- Joined
- Jan 1, 2005
- Location
- Elkins Park, PA
I've had it. I've had 3 Antec PSUs over the last 6 years, and they all share one thing in common, they're all dead. None of them were overloaded, each system was well below their rated load capacity.
I thought ah, it's just a PSU failure, no worries. Yea, right. Sure enough after I installed my brand new OCZ Fatal1ty 550 (yea that's right, no more Antec in my house), my boot drive didn't show up in the BIOs. NOOOOOOO! Checked all my connections, moved it to another bus, put it on it's own power cable, then it was confirmed after plugging it into my APRICORN USB SATA adapter. My wife's relatively new 7200.12 Barracuda was pronounced dead.
What confuses me is that I have two 7200.8 Barracudas in the same system RAID 1, and they are both unscathed. Thank god, as they are all my families digital pictures. Maybe 7200.8's are just more rugged, 7200.12's are much smaller.
So there's my tail of woe, a cautionary tail for all other casual enthusiasts. Have a bulletproof backup strategy, and in my humble opinion stay as far away fromAntec PSUs entry-level Antec PSUs as possible.
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Can't have a post without a picture....
1) NeoPower 480 - Ah she was a beauty, queen of her day. But alas after her warranty passed - >POP!< - and she was no more. That little mini explosion actually blew a transistor right off the circuit board.
2) SmartPower 350 - She seemed pretty smart at the time, just the thing to power my daughter's P4D. Again a nice modular PSU, so I thought. The one day the LED fans started to slower and dimmer, then brighter and faster, and so on. Hmmm ... that's no good. Should have known better, but after turning it off until cold, I turned it back on again. This time there was a bigger - > P O P ! < - which included a burst of flames, and cloud of smoke. When the dust settled, there was 1 dead Antec PSU, and 1 dead 80GB boot drive. (I sent the drive to i365 for evaluation. I figured it was probably a simple electronic fix and shouldn't be too bad. Well I was right it was a simple fix, but they wanted to charge me $700, and it was going to take 3-4 weeks. I said no thanks.)
3) SmartPower 500 - I bought this bi*ch to replace the Neo-Powersupply that threw up a transistor. My wife had to have her computer up immediately, so I had to pay a premium for said bi*ch from Staples. At the time the SmartPower 350 was still alive, so I figured it should be a safe bet in a pinch. Well two years later, she joined her lesser sibling in the trash heap, hopefully where that dude with horns lives. But unlike her older relatives, she just went quietly, though emits a high pitched whining sound, when you flip her switch.
2) SmartPower 350 - She seemed pretty smart at the time, just the thing to power my daughter's P4D. Again a nice modular PSU, so I thought. The one day the LED fans started to slower and dimmer, then brighter and faster, and so on. Hmmm ... that's no good. Should have known better, but after turning it off until cold, I turned it back on again. This time there was a bigger - > P O P ! < - which included a burst of flames, and cloud of smoke. When the dust settled, there was 1 dead Antec PSU, and 1 dead 80GB boot drive. (I sent the drive to i365 for evaluation. I figured it was probably a simple electronic fix and shouldn't be too bad. Well I was right it was a simple fix, but they wanted to charge me $700, and it was going to take 3-4 weeks. I said no thanks.)
3) SmartPower 500 - I bought this bi*ch to replace the Neo-Powersupply that threw up a transistor. My wife had to have her computer up immediately, so I had to pay a premium for said bi*ch from Staples. At the time the SmartPower 350 was still alive, so I figured it should be a safe bet in a pinch. Well two years later, she joined her lesser sibling in the trash heap, hopefully where that dude with horns lives. But unlike her older relatives, she just went quietly, though emits a high pitched whining sound, when you flip her switch.
I thought ah, it's just a PSU failure, no worries. Yea, right. Sure enough after I installed my brand new OCZ Fatal1ty 550 (yea that's right, no more Antec in my house), my boot drive didn't show up in the BIOs. NOOOOOOO! Checked all my connections, moved it to another bus, put it on it's own power cable, then it was confirmed after plugging it into my APRICORN USB SATA adapter. My wife's relatively new 7200.12 Barracuda was pronounced dead.
What confuses me is that I have two 7200.8 Barracudas in the same system RAID 1, and they are both unscathed. Thank god, as they are all my families digital pictures. Maybe 7200.8's are just more rugged, 7200.12's are much smaller.
So there's my tail of woe, a cautionary tail for all other casual enthusiasts. Have a bulletproof backup strategy, and in my humble opinion stay as far away from
edit
Can't have a post without a picture....
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