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Is my brand new Earthwatts 430w dead?

M

mazeroth

Golden Member
I bought the Antec NSK6580 case+ps from Fry's back in December for $49.99 with free shipping. Great deal, or so I thought. I took a few hours today putting my HTPC together and did some time consuming wire management. I go to turn it on and nothing, but I can hear the PS making a low volume, whiny electronic sound. If I hold down the power button for a few seconds to "shut down" the computer it will stop. I then unplugged it, grabbed an old Ultra 500w I had in my other computer and the new computer boots perfectly.

I did notice the Earthwatts is missing the white -5V wire, but I'm not sure if that's the problem. My motherboard is the Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3, which is only about 2 years old and I don't know if it requires a -5V or not.

Any ideas? Does anyone know how I'll have to return this to Frys/Antec if it is bad and typical turnaround time?

Thanks in advance.
 
Perhaps there's some strange ground loop... perhaps try taking the PSU out of the case and testing it as you did the Ultra?

Your board does not require -5v.

I don't know turnaround time, but you'll have to return it to Antec for RMA replacement. Fry's will only deal with RMA refunds, and only within 14 days.
 
I took it out and tried and nothing. Now it's not even making the whiny sound it was earlier. I have a cheapo, no name 300w in the case for the time being so I can install Win XP and get everything going.

Looks like I'll be calling Antec tomorrow, if they're open. I just hope I don't have to pay for the shipping to them!

Thanks.
 
I just suffered through a similar ordeal with an Antec 430 Earthwatts.

I was trying to quickly build a budget machine for a friend's cousin (you know the deal !), I was using all new parts and ran into system crashes during windows installation. My short and sweet project suddenly turned into a big headache.

I figured it was either a bad motherboard or power supply. In my experience, motherboards are far more likely to die or be defective than power supplies, so I tried replacing that first. I'll add that the cheap power supply tester I have showed that the Antec 430 was ok. Well, the new motherboard changed nothing. I then changed out the Antec power supply and that fixed the issues.

I'd like to think that Antec would fully test their supplies before they ship them, but I don't. Sorry to see you dealing with the same issue.
 
Originally posted by: RPatrick
I'll add that the cheap power supply tester I have showed that the Antec 430 was ok.
Click to expand...

Cheap power supply testers only shows that the power supply isn't completely dead. Power supply testers that can really test a power supply properly cost quadruple digits and are as big as a large desktop PC.

Originally posted by: RPatrick
I'd like to think that Antec would fully test their supplies before they ship them, but I don't.
Click to expand...

All models from all brands of any part will have a failure rate. Fully testing every single unit of a line that has probably five digit sales figures is impossible. Likely they are all tested for basic functionality, but that's about it. However, even if they are fully tested (using the expensive testers that really work) they can and will still have a failure rate.
 
mazeroth and RPatrick, are your experiences with the older Seasonic builds (still a couple floating around here and there) or the newer Deltas?
 
Zap - Thank you for the clarification on what my $20 ps tester can do. Also, I completely understand what you are saying regarding failure rates. It is just so frustrating to essentially build a system twice (when you don't have the spare time to do it) due to a company selling you a brand new, defective product.

Jabbernyx - It was an Antec Earthwatts 430 - D (Delta built)

Maybe it is just a coincidence, but I've probably installed around 6 of the Seasonic Antecs without issue while this unit was the first Delta I've bought.
 
Well, before you go slamming the Delta builds, I've got one of each of the Earthwatts line...EA-380. 430, 500, and 650.....well except the modular EA-500.....all are Delta builds and all worked when first plugged in and continue to function without incident. You have to consider, the EA line is probably Antec's largest selling line, so even if their failure rates are only 1% of units sold, that'd still be a huge number of DOA units, something that happens to the best of them.
 
Mine is a Delta. I went out and bought another one and it works perfectly fine. I'm glad this was a build for me and not a friend or family member. I've built WAY too many computers for others and I will never do that again. If anything goes wrong, they call you. If the build doesn't work properly it's a huge headache. Not worth it.
 
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