2013/04/20 (April) UPDATE: The 6 year old Antec that burned (Neo 550) claimed the same "industrial strength protection" as this current Antec model (BP550 Plus) yet, the 6 year old Antec did, in fact, destroy my motherboard as a result of its failure. To me, therefore, the promise of "industrial strength protection" is totaly disregarded as unfounded hype. Maybe mine is an isolated case. In every production run, there has to be failures. Most recipients will be quite happy. Some will get "burned." Maybe I'm just one of those very few who got "burned." You may have nothing but successes. However, I'm thinking that since the old Antec destroyed a motherboard, I will not rely on this new Antec BP550 Plus to protect my hardware. If you are a close friend of mine, I'd have to be honest and warn you that the supposed "protection" might not protect you either. I've been building my own computers for about 20 years. I've had s few power supplies fail but none destroyed my motherboard like the Antec did. One time, I even had a Thermaltake 430W model fail while making an explosive bang that sounded like a 9mm high power pistol cartridge but even with that impressive catastrophic failure, it didn't fry the computer mainboard. Several other power supplies have failed in my 20 years but they just quietly stopped working. It was only the Antec model that ignited itself and fried my motherboard in the process. I placed this new Antec BP550 Plus in service but the computer repeatedly locked and froze at random times. Replacing the motherboard cured that freeze problem so I think that's a reiliable indication that the Antec PS ruined my old main board. I'm using this Antec BP550 Plus on a 9 year old Pentium computer platform so it's low cost hardware that I'm risking with it. I'm not considering Antec for the i7 I'm soon to build. There's too much money at stake in my new rig. (I've been living on a few core duos and i5 laptops but now that I want to re-vitalize my video editing hobby, and since video streams require more computational power, it's time for me to build a super i7 rig for fun.)
So, I don't mean to trash Antec power supplies here but I do think it's important that prospective buyers know what is truly happening in the consumer market. Remember, please, my experience might be atypical. You may have nothing but successes. But, also consider how expensive it can be if a power supply failure destroys your mainboard, or drives, or any other component when it fails.
ORIGINAL REVIEW
I bought this Antec BP550Plus from Amazon on 11/17/2012 and received it today 11/19/2012. My former Antec Neo HE 550 died on 11/17/2012. The old Antec power supply was purchased and placed into service on 02/04/2006. So, what's that? About 6 years and 6 months? Yes. For a power supply that has been operated approximately 12+ hours per day for all of those 78 months, I think it served me well. On 11/17/2012, as I was transcoding some video, the ominous aroma of overheated/burning plastic wafted through the air and caught my attention. I "shut her down" immediately. Today, I installed the new Antec BP550Plus in its place and I'm off and running again--typing this review with the new Antec in service. The old Antec had the same "industrial level protection" that is touted in the new Antec BP550Plus. They say it's built to automatically protect your hardware in the event of any power supply failure. I suppose that's true. My computer is working fine and seems to have suffered no ill effects from the power supply failure.
This new one has a 3 year warranty just like the last one. That's better than many in this price range, I think.
Nice thing about this new Antec? It uses the same modular cables as my 6 year old unit that failed. That means I only had to plug the existing cables into the new power supply. I didn't have to re-route a whole glob of new spaghetti into my tower. This is great. And Antec didn't gouge me with changes in connectors. My 6 year old cables work fine. They plugged right into the new Antec.
That's a good thing for me because the mainboard of this computer is 9 years old. The new power supply comes with a bunch of SATA connectors and PCI Express connectors along with some 4-pin Molex. My old computer has no SATA, no PCI Express, No SLI, No Crossfire. I couldn't use half of the cables supplied with the new BP550Plus because those cables had those connectors for newer computers. I needed to replace 2 of those cables with 2 more cables that have only 4-pin Molex connectors on them. No problems, though, because my old cables work. Now I've got the same 4 modular cables connected giving me 4x3=12 of the 4-pin Molex connectors. And, I've still got one port on the power supply untapped where I could add yet another cable with 3 more connectors!
If your computer is as old as mine and you don't have extra 4-pin Molex modular sleeved cables for the Antec power supplies, you can go to the Antec site and buy any modular cable you might need. They have several configurations available and they only charge about $6 including s&h for each. I've got a big supply right now because 6 years ago when I bought the old Antec, it was supplied with cables that had some SATA connectors. Even back then, I didn't need SATA connectors. So, I went to the Antec site to buy what extras I needed.
All of the supplied cables are generous in length. I've got a tower that is 25 inches tall but the cables have no problem reaching all powered components. The power supply sits mid-tower and has lots of slack in all cables. The cables have large gauge conductors and the insulation is thick so you might discover that they are a bit stiffer than some you might have experienced--especially since all wires of a cable are bundled into heavy gauge plastic netting. They get the job done and I know electrical resistance is low while abrasion resistance is high. I like 'em a lot.
I'm soon to build an i7 computer and I'm sure I'll pick an Antec power supply. Their higher priced models have a 5 year warranty. I just feel sure the build quality is commensurate with that warranty expectation. I'll have no worries trusting $2,000 worth of new hardware to one of those Antec's.
An added advantage for me? I've already amassed quite a good collection of unused Antec modular cables. I've now got a bunch of modular PCI Express and SATA power cables ready for a new rig.
UPDATE 11/26/2012
All is not perfect but nothing is in this world. Discovered a failed DVD burner a couple of days ago. Of the 4 opticals in my tower, it's the newest although it's pretty old by some standards. I don't know if it was a casualty of the failed Antec Neo 550 power supply. I also don't know if it was the cause of the failed power supply. Though, it could also just be a random coincidence. I guess I'll never know. It's a Toshiba/Samsung IDE TSSTcorp model CDDVDW_SH-S222L with firmware SB03. Several models of Toshiba Samsung optical drives have had a reputation for high failure rates and this SH-S222L is known to be one of them. For me, in my system, I usually deem an optical drive as defective when Nero reports failed validation after a burn. That's what happened this time. That drive has burned reliably many times prior to this incident. To eliminate the IDE channel as a problem, I put two different optical drives on that channel. No burn validation problems were then reported by Nero. However, when I put the Toshiba/Samsung drive back on the channel, Nero again reported burn validation failures with that drive.
So, this Antec BP550Plus has been in service about 6 days now and that failed optical drive is the only problem I've been able to detect. I noticed the failed drive about 2 days ago but it took me a while to get around to swapping drives and burning discs to evaluate the failure. At this point, I'm pretty sure it's the Toshiba/Samsung drive that failed and not the Intel IDE chip on the mainboard that has failed. Everything else seems to work fine just like before. However, if something else crops up, I'll be back to report. I think power supply reliability is important because it feeds everything in your array. It can save you or it can destroy you.
One more thought: This power supply, like many, has one large fan. It doesn't move as much air as you might wish. I think they are trying to keep it quiet so the fan runs slowly. I'm presuming it's adequate. Sometimes this computer is nailed at 100% for many hours or even days while it transcodes video. Cooling is a concern for me.
Update 01/05/2013
Turns out, it's the motherboard that has been damaged through the original Antec Neo power supply burnup. I thought there had been some "magic" protection afforded by the Antec power supply as it self-destructed but apparently not. Strange behaviors and computer freezes requiring a hard reboot repeatedly occurred as I blamed my mouse, my keyboard, and so forth. I had spares for each and swapped them into place but the problems continued. I had a spare motherboard as well. I'm the type who will prepare for disaster so years ago when I saw a new Foxconn motherboard with the same Intel 865PE chips at a price of only $50, I snatched it up and stashed it. So, I replaced the old Soyo motherboard with the new Foxconn and all my problems are gone. Everything is now exceptionally smooth, fast, and no freezes for several days. Since the Antec Neo power supply burnout, I've not been able to go these many days without some sort of aggravating glitch during a disc write or a computer freeze during a mouse movement. I'd have to surmise that there was certainly damage to the Soyo mainboard when the Antec Neo burned up.
My experience might be rare but based on what I have experienced in real life, I'm not feeling all that confident about Antec's marketing hyperbole regarding the protection its power supplies offer.
I don't know why these power supplies are so prone to failure. Several years ago, I had a Thermaltake power supply totally explode. There was a startlingly loud bang as I pushed the computer's soft-on button one day to boot up. I've heard of such but to experience it was amazing. How could a noise that loud come from a nerdy computer? Well, it can and it did. That explosion didn't ruin the motherboard of that computer, though. I exchanged that exploded power supply through RMA with Thermaltake and the computer was back in fine operation. No apparent damage from the Thermaltake explosion.
So, the Thermaltake blew up but didn't destroy my main board chips. The Antec smoked and burned and did ruin my motherboard. Such is life, I guess.
The old Intel 3.2GHz Extreme CPU seems undaunted by the calamity, though.
I'm probably going to move away from Antec and Thermaltake for my next build. The i7 extreme CPU I want and the main board to support it will run into some significant money and I think I'm going to have to take a chance on some other brand of power supply for that build. I hope I find something less likely to explode or burn.
Strange. I've built many computers over the last 2½ decades. For many years, I bought whatever no-name power supply presented the lowest purchase price and they never exploded nor burned. Right now in another computer, I've got an i3 on an Intel board with one of those no-name power supplies. It works fine and because it's a HTPC, it's on practically 24 hours a day every day (it's set to record shows at all hours of the day and night). Strange that when I choose power supplies with a so-called good reputation for high quality, I've get an explosion and a burn out. But, the little low-tech no-name contraptions just churn away daily performing hard work without a whimper.
I'm going to re-think the whole scheme of things. Maybe I'll have my best luck, as I have in the past, with those specially low priced no-name power supplies purchased at the electronics and trade shows at the fairgrounds. They've served me well in the past.
Or, since an online search can bring a new Antec ps to my home for around $55, maybe I should just prophylactically replace the power supply about every 3 years to avoid problems. If Antec will just keep the same modular plugs designs, it would be a quick swap because I could just leave all the cables connected to peripherals.
So, moral to the story: An Antec Neo 550 power supply smoked, burned, and destroyed my motherboard after it was in service about 6 years and 6 months. I purchased a comparable Antec BP550Plus a couple of months ago and put it into service before I realized my motherboard had been damaged. If I had been able to diagnose the motherboard damage immediately, I probably would have chosen another brand besides Antec this time. Maybe a Seasonic? Or, maybe some unknown "cheapie"? I've got to give it some thought.
I've expected power supplies to have some sort of built-in protection. Apparently not. I do my best to protect my investments, though. All my computers receive power from high-end UPS's with AVR and maximal spike protection. I always purchase power supplies with output capabilities that exceed the need so as to minimize stress and improve longevity. I still get explosions, crashes, and burns.
It's time for me to search for power supplies that dedicate some of their production design and costs towards circuitry that limits power and voltage to protect the components its serves.
| National Stock Number | 6130-01-597-0035 |
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