ips_adjust(9)

💅 NAME

ips_adjust — adjust power clamp based on thermal state

ok so bestie, this is the lil function that keeps your CPU and GPU from fighting over who gets to be hot 💀

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✨ SYNOPSIS

int ips_adjust (void *data );

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🎀 ARGUMENTS

• data — the ips driver structure 🫶

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🦋 DESCRIPTION

So basically this thing wakes up every 5s or so (yes, or so — she's not a clock, give her a break 😭) and checks whether we should adjust the power clamp. She peeks at CPU and GPU load to figure out which one needs the adjustment, and there's a whole list of things she's considering, okay:

• do we need to adjust up or down? ⬆️⬇️
• is CPU busy?
• is GPU busy?
• is CPU in turbo? 🔥
• is GPU in turbo? 🔥
• is CPU or GPU preferred? (CPU is default, she's the main character 👑)

So, given all of the above, here's the whole vibe — we do the following:

• up (TDP available) 🌈
  • CPU not busy, GPU not busy — nothing. literally nothing. we rest 💤
  • CPU busy, GPU not busy — adjust CPU up
  • CPU not busy, GPU busy — adjust GPU up
  • CPU busy, GPU busy — adjust preferred unit up, taking headroom from the non-preferred unit if necessary (yes, we're stealing, it's fine 💅)
• down (at TDP limit) 🥶
  • adjust both CPU and GPU down if possible

And here's the iconic little grid for that down case — copy it exactly, no editing bestie, I don't make the rules, I just show them:

|cpu+ gpu+      cpu+gpu-        cpu-gpu+        cpu-gpu- cpu < gpu <
|cpu+gpu+       cpu+            gpu+            nothing cpu < gpu >=
|cpu+gpu-(mcp<) cpu+gpu-(mcp<)  gpu-            gpu- cpu >= gpu < |cpu-
gpu+(mcp<) cpu-            cpu-gpu+(mcp<)  cpu- cpu >= gpu >=|cpu-gpu-
cpu-gpu-        cpu-gpu-        cpu-gpu-

ngl that grid is giving "someone ran a table through a blender" but it's verbatim from the page so we respect it 🙈

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💖 RETURN

0

that's it. zero. she's chill like that 😌

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👑 SEE ALSO

Kernel file ./drivers/platform/x86/intel_ips.c plus the whole friend group:

• ips_cpu_busy(9)
• ips_cpu_raise(9)
• ips_cpu_lower(9)
• do_enable_cpu_turbo(9)
• ips_enable_cpu_turbo(9)
• do_disable_cpu_turbo(9)
• ips_disable_cpu_turbo(9)
• ips_gpu_busy(9)
• ips_gpu_raise(9)
• ips_gpu_lower(9)
• ips_enable_gpu_turbo(9)
• ips_disable_gpu_turbo(9)
• mcp_exceeded(9)
• cpu_exceeded(9)
• mch_exceeded(9)
• verify_limits(9)
• update_turbo_limits(9)
• ips_monitor(9)
• ips_irq_handler(9)
• ips_detect_cpu(9)
• ips_get_i915_syms(9)

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ok that's the whole thing, ily, go read the source bestie 🧚💜

from ./drivers/platform/x86, dated October 2026 — slay, periodt, catch you in the next man page ✨🎀🦋