Miracle Antec SL350

[c_hegge]

A guy recently brought an old s478 PC in to work (which he was retiring) to transfer data to a new laptop. I noticed that it had an unmodified Antec SL350 PSU in it. I opened it up just for laughs, but I was in for a surprise. The caps looked fine (with the exception of one on the 3.3V rail which looks slightly bulged). Thinking that they must all be dried out and failed without bulging, I loaded it up to 350W on the tester. Surprise, surprise, everything is well and truly in spec. This thing must have only been plugged in once for a few hours per month or something (or he kept his PC in the fridge ).

[Pentium4]

Re: Miracle Antec SL350

Wow, that's actually amazing. Must have got extremely lucky, because they'd fail from just sitting, and fail with lots of use too. So the slightly bulged cap is a Teapo and not a Fuhjyyu? How much load did you put on the 12V? Did it get really hot?

[ReeceyBurger123]

Re: Miracle Antec SL350

Wow, almost every used antec psu I have come across a large majority of the fuhjyyus were blown even in a two year old neo :O

Image showing that two year old neo that had moderate use, almost all the fuhjyyus were blown replaced with panny fr, samxon rs and ucc ky.

[goodpsusearch]

Re: Miracle Antec SL350

Oh, this is surprising in a good way!

[c_hegge]

Re: Miracle Antec SL350

So the slightly bulged cap is a Teapo and not a Fuhjyyu? How much load did you put on the 12V? Did it get really hot?

It's a Fuhjyyu. I had about 20A (240W) on the 12V rail, 15A on the 5V, 10A on the 3.3V, 2A on the 5vsb, and 0.1A on the -12V. The heatsink did get hot. It was too hot to hold my finger on by the time I finished load testing. However, unlike on most other smartpower PSUs, the fans did actually rev up. They were probably at nearly full speed with said load on the PSU after a few minutes. That may just be why the caps held up better than usual on this particular unit.

[Pentium4]

Re: Miracle Antec SL350

Interesting. Was there perhaps an extra resistor in parallel with the fan controller? Although this does look like a pretty early revision, being late 2004

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Miracle Antec SL350

It's a Fuhjyyu. I had about 20A (240W) on the 12V rail, 15A on the 5V, 10A on the 3.3V, 2A on the 5vsb, and 0.1A on the -12V. The heatsink did get hot. It was too hot to hold my finger on by the time I finished load testing. However, unlike on most other smartpower PSUs, the fans did actually rev up. They were probably at nearly full speed with said load on the PSU after a few minutes. That may just be why the caps held up better than usual on this particular unit.

They're less likely to fail on True Powers. True Powers don't have the BS fan config.

[c_hegge]

Re: Miracle Antec SL350

^
Wrong. This unit is not a truepower, and the TruePowers had the same overly relaxed fan curve and got bad caps just as often as the SmartPowers.

Interesting. Was there perhaps an extra resistor in parallel with the fan controller? Although this does look like a pretty early revision, being late 2004

I didn't notice one. Maybe they just used a lower value thermistor in it. In any case, I won't worry about modifying the fan controller on this one. I'll just recap it and it should be good to go.

[Pentium4]

Re: Miracle Antec SL350

Interesting. And I'm glad you're recapping it. It's earned some extra life! I don't like soldering on these though, they're usually really messy and smell bad.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Miracle Antec SL350

^
Wrong. This unit is not a truepower, and the TruePowers had the same overly relaxed fan curve and got bad caps just as often as the SmartPowers.

The SmartPowers appear to have a config to keep one fan off most of the time and there appears to be a flaw where one of the fans never come on and thus probably the +5V VSB cap getting cooked!

It looks like that was the bad fate of my 2005 version.

[c_hegge]

Re: Miracle Antec SL350

^
Maybe, but the TPs have the fans running so slow that it doesn't make much difference.

btw, the fan controller curve has nothing to do with the 5vsb cap getting cooked. Remember, the 5vsb is active even with the rest of the PSU (including the 12V rail and thus the fans) off.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Miracle Antec SL350

^
Maybe, but the TPs have the fans running so slow that it doesn't make much difference.

btw, the fan controller curve has nothing to do with the 5vsb cap getting cooked. Remember, the 5vsb is active even with the rest of the PSU (including the 12V rail and thus the fans) off.

My bad, that line will stay running.


But, I couldn't recall my 2003 TruePower 1.0 being so problematic like my 2005 SmartPower 2.0 was.

Were the TruePower 1.0s always better in the fan controller department?

[c_hegge]

Re: Miracle Antec SL350

Not that I know of. There's been a few instances on here of older truepowers getting bad caps. I can't confirm from personal experience, though. I think I've only ever seen one Truepower 1.0 PSU, and that was years ago - before I know anything about the cap problem that Antecs had. I've only ever had SmartPower PSUs to recap.