Antec NEO HE Issues

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h4rb1ng3r said:
Update to the latest BIOS, 1009 thats seems to have made things A LOT better for me. It hasnt crashed once (yet) in 32-bit Windows. Except for Windows x64. Not sure why that is tho..any ideas folks?
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You sir, are a genius! :cool: Folks, I flashed to BIOS 1009 for the Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe, and my shutdowns went away (I have been on for around 2 hours now, 32-bit Windows). Thanks h4rb1ng3r, and everyone else in this forum for giving me hope in the first place! Anyone else with this motherboard and Antec Neo HE 550 (or any HE I guess), PLEASE flash to BIOS 1009 before anything else. It worked for me! :D
 
The Crusher said:
You sir, are a genius! :cool: Folks, I flashed to BIOS 1009 for the Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe, and my shutdowns went away (I have been on for around 2 hours now, 32-bit Windows). Thanks h4rb1ng3r, and everyone else in this forum for giving me hope in the first place! Anyone else with this motherboard and Antec Neo HE 550 (or any HE I guess), PLEASE flash to BIOS 1009 before anything else. It worked for me! :D
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i spoke too soon. it started crashing repeatedly on me yesterday. It was the first opportunity i had to really play a few games. COD2 didnt crash in the 1/2 hour i was playing it but NFSMW crashed will on the pause sceen in game. :mad: oh well. oh and x64 still sucks.
32 bit windows is stable as long as im not playing games, 2 days and no problems, (except in games.) but x64 crashes just using windows and the net.

However i have the 500 watt ver. Crusher youve got the 550, maybe thats enought to get rid of the problems. I almost bought the 550 but it thought it was excessive for my needs. Maybe thats the prob. The amps on the 3.3 & 5 v rails are almost HALF that of my old Zalman 400 watter. :confused: no wonder its not stable.

oh well. Crusher let me know how you go with the 550, i might have to upgrade or ditch it in favour of the new Zalman 460 watt ive seen.

I love my old Zalman 400watt. DEAD quiet and rock solid. Any one have any news on this 460watt Zalman PSU?
 
The Crusher said:
I flashed to BIOS 1009 for the Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe, and my shutdowns went away (I have been on for around 2 hours now, 32-bit Windows). Thanks h4rb1ng3r, and everyone else in this forum for giving me hope in the first place! Anyone else with this motherboard and Antec Neo HE 550 (or any HE I guess), PLEASE flash to BIOS 1009 before anything else. It worked for me! :D
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:eek:
You know....with 15+ years of computer experience, I should know better than to jump the gun. It shut down again! About 20 minuted after submitting my last post. Now it's shutting down all the time again.....

Antec Rep, are you still around? I submitted a trouble ticket for this 2 days ago, and I have a reply, but all I can read is this:
"Hello, We have an updated power supply that should fix the problem you are having. On your RMA form, please write"
That's it....no RMA number, nothing else. I am using webmail because I can't keep my computer on long enough to set up Outlook. And I tried to look up the ticket on antec.com, but it won't even come up. It says my user ID don't exist. Yes, I typed it in correctly. I am extremely frustrated. :mad: For one, I have a whole new system that i can't even use, and for two, I am getting nowhere with Antec tech support. I would think a company as big as Antec would have at least one person who could talk to you on the phone. I also left a voice message early today and never received a call back. Now with the New Year weekend coming, it won't be until next week at the earliest.
 
crusher, i guess that answers my question! this sucks. what a waste of money. i work in a PC store bought my NeoHE pretty soon after it came out coz all the other Antecs we sold have been absolutely trouble free, and was recommending the new NeoHE to customers coz of the modular cabling and sleeving etc. However i have now found out the quite a few customers who have bought them for half decent systems and can do their own troubleshooting have been bringing them back for refunds. (yes i have reports on non-asus mobos disliking them also. DFI expert to be exact) Ill be giving the NeoHE's a VERY wide berth for now.

Crusher is was gonna upgrade to the 550 but theres no way im gonna do that now.

I too have requested an RMA from Antec, but am waiting for a non-automated response from a human advising me what my options are here in Aus.

i hope there is a happy ending to this story.

At least they havent discontinued the Smartpower2's and TruePower2's.
 
h4rb1ng3r said:
I too have requested an RMA from Antec, but am waiting for a non-automated response from a human advising me what my options are here in Aus.

i hope there is a happy ending to this story..
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There is a happy ending for me now! I took the Neo 550 back where I bought it. I didn't think they'd take it back because the UPC was removed for a stupid rebate, but they took it. Of course, I didn't say anything about the rebate and I guess they didn't notice the UPC was removed. :) I think I deserve it, it's the first good thing to happen for me since I bought it! Anyway.....I bought a Enermax Noisetaker 600W for about the same price (no rebate), and the system is stable now. Just as quiet as the Neo.....and I have confidence now about putting in another 7800GT for some SLI loving! One of these days......
 
i whipped out my multimeter today to see what my PSU is REALLY putting out in terms of volts. Unfortunately my multimeter cant measure amps above 10A so i cant varify that part.

What i can say is that from testing the 12v, 5v, and 3.3v rails is that they are rock solid which was quite a pleasant surprise! It runs out that Speedfan (or the monitoring hardware on the mobo) is not as accurate i expected. It is reporting lower voltages.

The 12v rail hasnt varied more than 0.01 of a volt. YES 0.01 of a volt! Its 12.0`v idle and 12.00v under load! (speedfan/motherboard reports 11.84 at idle)

The 5v sits on 4.91v and the most it moves is -0.01v to 4.90. (speedfan/motherboard reports 4.89 at idle)

The 3.3v, the worst ive measured is 3.29v under load off the ATX connectors. Otherwise, off the molex connectors etc, it sits firmly on 3.32v (+/-0.01v) (speedfan/motherboard reports 3.25 at idle)

OK, so i havent been able to get the full picture here because i cant meaure the amps without blowing up my multimeter, but so far Antec is looking pretty good. Does anyone else have this PSU and an multimeter that can measure over 30A? I would love to know what its putting out compared to spec.

Exactly why are ASUS boards the worst with this PSU? Does anyone one know? I asked ASUS tech's in an email about the power requirements of my A8N32-SLI Deluxe and if they were more demanding than other motherboards on the market. I am yet to receive a reply.
 
I found a poll on the NeoHE's in an effort to collect peoples experiences with the PSU.

The results are obviously gonna be skewed towards the negative i guess, because whos gonna go looking for info on reported problems on thier PSU if their not already having issues.... :D

anyways...
http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=27863

The information is none the less interesting though.
 
Did anyone check to see if the power good signal from pin 8 on the main power connector which usually a grey wire is good and steady? Just a thought.
 
jack57 said:
Did anyone check to see if the power good signal from pin 8 on the main power connector which usually a grey wire is good and steady? Just a thought.
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just checked on mine, the only grey wire there. 4.91 volts. the finest change my digital multimeter can measure is .01 volts. the lowest measured on that pin was 4.90v. I would say it was steady.

From what my mulimeter shows and what speedfan shows, (unless it because the resolution on my multimeter is to low to see fluctuations that are there..) the monitoring chip that speedfan is getting its reports from is a bit dodgy... :(
 
Well after finally figuring out that I didn't actually have 4 hard drives go bad and it was just a nforce 4 thing, now my neohe (a supposed revised edition one) has decided to go back to it's evil ways and power down and then back on during intense NFSMW action. Looks like I'll be calling antec tomorrow to get this shit straightened out. I really want to just exchange it for another unit. These clearly aren't working for these motherboards and I have given them a chance. Personally I'd like either the true power 550 or my money back so I can buy a seasonic s12 or enermax PSU. It's not that I'm angry with antec, I understand 100% compatability is hard to come by, but they need to own up and either fix this damn PSU or let people exchange them or get their money back.
 
JJU357 said:
Well after finally figuring out that I didn't actually have 4 hard drives go bad and it was just a nforce 4 thing, now my neohe (a supposed revised edition one) has decided to go back to it's evil ways and power down and then back on during intense NFSMW action. Looks like I'll be calling antec tomorrow to get this shit straightened out. I really want to just exchange it for another unit. These clearly aren't working for these motherboards and I have given them a chance. Personally I'd like either the true power 550 or my money back so I can buy a seasonic s12 or enermax PSU. It's not that I'm angry with antec, I understand 100% compatability is hard to come by, but they need to own up and either fix this damn PSU or let people exchange them or get their money back.
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I also asked to antec the same thing (still waiting the response since one week now... holidays maybe ?), and I totally agree with your entire post because I'm planning the same thing. But it seem that for antec its not an option to giving back the money or change for another model.
Its sad, because it will be so professional and honest to say to their customers : "ok, this model isn't compatible but we cannot give your money back, so, here is another model which cost almost the same price. And we keep your neohe for a future rma with another person"
And all people will be happy. :/
 
Yea i'm not being unreasonable. I'm not asking them to lose me as a customer (although they may if they refuse to do anything about this) because I still like antec products, but the NeoHE line is clearly a piece of crap, so I'd like to exchange it for the true power 550W which I think is cheaper, I don't even want the difference, I just want a working power supply.
 
Well after going apeshit on antec's customer service a minute ago, here is antec stance on the problem. Supposedly my power supply was test by ASUS and had no problems what so ever with the motherboard, although I highly doubt that ASUS tested the game for over 4 hours in a gaming environment like I did to get it to do this stuff. As a result this representative I talked to is going to "investigate further and respond back sometime this evening or sometime tomorrow with how to proceed." He tells me he seems to think this is an issue related to something else, although the ram is 100% stable, now that I figure out the hard drive thing, it is 100% stable, and the only thing that would cause complete power loss in a system is the power supply. I then proceed to ask the rep about replacing the PSU with a different model (for example the truepower 550) I tell him I will pay whatever difference in cost and the shipping for it. He tells me this is not their policy and as a result will not under ANY circumstances be able to do this. So I calmly ask him why this is not possible and he states it is just company policy. I work for best buy, so I know policy, I also know we break it many times a day to accomodate customers. So after arguing lightly for a few minutes I got quite angry and told him I wanted a response today and that I would NEVER buy an antec product again. This is severely disappointing.
 
I had the exact same experience JJU. I got my enermax from UPS today, its running great. I told them I too would trade for another truepower, but they declined. That is what made me move to a different brand.
 
I'm scheduled to get my rma'd replacement on friday but I'm thinking of just selling it on ebay and buying a new model to make sure I avoid problems. Seems like this power supply is just not worth it.
 
I already own an Antec TruePower series PS. However, I really like the modular cable feature of the NeoHE series. Since my planned upgrade includes an Asus A8N series board, I'm now reluctant to go with my original plan to get a NeoHE due to all the problems I see people are having. The only other modular PS I know anything about is the Ultra X-Connect (a friend of mine has one). I see that they have released a new revised edition that supposedly addresses the complaints some people had with the original version's thick cables. However so far I can only find one retailer that sells the new version of the Ultra, and I can't find any reviews on it at all. The original version was in the roundup review that The Tech Report did (an Antec NeoPower was included in that, I don't think the Neo HE's were out yet) awhile ago.

Anyone have any info on it? Sorry if I'm a little OT. PM me the info if that's a problem.
 
Does anyone know if the fault in these power supplies poses any risk of frying a motherboard or any other components, or is it more an issue that will just cause instability but not fry anything? I don't even want to give it a try for a while after i get my rma'd one if there is a chance I could harm my system.
 
mother F-er. i just sent back some ram today thinking that was the problem. brought some new ram in from work to use till i get the other stuff back. bango! same problem. the computer just shuts itself down autocraptically after 5-20 minutes in memtest, windows or basically anything. i knew i should have sent the PSU back instead.

dammit!

btw, all of this was bought and delivered last week. the board is a rev 1.02.
 
First off there are otehr modular PSU's out there. Enermax liberty (which is what I replaced my HE with) OCZ makes a couple, and silverstone all have them. Personally though if you are getting an ASUS mobo, DO NOT get the NeoHE series, they are junk and Antec will only be a pain in the ass when trying to get them repaired. Not to mention they will do no exchanges what-so-ever. I will never buy an antec product again after the level of service they gave me. That makes newegg and antec off my list for. Although newegg may be able to redeem itself considering the problem I had with them MAY I reapeat MAY have been my own doing. Long post short, don't buy this PSU, don't buy any antec PSU's. Until they learn to treat their customers better, they don't deserve to sell anything.
 
1) support response times. Our support manager just let me know that they've received a larger then expected # of calls/emails/tickets so it's taking them longer to get back to everyone. We apologize for that, and support is working to get back to everyone.

We've had one report that while playing F.E.A.R. that our PSU shutdown. We were able to find out that the system in question was running 2 7800GTX's that were pulling 11A each. This caused our PSU's over current protection to kick in and shut down. According to Nvidia the 11A is outside the design specification. Not sure if that relates to anyone here and it's something we're still checking out. If by chance you have 7800GTX's in SLI and a NeoHE, try putting the PCI Express power connectors on either end of the NeoHE (that way each vid card is on a different +12V output). This obviously does not apply to a whole lot of people though, and we realize that.

Currently we're shipping out revised units throughout the various channels. We're not trying to bury the problem. I've heard scattered reports (mostly in Europe actually) that some people are still having problems with revised versions, which we're still investigating.
 
After tried to make working the fixed version sent, antec want to replace again and retry... I don't know what to think about it. If I accept again, do I'll need soon a truck to send back all the wrong psu's ? I'm lost, I didn't understand their point of view, I just want a working psu... -_-

I've heard scattered reports (mostly in Europe actually) that some people are still having problems with revised versions, which we're still investigating.
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Great, but we aren't responsive about that issue, although we pay the price. I feel like JJU357
 
Well byblo you and I can form the disgrunted antec customers club (or DACC for short). AntecRep you hear that? now you got DACC to worry about. I can see the fear in your eyes. "Hell no we won't go...give us a damn working power supply" How is it that I can have a revised unit in the UNITED STATES and not 2 GTX's (just regular GT's) and still have this problem. Antec tells me that ASUS themselves tested this PSU. Did they just turn it on? Because it works like that. A few hours of NFSMW though, and it randomly powers off, everytime. If I wanted a computer I could turn on and off I'd go find my packard bell from 15 years ago, or my dell from 10 years ago. I WANT A WORKING POWER SUPPLY NOT THIS P.O.S. NEOHE. ANTEC YOUR RETURN/EXCHANGE POLICIES BLOW AND YOU SERIOUSLY OUGHT TO REVISE THEM. I work for retail and we have policies too, but they get broken everyday to accomadate unusual circumstances and to appease customers who have gone through hell because of something we did wrong or something we couldn't fix. Thats what good customer service is, going above and beyond and ocaisionally bending the rules to make the people that repeatedly buy from you happy. I'm done ranting and done buying antec products, but I will fight to get this PSU issue fixed, only so I can sell off this blasted PSU for less than $50 because of how crappy it is.
 
AntecRep said:
We've had one report that while playing F.E.A.R. that our PSU shutdown. We were able to find out that the system in question was running 2 7800GTX's that were pulling 11A each. This caused our PSU's over current protection to kick in and shut down. According to Nvidia the 11A is outside the design specification. Not sure if that relates to anyone here and it's something we're still checking out. If by chance you have 7800GTX's in SLI and a NeoHE, try putting the PCI Express power connectors on either end of the NeoHE (that way each vid card is on a different +12V output). This obviously does not apply to a whole lot of people though, and we realize that.
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I hope you don't mean you've only received one report of a Neo shutting off? I'll pretend I didn't read that.......now then. I sent in a trouble ticket clearly describing my problem and system. Asus A8N32, an AMD64 3700, ONE XFX 7800GT, two WD 250G hard drives (IDE, not raid), a DVD writer and an Audigy2. My old generic 350w powered all that except the video card & MB. And low and behold, when I took the Neo back and got an Enermax, the shutdown problems vanished.

I agree with JJU357. I am no longer an Antec customer, but am now a member of DACC.
 
me as well. my NeoHE is back in the mail today to newegg, and thanks to this POS i had to pay to buy a new PSU and have it overnighted to me.
 
The Crusher said:
I hope you don't mean you've only received one report of a Neo shutting off? I'll pretend I didn't read that.......now then. I sent in a trouble ticket clearly describing my problem and system. Asus A8N32, an AMD64 3700, ONE XFX 7800GT, two WD 250G hard drives (IDE, not raid), a DVD writer and an Audigy2. My old generic 350w powered all that except the video card & MB. And low and behold, when I took the Neo back and got an Enermax, the shutdown problems vanished.

I agree with JJU357. I am no longer an Antec customer, but am now a member of DACC.
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I'm referring to 1 specific incident. I'd be incredibly stupid to maintain only 1 NeoHE had an issue.

JJU357 please send me a PM with your contact info.
 
Hi AntecRep,

Recently I ordered both the Asus A8N32-sli Deluxe mobo and the Antec NeoHE 550 psu.

I'm in Europe and the retailer just got the motherboard in stock this week 4th of January. They told me the combo would work. After reading this whole thread I have my serious doubts though.

So, will the new European revisions of both products work :confused:

Btw. How come there isn't a press release warning or incompatibility list on the Antec site if the problem has been acknowledged ? This would prevent alot of disappointed customers.
 
Knot, you'll just have to wait until you get them and try it. Some people are having no problems, others are having a lot of problems. It seems like your unlikely to have a problem if you have a new revision of the PSU and the newest revision of the ASUS mobo, but even then that's no guarantee. There isn't really a way to know ahead of time if it will work or not.
 
JJU357,

Yeah, I'll wait n see. Otherwise, I'm certainly gonna return it and get another brand. On paper, the NeoHE sure does look fine though.

Any news btw from the Asus front ? Maybe new bios solves the problem (not to mention the whole Creative X-fi story..)
 
JJU357 said:
How is it that I can have a revised unit in the UNITED STATES and not 2 GTX's (just regular GT's) and still have this problem.
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Did you try the suggested fix of having your pci-e power connectors come from the far left and far right of the powersupply plugins? Just because you've GT and not GTX doesn't mean that you're not pulling too much current from a single 12v rail.
 
While I appriciate the tip h95, I have tried EVERYTHING...and I mean EVERYTHING that antec has suggested. New BIOS, new mobo, opposite sides, praying, none of it works. Anytime I go an game for a few hours, it decides randomly to shut off. I sent antec the specs for my rig today hopefully they will build a mirror computer and watch their revised neohe fail so they can figure out what is wrong. but i'm happy with the enermax i got in the mail today, 620W, modular, and quiet as a mouse, not to mention it doesn't randomly shut off at all =)
 
i replaced the NeoHE 550 with a silverstone zeus 560 and have had my machine running torture tests all weekend. not a single shutdown.
 
Heh, I contacted my retailer about my concerns. He was willing to change the order.
So now, I ordered the Enermax EG651AX-VH psu instead of the Antec NeoHE 550.
 
I received my 2nd updated "with Asus A8N fix" version from the dealer this week. I was the worst of the three I've tried. I would shut off after 0,5 to 3 minutes. Mobo Asus A8N-E latest bios.

Luckily the dealer has agreed on a refund.
 
MrJocke, I saw your post on SPCR...

If it's true that Antec changed their mind on the backward compatibility but sells it as such
anyway.....That's really bad imo. From now on, I'll only trust Antec for their pc cases and nothing more.
 
After waiting more than 7 days an answer from rma team, it seem that they didn't care about my issue anymore. Now I'm stuck with 2 non working psu. I'll write to some press pals, to prevent other people to avoid the same craps from antec. criminals, thats they are. Even mafiosi are ashamed to ask you 150€ for bullshit. :( Yes I'm completely disgusted.
 
My Antec NeoPower 480 recently blew up and took my Asus motherboard with it. So I figure it was time for an upgrade. I had a newer Asus motherboard P5WD2 Permium overnighted to me along with a NeoHE 500. I thought, wow, this NeoHE 500 is sweet!! The cables are all wrapped and look super clean while the NeoPower 480 wasn't so it was a no-brainer upgrade. So I went and swapped all my components over...P4 3.73Ghz Extreme Edition CPU @ 1066 FSB, Corsair XMS2 Memory, Asus ATI 850XT PE video card, two 75GB WD 10K RPM Raptor HDD, two 400GB Hitachi 7.2K RPM HDD, DVD drive, DVD burner drive, floppy, etc. Everything booted up fine, but when I was re-loading Windows XP guess what happens? It hangs when it's detecting devices. I tried for hours trying to get things to work but no good. (Note, I'm not a newbie to computers and my profession is actually in the computer/server/networking field.) I figure maybe I was loading the wrong RAID drivers, or maybe I have too many USB devices plugged in, blah blah blah. Did a bone clean install w/ nearly nothing plugged in, everything disabled in the bios, and nothing, still stuck on detecting devices. :mad:

After finding information on this board about the NeoHE, I said what the hell, go to BestBuy and buy a Antec TruePower 480 power supply (boy the cabling is ugly on this one) and low and behold, everything loads fine, Windows boots up fine, no problems at all. :rolleyes:

I plugged all my devices in again, did a second clean install just to proove to myself everything is fine and it is. :rolleyes:

I'm pretty disappointed in the Antec NeoHE. I'm a big Antec supporter with Antec fans all over my system, Antec power supply, Antec case, etc. but this issue with the NeoHE has really disappointed. :(

I'm going to go for a non Antec PSU for the first time and go w/ the Enermax Liberty 620 Watt PSU. Clicking on the order button any second now.
 
I just bought the neohe550 today from a local shop,since I needed it right away to get some work done overnight.

A friend works at the shop, so he lend me a open box psu. So I come install it at home, it shuts down spontaneously for no apparent reason.

So I bring it back to the shop and he swaps it out with a new one.
First thing I noticed when I got home was, the antec sticker on the actual PSU (that says warranty void if removed) seemed to have been tampered with. It wasn't removed, but it seems that someone opened it after cutting the sticker.

I say what the heck, and install it anyways.
Computer still shuts down intermittently. And there's a low buzzing sound coming from the psu.

Any ideas? I'm guessing it's just a bad psu. I feel bad about returning it again, for the second time. I'm not sure if I should replace it or just get a refund.
 
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