Re: [PATCH v4 5/8] ACPI: CPPC: add APIs and sysfs interface for perf_limited register

[Sumit Gupta]

On 13/11/25 17:05, Ionela Voinescu wrote:
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>
>
> Hi,
>
> On Wednesday 05 Nov 2025 at 17:08:41 (+0530), Sumit Gupta wrote:
> > Add sysfs interface to read/write the Performance Limited register.
> >
> > The Performance Limited register indicates to the OS that an
> > unpredictable event (like thermal throttling) has limited processor
> > performance. This register is sticky and remains set until reset or
> > OS clears it by writing 0.
> >
> > The interface is exposed as:
> >   /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpuX/cpufreq/perf_limited
> What is the intended use of this interface? The performance limited
> register has a specific format of status bits with feedback about
> performance being limited temporarily and the user can only clear it.
>
> "Contains a resource descriptor with a single Register() descriptor
> that describes the register to read to determine if performance was
> limited. A nonzero value indicates performance was limited. This
> register is sticky, and will remain set until reset or OSPM clears
> it by writing 0. See the section “Performance Limiting” for more
> details." Also, "The performance limited register should only be used
> to report short term, unpredictable events (e.g., PROCHOT being
> asserted)."
>
> Therefore, I'm not seeing the value of exposing this via sysfs.
>
> Thanks,
> Ionela.

This enables users to detect if platform throttling impacted a workload.
Users clear the register before execution, run the workload, then check
afterward if set, hardware throttling (thermal/power/current limits)
occurred during that time window. The write operation can be restricted
to only accept 0 (clearing) to prevent writing arbitrary values.

Thank you,
Sumit Gupta

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