Hold-up Time

What Does Hold-up Time Mean?

Hold-up time refers to the total amount of time a power supply unit (PSU) of a computer continues to operate in case of a power failure.

Techopedia Explains Hold-up Time

Hold-up time is primarily the ability of a PSU in time, to hold and deliver electric current after power breakage, outage or shutdown. Typically, the hold-up time is measured in milliseconds.

Most modern computers PSU have a hold-up time of 15-25 milliseconds. This means the computer will continue to operate for 15-25 milliseconds after is power input is ceased or terminated. Although, the hold-up time is generally meaningless for users, 10-15 milliseconds of hold-up time is enough for the OS and firmware to store essential data and state.

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Margaret Rouse

Technology Specialist

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ??a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.

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