About That Phantom Replacement...

Yes, the replacement they sent. The NeoPower 650 Blue.

Quality PSU, you say? I beg to differ.

Out of the box, the PSU fan made clicking noises. Day by day, it got louder and louder, until today, less than two months since it was installed, the clicking has become so loud, that it annoys the hell out of me even though there are 14 (yes, fourteen) other fans running next to it. Guess I will have to rip the fan out of the PSU and replace it with something more, ahem, quality.

But you might say - wait a second, you said you installed Corsair instead of that Phantom? That's right, I did.

This PSU, however, had to be installed a few days after it arrived to replace another Antec PSU that died right then - SmartPower 350.

Having read Scott's comments, I thought long and hard about whether I am being unfair. Well, I don't think so. Here's the list of all hardware that failed for me since 1997:

• One no-name PSU that came with YY-0110 (catastrophic failure);
• A couple of Maxtor 80G drives (catastrophic failure);
• One or maybe two Netgear Gigabit Ethernet cards (works no higher than 100M now);
• One eVGA videocard (GeForce 7800 GT) half-dead - apparently, bad soldering on memory chips, overheats easily but still usable;
• All Antec PSUs.

No, I don't think I am unfair.

UPDATE (2009/08/08): Now it's also screeching.

UPDATE (2009/08/10): Now it seized completely. Good thing I have an array of other "quality" PSUs to rip the replacement fan out of.

Antec Warranty: You've got to be kidding me

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.

Antec P183: Thanks, but No Thanks

Disclaimer: I don't have a physical case at my hands, this review is based on actual experience with Antec P182 case and SPCR review of P183. Hope you find it essential enough, though.

THE GOOD

The case is apparently a bit bigger, which means that you would be able to fit big video cards with rear mounted power connectors together with hard drives in the middle cage - barely, though, judging by this picture (page six of the SPCR review).

The case is apparently better ventilated, especially at the front - though it is questionable how well a non-directional airflow dissipation will work.

The bottom fan had been moved from the middle of the case to the front of it - which will improve the airflow through hard drives installed in the bottom cage.

THE BAD

• The bottom fan moved to the front will increase acoustic noise.
• Bottom fan is now optional (read: you will ave to pay extra).

THE UGLY

• Hateful Tricool 120 fans. These will have to be ripped out and thrown away, for the level of noise they generate is unacceptable. Assuming the same Scythe SY1225SL12M are used, this, again, brings the price up to $200 - and again, you have better options in that price range.
• Fan grills. Problems with them have gone unnoticed by original P182 SPCR review, and I was unlucky enough to discover them only after all the components wer installed. In this incarnation, though, the problems were so aggravated that it deserved a special note from SPCR (look for this picture) and read the comments. This means that before the components are installed, the fans have to be ripped out even if you decide to keep the stock Tricool fans, and something will have to be done to the grills to smooth the airflow.
• Antec CP proprietary PSU form factor and mounts: given the fact that all Antec power supplies I've ever bought have already died, most just outside of the warranty period, and one barely within, and it still hasn't been replaced yet, I (my humble personal opinion) couldn't care less about their improved proprietary technology, no matter how good it sounds on paper. Simply can't afford to waste that much money and risk the life of equipment those PSUs feed.

VERDICT

Thanks, but no thanks.

R.I.P.: Antec Phantom 500W "Fanless" Power Supply

2006/10/30 - 2009/04/30

I used to like Antec power supplies - they were cheap and hip and everyone was loving them.

Then, they started dying. I've lost count of all Antec power supplies that died on me, I believe it was all of them that I've ever had - about five. The last addition to the cemetery is the Phantom Fanless. It just failed to produce power next time I switched it on, and I don't really care why.

I will not be buying another Antec PSU, ever. PSU manufacturer of choice is, for now, Corsair. CMPSU-620HX works since 2007/04/08 (replaced dead Antec True Blue), CMPSU-750TX since 208/05/04 (new installation). I think I'll just get another 750TX as a replacement for this Phantom, to be on a safe side.

The jury is still out on other Antec products, but there's little to break, really...

UPDATE: Apparently, Phantom is backed by Antec's 3 year warranty. The fact that the phone line is only open 10:00 to 16:00 Pacific on weekdays doesn't make me too optimistic, though. Online support request submitted, let's see how fast and how good does it go. So far, not even an automated email confirmation.

UPDATE: Customer service is, ahem, schizophrenic. People (at least the rep I'm dealing with) are helpful and expedient. Support site, on the other side, is trigger happy, riddled with dead code and dead links, and if you do submit a form, you better follow through with a live rep, because you will not receive feedback by email (why is that, by the way?). Once you're assigned an RMA number, your ticket is closed, and you have no way of notifying Antec of, say, additional details, or, say, a tracking number.

Shipping this animal, by the way, costs arm and leg - about a quarter, if not a third, of the price of a new comparable PSU. Think twice before you ship - you're paying for it.

UPDATE: It's been a week and a day since Antec facility has received the dead PSU and signed off the UPS receipt. It's like it went to /dev/null - the only response that could be evoked from tech support is "RMA department will take 2-3 business days to process, and will issue the tracking number". Time to rough some feathers.

UPDATE: There doesn't seem to be a phone queue manager on Antec's RMA department. You are greeted with a lifeless and apathetic voice stating stating "Please leave us your name, email, phone number and RMA number, and we'll call you back". Hmm, did you know the word "gullible" is not in the dictionary? OK, after calling back quite a few times I get a live person. And guess what, I am being informed that the unit is "on a back order". And that they don't know when it is going to be available, and that they will have to call me back when they have the date.

Yeah, right.

Well, I guess it's time to buy a PSU - and guess what, it's not going to be an Antec.

UPDATE: You've got to be kidding me.

Extreme Computing: Antec P-182 In Woodworking Workshop

A friend came over and, astonished, asked - "Can you run computers in a workshop?" Well, obviously, they did run in a workshop without dying, for a long time, so I said "yes", but the seed of doubt was planted.

So I decided to check, and the first picture below is the result (that's Lian-Li V-Cool PC-V1200B, having worked in the workshop for about two years). The second picture, for comparison, is somebody else's computer.




Well, about a year later I've decided to upgrade the memory in P-182, and used this opportunity to check the effect of dust again. Below are the pictures.




In other words, the condition of the case is more than satisfactory. The only contaminated surfaces are the fan blades, that's it.

Too bad I lost a chance to photograph the filters - dust has fallen off as I opened the cover. I am surprised with the efficiency of these washable filters - they gather, in fact, more dust than usual foam filters.

One more factor that contributes to low contamination is the airspeed - the Scythe SY1225SL12M fans used in combination with active speed control offered by Asus Striker II Formula motherboard provide very low airspeed while maintaining decent cooling, if needed. I'm sure that older case with higher speed fans would've been contaminated much more than this one.

Are Fanless PSUs Going Extinct?

There was time when quite a few fanless power supplies were available (too many to count and remember). Today, out of all those there are three fanless PSUs on Newegg. Two of them are 300W, one 400W.

For reference, Antec Phantom 500 repeatably and reproducibly shuts off when feeding two 8 series NVidia cards working in SLI.

Conclusion? Need to pay more attention to the general acoustic qualities of the case and its ability to suppress the wind noise. Slight hope for improved energy efficiency of future components, but in any case I don't think there'll be fanless PSUs able to feed high end gaming systems anytime soon.

It seems, by the way, that Antec Phantom 500 was the most powerful fanless power supply ever manufactured. Whereas it does have a very annoying auxiliary fan (very noisy) which switches on under heavy load (which gaming definitely is), using it for HTPC is perfectly justified - I don't remember the fan ever switching on.

It is still being sold online, so hurry before existing supply runs out...

Topsy-turvy HTPC case

Wrote a couple of critical reviews on Antec P182 (on Newegg and here), and immediately remembered the good old YY-0110 (YY0221 is a closest approximation available today).

It wasn't too good at all when I bought it. Well, to begin with, it was bought in 1999 (it was difficult to find and especially verify anything on Internet back in those times), and I had very little idea about what I was doing - it was the first time I was building a computer. Stamped steel, point welding, sharp edges, damaged threads. Resonated like a steel guitar. Inferior PSU, gave up the ghost pretty soon.

However, the role this box played in the transformation of a person with no practical skills into a person that is not afraid of any DYI work can't be underestimated.

...It all started with a freezing video card, Riva TNT2. It was freezing as soon as the card temperature was above 30°C (for comparison, XFX GF7950GT PVT71JYHE9 feels just fine at 130°C). And of course, there was no money to replace it. Well, the less money you have, the more is your motivation to turn on the brains, so I did. Took out the card, took off the heatsink, swore at lazy workers that didn't put the thermal paste right, fixed it, put it back, rejoiced. But there was a side effect to it - at first, Pulse was created, and it eventually grew into DIY Zoning...

But I digress.

All in all, this box had been in service until 2005 (running PIII/550 with 512K RAM), first as a workstation, then as a server. Then it was retired, and it was collecting dust - until the need for a new computer materialized.

That was when things got interesting.

By that time the noise finally got on my nerves.

Lian-Li PC-60 (the original, with three 80mm fans) was bad. Lian-Li V-Cool PC-V1200B, with two 120mm fans and a squirrel case, even on rubber grommets, was even worse. So the verdict was: no new case, YY will be modded, 80mm and 90mm fans will be thrown away, quiet 120mm fans will be installed, and the end result must be quiet enough to put it in the bedroom or into the entertainment center.

The case was gutted, metalworking tools were engaged, and in a couple of weeks the case was difficult to recognize: instead of one 80mm and one 90mm fans there were four very quiet 120mm Scythe S-FLEX SFF-21D (bought here). I can't say whether they really deliver promised 8.7dBA, but you can only hear them in a very quiet room at night, and you have to get down on your knees to hear them. Two intake fans at the front, one intake fan at the left (where the CPU is), and one exhaust on the rear (below the PSU).



PSU chosen was fanless (kind of) Antec Phantom 500. That was before I got disappointed in Antec PSUs after two consequent failures, both shortly after warranty expired. Interesting fact is that I'm seeing a sharp decline in Antec popularity recently - I guess I'm not the only disappointed one. Another disappointment was that as soon as the auxiliary fan kicks in, you realize that no, it is far from zero noise, it's much worse than regular - but that doesn't happen very often, especially if you're only using the computer as HTPC, and not as a gaming station.

After long consideration, fanless XFX GF7950GT PVT71JYHE9, fresh new on the market, was bought. That turned to be the worst disappointment of all: it didn't fit into the case. I was 4mm short. Sure YY is a big case, it's just that the motherboard compartment is more shallow than most... I said, the hell with it, cut out the hole in the side panel, and it works happily since.

That was the end of it, and it seems that the case turned out quite right. It is quiet as a coffin, and cold as a tomb.



CPU temperature (AMD X2 3800+) doesn't get above 49°C with the fanless video card (above), and doesn't get above 52°C with two G92 8800GTS/512 SLI (it is interesting that even those two monsters, the noise level wasn't bad at all). Hard drive is in a wind tunnel between two fans, I don't think it will ever overheat.

Bottomline...

It's been 10 years since I've started buying computers out of my own pocket.

• Bought two whole computers - HP Pavilion out of ignorance, Dell Dimension E521 because of crazy sale;
  
• Bought four cases - YY-0110, Lian-Li PC-60, Lian-Li V-Cool V1200B Plus, Antec P182;
• Got four cases as a present;
  
• Built total of eight computers (not counting endless tinkering with existing ones).
  

All things considered, this case is so far the best.

Yes, it is somewhat ugly.
But it works.
And it is cold.
And it is quiet.

And it is NINE YEARS OLD.

I don't think I'll be buying more cases anytime soon. There's a stack of old cases gathering dust in the corner, I'll just pick the one that fits the purpose the best and start hacking away...

Antec P-182: Mixed Blessing

When the time has come to build a new box, there were two primary considerations: one, I didn't want to rebuild an existing case, two, I got tired of "overpaying" (should've known better, but later about it), as was the case (or so I thought at the time) with Lian-Li V-Cool PC-V1200B.

Also, loud cases eventually got me tired, and a quiet case like this was probably the last straw.

So, after careful consideration, I decided to try Antec P-182.

Well... TANSTAAFL.

Lian-Li cases remind me or Sir Henry Royce (yes, the Rolls-Royce Royce): The quality remains long after the price is forgotten. Even ancient (vintage of 2002) Lian-Li PC-60 would be a very good case today, if not for noisy 80mm fans (there is a 120mm version, but alas, it was manufactured later).

P-182, on the other hand... Every step of the way shows the cost cutting measures. More the pity because the design decisions are basically sound.

P-182 is not as big as reviews would like you to believe. 8800GTS cards do fit into the case, but forget about installing hard drives or extra fan into the middle bay cage - the cables get in the way.

Cable management is a nightmare. Despite the fact that P-182 is considered an improvement over P-180 (I dread to think how bad *that* was), cables don't really have much place to be hidden at, plastic doors bend and become difficult to close, cables routed in the lower compartment tend to interfere with fan blades - not fun at all.

Fans were the last straw.

I am very disappointed to have trusted the opinion expressed by Silent PC Review in their P-182 review. I guess they have based that opinion on medium or low speed setting on the fans, neither of which is really acceptable for a person on a low budget in the middle of Arizona summer.

Interestingly enough, a separate review TriCool fans were described as "definitely not quiet".

Setting the fans or medium or low speed, given the fact that the box had one of the hottest (no pun intended) motherboards on the market (ASUS Striker II Formula), ambient temperature about 30°C, disks heating up to 43°Cб was absolutely out of question.

Had to replace the stock fans.

Decided to trust Silent PC Review once again, and bought Scythe SY1225SL12M (used other Scythe product, S-FLEX SFF21D before, liked them a lot - but the flow would have not been sufficient for this case).

This brought the price of the caseto $200 - the price of a comparable feature set, but better manufactured Lian-Li.

Also, when I took the fans off, it turned out that the underside of fan grills is quite sharp and rough, creating turbulence and without doubt adding extra wind noise. Had this happened before the component installation, it would've been OK to smooth them over, but with the motherboard and power supply installed, and cables routed, I said the hell with it.

The very last straw - turned out that the plastic door has a razor sharp edge. Lost a quart of blood and about 2"x1/4" piece of skin - it was kinda unbelievable to cause such a wound with a piece of, mind you, soft plastic.

All in all, after all was said and done, I had issued the last expletive and promised myself not to buy new cases, ever, even if it means that I will have to make them out of wood.

Now that I'm done with the criticism...

The case is relatively quiet, and relatively cool (as in temperature, not as in appeal).

All the fans except the drive compartment one are under variable speed control provided by BIOS. The last fan is simply turned on at 70% speed.

Hard drive noise is very well contained. I simply don't hear them (Seagate Barracuda, not quite known for being quiet).

Even the 8800GTS SLI is not audible until their fans get up to about 50% speed, with the cards themselves not heating up above lazy 70°C (for comparison,
XFX GF7950GT PVT71JYHE9 is feeling just fine all the way up to 120°C).

The only noise left after fan replacement is a slight hum of the fans - mostly video card fans. Doesn't interfere with listening to the music. Doesn't interfere with work. Playing games? I don't think you'd notice anything at all. HVAC turning on absolutely drowns all the noise produced by the box.

Is it possible to make the case quieter? Yes, by using a cooler motherboard and hard drives (Western Digital drives seem to be the best in this context nowadays). You can also use even quieter S-FLEX fans, but that'll be tempting the fate.

Is it possible to make the case cooler? Absolutely - just set all the fans at 100% speed (after the fans have been replaced, of course). Even then the case is quite acceptable, albeit noticeable.

In other words, am I happy with the case? Well, after all the time and efforts spent on it, mostly yes - provided I don't have to get in often, the cables are really annoying to deal with.

Am I gonna buy a comparable case again? Hell no. Either another of my dozen leftover cases gets an extreme makeup, or I'm gonna buy another Lian-Li. I don't think that would be much more expensive, and know for sure that the quality would be better.