Remember, I was furious about dead Antec Phantom 500?
Finally, they did send up a replacement. They notified me about that a day after I, completely pissed, decided to bite the bullet and bought the replacement, Corsair CMPSU-750TX.
Another two weeks passed by, and finally the replacement from Antec came (by the way, I was never notified of a tracking number). The computer where Phantom died was operational again, so I was not in a hurry to open the box, and it was just laying in the corner.
Today, I've decided to clean up the shop and opened the box. And you won't believe what I've found inside.
Antec NeoPower 650 Blue.
I' missing something here. I've sent you a FANLESS PSU. You send me back one WITH A FAN. Could've had some common decency and told me upfront that you don't manufacture Phantoms any more, and can't send it back. I would've understood, or maybe would've asked for some sort of redemption - all in all, I've decided not to buy Antec PSUs any more. But no, you had to sneak up on me and make me exert extra efforts to call your RMA department (See Figure 1, also here) and figure out whether it was a mistake and Antec does have some spare Phantoms and they will fix it (provided I pay for shipping, both ways, of course), or I've just been had and now I'm stuck with this Blue <censored>.
I think I'm done with Antec for real this time. Not just the PSUs, everything.
UPDATE (2009/08/03): fail. Less than two months.
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Hi,
ReplyDeleteThe Phantom has been out of production for two years. What were we supposed to do, give you nothing? Do you think Corsair will still have some extra TX 750's laying around in 4 years if you need a warranty replacement? We gave you a quality PSU, with more power because we do not make any fanless units anymore. Why? Because, frankly, a lot of users did not properly cool their "fanless" systems and there were a lot of failures that were not the fault of the PSU but of unsophisticated users. Also, the Phantom 500 DOES have a fan. Granted it is in the inside of the system (so is the one on the Neo650) but it is a fan version of the original Phantom which was a 350 Watt design. By adding the fan we were able to extend the power to 500 Watts.
Sorry if we disappointed you but I did want to set the record straight.
Scott Richards
Senior Vice President, Antec.
Scott: Thanks for taking this personally, in a good sense. Let's take it step by step.
ReplyDeleteStraight answer for "what we were supposed to do" question: tell me everything upfront. That's regarding the PSU I got as a replacement. Now, thanks again for saving me time to reach the RMA department - that would've been a long and painful endeavour (been there already, just call the RMA department number and you'll see what I mean).
Some extra TX 750 in four years - well, I wouln't expect that, but the difference between TX 750 and Phantom 500 is that the Phantom is (sorry, was) specifically marketed as zero decibel PSU. A different category altogether. As for out of production for two years - well, how was I supposed to know that? Your customer support failed to mention that fact, and I see Phantom 500 still being sold.
Lots of users don't cool their boxes - well, I'm not. Take a second to jump a couple of links off this site, and you'll see that I've been working on making this world cooler since about 2001. Search this blog for "topsy turvy" and you'll see that the PSU was working inside of a wind tunnel.
I know Phantom 500 does have a fan. It just never needed to kick in.
As for what else can be done - well, first of all, I'm sure that you are painfully aware of inadequacies with the new site (most links go nowhere and you end up at a generic "we're sorry" page) and the customer support, but if you want me to actually reproduce everything that I think can be done better - feel free to contact me privately, I'd be happy to, I have detailed records.
Lastly - thanks for taking your time to address this. I see you care, and I respect that - I care for what I do, too. You may have just won a customer back.