

1. Change LED zone colors, style and indicator type

2. Create and edit LED profiles
3. Reset to default view
4. Enable and disable LEDs

Page 9 of 20 Intel® NUC Software Studio - Intel® NUC 11 Performance, Intel® NUC 11 Enthusiast, Intel® NUC 11 Extreme / User Guide
On launch of the application, the current state of the LEDs is displayed in the UI. Every LED zone will load the default supported color on the hardware
LED. The following table describes the supported options.

4.2.1 Supported LED zones, colors, style and indicators

LED Zone Supported States Supported Colors Indicators Supported Style

S0 (Working) • Blue • Power State • Solid
State • Amber • Disk Activity • Breathing (Frequency 1-10)
• Disable • Strobing (Frequency 1-10)
• Pulsing (Frequency 1-10)
Power Button Modern Standby • Blue • Power State • Solid
• Amber • Disk Activity • Breathing (Frequency 1-10)
• Disable • Strobing (Frequency 1-10)
• Pulsing (Frequency 1-10)

• Red • Power State • Off to On

• Orange • Disk Activity • On to Off
• Yellow • Disable
HDD N/A • Green
• Blue
• Indigo
• Violet
• White

4.2.2 LED Profiles

User can create and load LED profiles based on different LED color, style and indicators as supported on the system.
Click on Edit button to create, edit and delete profiles.

4.2.3 Default states

On click of Reset button, LED zones default to its original settings:

 Power Button: Power State

o S0 (Working) State – Blue, Solid
o Modern Standby – Blue, Breathing, Frequency value 10
 HDD: HDD Activity
o Orange, Off to On

4.2.4 Enable and Disable LEDs

User can toggle the Enable LEDs to turn the LED lights On or Off on the system. LEDs are enabled by default.

Performance Tuning
This feature allows the end user to customize Fan mode for a given performance mode.

Supported Performance modes are:

1. Balanced
2. Low Power
3. Max Performance
4. Custom – enabled if power settings are customized through BIOS.

Supported Fan modes are:

1. Quiet
2. Balanced

Page 10 of 20 Intel® NUC Software Studio - Intel® NUC 11 Performance, Intel® NUC 11 Enthusiast, Intel® NUC 11 Extreme / User Guide
 3. Cool

System Monitor
System Monitor displays the real time indication of the hardware’s system settings.
The System Monitor’s data includes:

 CPU
 iGPU
 Memory
 Storage
 System information like Model, Manufacturer, BIOS and EC version
 System Fan speed

Page 11 of 20 Intel® NUC Software Studio - Intel® NUC 11 Performance, Intel® NUC 11 Enthusiast, Intel® NUC 11 Extreme / User Guide
 Known Errata

1. LED Settings

1. Disabling and Enabling LEDs repeatedly can sometimes cause the user interface On and Off status to get out of sync with hardware
LED.
Steps to Recover: To resolve the UI sync, close and re-open the application.

2. When current state is Modern Standby and LED style is customized to non-default value, clicking Reset does not reset the style to
default ‘Breathing’
This will be fixed in future release to set to default Breathing style
Steps to Recover: Explicitly select the required style.

3. When current zone is HDD – Disk Activity and LED color is customized to non-default value, clicking Reset and turning LED off and
on does not restore the default color
This will be fixed in future release to set to default color.
Steps to Recover: Explicitly select the required color.

Page 12 of 20 Intel® NUC Software Studio - Intel® NUC 11 Performance, Intel® NUC 11 Enthusiast, Intel® NUC 11 Extreme / User Guide
5 Intel® NUC 11 Enthusiast NUC11PHK
Intel® NUC Software Studio supports the below features on Intel® NUC 11 Enthusiast Kit:
1. LED Manager
2. Performance Tuning
3. System Monitor

Home Screen
On launch of the application, the home screen displays a summary of current settings. User can modify the supported settings from this page.
Clicking on the → button directs you to the detailed settings page.

LED Manager
This feature allows the end user to control the programmable LEDs on the system. Supported options are:

1. Change LED zone colors, style and indicator type

2. Create and edit LED profiles
3. Reset to default view
4. Enable and disable LEDs

Page 13 of 20 Intel® NUC Software Studio - Intel® NUC 11 Performance, Intel® NUC 11 Enthusiast, Intel® NUC 11 Extreme / User Guide
On launch of the application, the current state of the LEDs is displayed in the UI. Every LED zone will load the default supported color on the hardware
LED. The following table describes the supported options.

5.2.1 Supported LED zones, colors, style and indicators

LED Zones Supported States Supported Colors Indicators Supported Style

• Solid
• Red • Power State • Breathing (Frequency 1-10)
• Orange • Power Limit • Strobing (Frequency 1-10)
• Yellow • Pulsing (Frequency 1-10)
Power Button • S0 (Working) State • Green
Skull • Modern Standby • Blue • Disk Activity • Off to On
Front LED1 • Indigo • On to Off
Front LED2 • Violet
Front LED3 • White
• Ethernet Activity N/A
• Disable

5.2.2 LED Profiles

User can create and load LED profiles based on different LED color, style and indicators as supported on the system.
Click on Edit button to create, edit and delete profiles.

5.2.3 Default states

On click of Reset button, LED zones default to its original settings:

 Power Button and Skull: Power State

o S0 (Working) State – Blue, Solid
o Modern Standby – Blue, Breathing, Frequency value 10
 Front LED 1: Disk Activity
o Red, Off to On
 Front LED 2: Ethernet Activity
o Green
 Front LED 3: Power Limit
o Green to Red

5.2.4 Enable and Disable LEDs

User can toggle the Enable LEDs to turn the LED lights On or Off on the system. LEDs are enabled by default.

Performance Tuning
This feature allows the end user to customize power settings and fan settings.

Supported Performance modes are:

5. Balanced
6. Low Power
7. Max Performance
8. Custom – enabled if power settings are customized through BIOS.

Supported Fan modes are:

4. Quiet
5. Balanced
6. Cool

Page 14 of 20 Intel® NUC Software Studio - Intel® NUC 11 Performance, Intel® NUC 11 Enthusiast, Intel® NUC 11 Extreme / User Guide
 System Monitor
System Monitor displays the real time indication of the hardware’s system settings.
The System Monitor’s data includes:

 CPU
 iGPU
 dGPU
 Memory
 Storage
 System information like Model, Manufacturer, BIOS and EC version
 System fan speed
 dGPU fan speed

Page 15 of 20 Intel® NUC Software Studio - Intel® NUC 11 Performance, Intel® NUC 11 Enthusiast, Intel® NUC 11 Extreme / User Guide
 Known Errata

1. LED Settings

Disabling and enabling LEDs repeatedly can sometimes cause the user interface On and Off status to get out of sync with hardware LED.
Steps to Recover: To resolve the UI sync, close and re-open the application.

2. Performance Tuning:

Although the ‘Balanced’ fan mode supports only one temperature value, the application UI indicates min and max sliders.
This will be fixed in future releases to correctly indicate single temperature value.

Page 16 of 20 Intel® NUC Software Studio - Intel® NUC 11 Performance, Intel® NUC 11 Enthusiast, Intel® NUC 11 Extreme / User Guide
6 Intel® NUC 11 Extreme NUC11BTM
Intel® NUC Software Studio supports the below features on Intel® NUC 11 Extreme Kit:
1. LED Manager
2. Performance Tuning
3. System Monitor

Home Screen
On launch of the application, the home screen displays a summary of current settings. User can modify the supported settings from this page.
Clicking on the → button directs you to the detailed settings page.

LED Manager
This feature allows the end user to control the programmable LEDs on the system. Supported options are:

1. Change LED zone pattern, color, brightness and frequency

2. Create and edit LED profiles
3. Reset to default view
4. Enable and disable LEDs

Page 17 of 20 Intel® NUC Software Studio - Intel® NUC 11 Performance, Intel® NUC 11 Enthusiast, Intel® NUC 11 Extreme / User Guide
On launch of the application, the current state of the LEDs is displayed in the UI. Every LED zone will load the default supported color on the hardware
LED.

6.2.1 Supported LED zones

Intel® NUC 11 Extreme Kit supports the following 4 LED zones:
1. Skull
2. Bottom Front
3. Bottom Right
4. Bottom Left

Supported Arduino LED patterns are described in the table below:

Pattern Description Color(s) Frequency Brightness

Off LED zone turned off N/A N/A N/A
1 Color 0–5
Solid All on N/A
Rainbow (Default) Default: 5
1 Color 0–5 0–5
Pulse Mono-color hard flash
Rainbow (Default) Default: 2 Default: 5
1 Color 0–5 0–5
Breathing Mono-color fading flash
Rainbow (Default) Default: 2 Default: 5
1 Color 0–5 0–5
Strobing Mono-color flash with fade out
Rainbow (Default) Default: 2 Default: 5
3 Colors 0–5 0–5
Pulse train 1 Color pulse from L to H
Red, Green, Blue Default: 2 Default: 5
3 Colors 0–5 0–5
Pulse train 2 Color pulse from H to L
Red, Green, Blue Default: 2 Default: 5
3 Colors 0–5 0–5
Pulse train 3 Bouncing color pulse
Red, Green, Blue Default: 2 Default: 5
0–5
Rainbow 1 Synchronized rainbow train on all segments Rainbow (Default) N/A
Default: 5

6.2.2 LED Profiles

User can create and load LED profiles based on different LED color, style and indicators as supported on the system.
Click on Edit button to create, edit and delete profiles.

6.2.3 Enable and Disable LEDs

User can toggle the Enable LEDs to turn the LED lights On or Off on the system. LEDs are enabled by default.

Performance Tuning
This feature allows the end user to customize power settings and fan settings.

Supported Performance modes are:

1. Balanced
2. Low Power
3. Max Performance
4. Custom – enabled if power settings are customized through BIOS.

Supported Fan modes for CPU fans are:

1. Quiet
2. Balanced
3. Cool

Page 18 of 20 Intel® NUC Software Studio - Intel® NUC 11 Performance, Intel® NUC 11 Enthusiast, Intel® NUC 11 Extreme / User Guide
 System Monitor

System Monitor displays the real time indication of the hardware’s system settings.
The System Monitor’s data includes:

 CPU
 iGPU
 Memory
 Storage
 System information like Model, Manufacturer, BIOS and EC version
 System Fan speed

Page 19 of 20 Intel® NUC Software Studio - Intel® NUC 11 Performance, Intel® NUC 11 Enthusiast, Intel® NUC 11 Extreme / User Guide
 Known Errata

1. LED Settings
When current pattern is Pulse Train and colors are customized to non-default values, clicking Reset does not reset the colors to default Red,
Green and Blue.
This will be fixed in future release to set the default colors

Steps to Recover: Manually select the required Pulse Train colors.

Page 20 of 20 Intel® NUC Software Studio - Intel® NUC 11 Performance, Intel® NUC 11 Enthusiast, Intel® NUC 11 Extreme / User Guide