When your computer works

HIPS Provider reads the computer every second and decides how much HIPS work may run right now. It never names what you are doing: HIPS receives only the level, the reason codes below and numeric readings such as GPU and CPU use, never an application, a window, a game or a process.

Blocks come first: any one of them makes the level NONE, and each one that holds is listed. Then the load rule: with no block, the level is HIGH while your own GPU and CPU use stay under the HIGH limits, LOW under the LOW limits, and NONE above them.

In Auto you count as away once there has been no input for the idle threshold (at least 120 seconds), the screen is locked, or nobody is signed in. A pause is not a mode: pause from the tray menu, in My GPUs or with hips-provider pause.

Auto is unchanged: every reason on this page can hold work in Auto. Always counts you as away whatever you do and ignores the schedule.

Always gives the computer to HIPS even while you use it, so the signs that someone is at the computer no longer hold work back. None of these stops work in Always:

• The microphone or the camera in use (microphone_in_use, camera_in_use).
• An app in full screen, or a game running (fullscreen, game_running).
• A video playing, or video being encoded for a recording or a stream (video_playing, video_encoding).
• A remote session, Do Not Disturb or Focus, and the app's session helper not running (remote_session, do_not_disturb, helper_missing).

The app still reads each of them on the computer, and shows one that is on as "Active, not pausing work in Always". A lifted sign stays on the computer: it is never sent to HIPS, as a reason or as a signal, so My GPUs and the rest of the Console never show it, and in Always it is never the reason a computer is not working.

• Heat: a GPU at its temperature limit, or the CPU throttled, which allows light work at most (thermal, cpu_throttled).
• The wait after a display-driver reset (driver_reset).
• Battery and low-power mode, each by its own setting (on_battery, low_power_mode).
• The daily cap, once today's work time is used up (daily_cap).
• A pause, yours or HIPS's (paused, operator_paused).
• Other programs already loading the GPU or the CPU: the load rule, another program using the GPU for compute, and on a machine with no desktop session your own workload (gpu_load, cpu_load, gpu_compute_in_use, owner_workload).

These protect the computer, your battery and the buyer's request: a GPU or CPU that another program already loads would slow the job down or make it fail. A computer held in Always shows the reason that holds it, in My GPUs and in hips-provider status.

A machine with no desktop session, such as a DGX Spark or a Jetson, works by the owner-workload rule: no input gate, and the load of every process but HIPS's own decides, so an administrator's SSH login counts only through the load it makes. A data-center server reads no user signal and no load rule: it works whenever it is healthy, unless it is paused or in a maintenance window, a GPU is at its thermal limit, the CPU throttles or a driver reset holds it.

What it does is what a reason does in Auto. The last column says whether it applies in Always, where Lifted comes with the next app release.

• The fullscreen block: set fullscreen_rule to false, and a fullscreen or presentation app in front no longer stops work.
• The battery block: set power_rules to allow_above with a battery_min_percent, and work runs on battery above that charge. Low-power mode always stops work.
• Nothing else in Auto. Always lifts the signs that someone is at the computer, as above, and leaves every other block in place.
• In either mode, the thermal limit and the wait after a driver reset are safety blocks, and nobody lifts them: the driver's own temperature limit applies whatever your setting says, and the wait after a reset is at least an hour, longer if you set it so.

The moment you return, or pause, HIPS stops sending new work, and a running job gets the drain window (drain_window_s) to finish before it is stopped. What a job cut short earns follows the Provider Agreement: a job ended by the device, its app or you earns nothing; one ended by HIPS, or canceled by a buyer after output began, earns the price of what it produced before it ended; one canceled before output, nothing.

Each setting, its bounds and where you change it are on the settings reference.