antec SL300s

[dood]

Power supply is still working, but I started to notice some bleed-through in my audio. For example, when sitting at night with my headphones on, if I turned the volume way up I could hear me moving my mouse, scrolling, dragging windows around, etc. All this could be heard faintly through the audio. On the tip of another badcaps member, I decided to open up my Antec supply and see what it looked like, even though I knew I was going to void my warranty. Curiousity got the best of me, and I figured I wouldn't want them to replace it with another crappy antec anyway...

I found two dead caps, both Fuhjyyu, one 4700uf 10v and one 820uf. Both domed and leaking at the top. The two main Fuhjyyu caps seemed to be okay, but I can't say for sure. Here's the pics-


The small red arrows point to the two bad caps


I think the brown crud at the bottom of the two main caps is just glue. Nonetheless, they are Fuhjyyu.


overall shot of the PSU.

[dood]

Re: antec SL300s

By the way, this power supply was included in a $40 case that I bought from Newegg.com on 5/26/04. I figured it would be good quality because of the Antec name... guess a little over a year an a half of life is good, right?!. Of course, I also bought the motherboard at the same time and, no problems yet (crossing fingers).

[Newbie2]

Re: antec SL300s

There may be problems with it later on, so it's best to either replace it or recap it. Recapping it will be very hard since the caps are bunched together and brown glue is there. So, it's better off to replace the unit.

Those heatsinks look like the ones on willawake's ISO power supply.

[dood]

Re: antec SL300s

I've already committed to replacing it. I've never recapped anything ,and don't want to start on a PSU. I thought, for an Antec, those heatsinks are fairly weenie.

Anyway, it's been replaced by a Sparkle for now... we'll see how that holds up.

[willawake]

Re: antec SL300s

its what i would expect for a $40 case. From 60-100 things are good including psu. why not recap it, it is not too bad you can have fun with the glue. ok the heatsinks are small but that is only a problem when the fan fails.

[Newbie2]

Re: antec SL300s

If you can dood I recommend you recap it and put it back into service. It would be nice to see a recapped Antec here. And hope that brown glue wasn't as hard as the pure white glue that was in an old Delta 145W ATX OEM power supply I used to have. It was pure white, not the transparent hot glue gun style glue found in cheap power supplies, that glue used in that Delta was hard as cement! I couldn't even break a piece off! I gave it away in an old system to my neighbour. That Delta was 145W and had Teapo caps everywhere in it, so I didn't care. Here is one technique my dad uses to break the glue in power supplies.

First, you take a flat-head screwdriver right for the job and a standard-sized hammer. Now put the head of the screwdriver on the surface of the glue, and hit the back of the screwdriver with the hammer hard.

Be really careful when doing this because you can hurt yourself, and it's not very effective. The method can damage nearby components, too.

[MD Willington]

Re: antec SL300s

Email Antec...tell them you want it fixed under warranty....

http://www.antec.com/us/warranty.php...&Submit=Submit

I. Warranty Length
Antec iLuminate LED light products receive a 1 year warranty. For all other new Antec products, parts and labor are warranted for three (3) years from the date of purchase. Replacement products will be warranted for the remainder of the warranty period or thirty days, whichever is longer.

[dood]

Re: antec SL300s

Sure, except that it's open already, which voids my warranty. Hence the "warranty void if removed" sticker that was over one of the screws to remove the lid :o. I highly doubt they'll repair it now.

[Newbie2]

Re: antec SL300s

Now dood's warranty is void, so either he's going to replace it or recap it. No manufacturer will repair an item with its warranty void.

If my Antec power supply goes bad and it's still under warranty, I'd just contact Antec for a replacement instead of opening my power supply and voiding the warranty. But I guess we all want to know what's on the inside that's going wrong, right?

[dood]

Re: antec SL300s

When I had an Antec TruePower 550watt PSU die, I did just send it back. It was being used in a 24/7 server application, and failed quickly after being put into service. I'm guessing bad caps, but I certainly didn't want to void the warranty on that beast!

On this powersupply, I really didn't care, due to the cheapness of it. I was just curious, and I got the answer I figured I would get. Again, the power supply is still functioning, but there was no way I was gonna put it back in my system. I'd rather void the warranty and catch a failure early, than have it go out and take the rest of my system w/ it...

[Newbie2]

Re: antec SL300s

When I had an Antec TruePower 550watt PSU die, I did just send it back. It was being used in a 24/7 server application, and failed quickly after being put into service. I'm guessing bad caps, but I certainly didn't want to void the warranty on that beast!

On this powersupply, I really didn't care, due to the cheapness of it. I was just curious, and I got the answer I figured I would get. Again, the power supply is still functioning, but there was no way I was gonna put it back in my system. I'd rather void the warranty and catch a failure early, than have it go out and take the rest of my system w/ it...

Hey, the story of that TruePower 550 sounds similar to the failure of a TrueControl 550 that happened when I was at work. It was being used in a 24/7 server application and it worked for 2-3 years after entering service before it died. It had a horrible death, during the death it was smoking and sparking, and after it died an autospy was performed. The transformer was fried along with ALL of its caps. Everything in there didn't survive except for the two fans, which were the only two things in there to survive. It even took out the server it was powering. It was a horrible smell of power supply death and it could have been bad caps during service but it wasn't noticed.

You were lucky your 300W Antec was taken out of service before you experienced the horror of what me and other employees experienced when I was at work.

P.S. I have the fans from the TrueControl 550 in my closet.

[dood]

Re: antec SL300s

Yeah, that 550 made me look like a bad system builder. The server had only been in service for about 6 months. It was a dual Athlon MP 2800+ system with 2gb of RAM and four 250gb Western Digital 7200RPM drives in RAID 5. I personally didn't think it was coming close to the 550 watt limit. Oh well..

Oh yeah, and then I had two of the WD drives go out in sucession... must've been a bad run. Luckily, they didn't go at the same time, and the array rebuilt itself both times (thank God for RAID 5!)