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POWERD(8)		    System Manager's Manual		     POWERD(8)

NAME
       powerd -- system	power control utility

SYNOPSIS
       powerd  [-a  mode]  [-b	mode]  [-i  percent]  [-M freq]	[-m freq] [-N]
	      [-n mode]	[-P pidfile] [-p ival] [-r percent] [-s	source]	[-v]

DESCRIPTION
       The powerd utility monitors the system state  and  sets	various	 power
       control	options	accordingly.  It offers	power-saving modes that	can be
       individually selected for operation on AC power or batteries.

       maximum	   Choose the highest performance values.  May be  abbreviated
		   as max.

       minimum	   Choose  the lowest performance values to get	the most power
		   savings.  May be abbreviated	as min.

       adaptive	   Attempt to strike a balance by degrading  performance  when
		   the	system	appears	idle and increasing it when the	system
		   is busy.  It	offers a good balance between a	small  perfor-
		   mance loss for greatly increased power savings.  May	be ab-
		   breviated as	adp.

       hiadaptive  Like	adaptive mode, but tuned for systems where performance
		   and	interactivity  are  more important than	power consump-
		   tion.  It increases	frequency  faster,  reduces  frequency
		   less	 aggressively,	and  will  maintain full frequency for
		   longer.  May	be abbreviated as hadp.

       The default mode	is adaptive for	battery	power and hiadaptive  for  the
       rest.

       powerd recognizes these runtime options:

       -a mode	   Selects the mode to use while on AC power.

       -b mode	   Selects the mode to use while on battery power.

       -i percent  Specifies  the  CPU	load  percent level when adaptive mode
		   should begin	to degrade performance to save power.  The de-
		   fault is 50%	or lower.

       -M freq	   Specifies the maximum frequency to throttle up to.

       -m freq	   Specifies the minimum frequency to throttle down to.

       -N	   Treat "nice"	time as	idle for the purpose of	load  calcula-
		   tion; i.e., do not increase the CPU frequency if the	CPU is
		   only	busy with "nice" processes.

       -n mode	   Selects  the	mode to	use normally when the AC line state is
		   unknown.

       -P pidfile  Specifies an	alternative  file  in  which  the  process  ID
		   should be stored.

       -p ival	   Specifies  a	 different  polling interval (in milliseconds)
		   for AC line state and system	idle levels.  The  default  is
		   250 ms.

       -r percent  Specifies  the  CPU	load percent level where adaptive mode
		   should consider the CPU running and	increase  performance.
		   The default is 75% or higher.

       -s source   Enforces  method  for AC line state refresh;	by default, it
		   is chosen automatically.   The  set	of  valid  methods  is
		   sysctl, devd	and apm	(i386 only).

       -v	   Verbose mode.  Messages about power changes will be printed
		   to stdout and powerd	will operate in	the foreground.

FILES
       /var/run/powerd.pid  The	default	PID file.

SEE ALSO
       acpi(4),	apm(4),	cpufreq(4), rc.conf(5)

HISTORY
       The powerd utility first	appeared in FreeBSD 6.0.

AUTHORS
       Colin  Percival	first  wrote estctrl, the utility that powerd is based
       on.  Nate Lawson	then updated it	for cpufreq(4),	 added	features,  and
       wrote this manual page.

BUGS
       The  powerd  utility should also	power down idle	disks and other	compo-
       nents besides the CPU.

       If powerd is used with /etc/rc.d/power_profile, they may	override  each
       other.

       The  powerd utility should probably use the devctl(4) interface instead
       of polling for AC line state.

FreeBSD	13.2		       February	25, 2023		     POWERD(8)

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | FILES | SEE ALSO | HISTORY | AUTHORS | BUGS

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