Techniques are described for an adaptive low density parity check (LDPC) decoder. The techniques include receiving a first set of values corresponding to a first low density parity check codeword and noise, performing a first plurality of iterations of an iterative decoding algorithm using a first set of decoding parameters to decode the received first set of values, comparing a metric with a first threshold, and upon determining that the metric is larger than the threshold: selecting a second set of decoding parameters for the iterative LDPC decoder and performing a second plurality of iterations of the iterative LDPC decoding algorithm using the second set of decoding parameters to decode the received first set of values and generate a first set of decoded bits.