Notice for all building systems, Antec & Asus are not friends!

[morph166955]

This is just a warning for anyone building a system since this info seems to be kinda buried in a few other forums. So after almost a month of messing with this setup and doing research I have found out that there are major compatibility issues with Antec PSU's and Asus boards on both Intel and AMD platforms. There is a big problem with it creating stable power output due to faulty capacitors in the PSU. The 12V rail drops down to as low as 11.2V. This problem seems to plague most of Asus' current new motherboards. So if your thinking of getting an Asus board and an Antec power supply, think again.

[Blue_MiSfit]

Good info to know!

I will keep it in mind, as I was going to build a Core 2 Quad system in a few months with a P5B and antec PSU!

~MiSfit

[BigDid]

... I have found out that there are major compatibility issues with Antec PSU's and Asus boards on both Intel and AMD platforms. There is a big problem with it creating stable power output due to faulty capacitors in the PSU. The 12V rail drops down to as low as 11.2V. This problem seems to plague most of Asus' current new motherboards. So if your thinking of getting an Asus board and an Antec power supply, think again.
Hi,

Could you be more specific on the Asus MB you have problems with and/or link for the "most of Asus boards..." assumption :thanks:

I recently read the 105 PSU test on matbe (french): http://www.matbe.com/articles/lire/342/comparatif-de-105-alimentations/page2.php
made with an Asus P5ND2-SLI. They do not report any big 12V drop with the ANTEC; for 7 PSU the 12v are
- Idle from 12,13 to 11,88V (Neo Power 480)
- Max Cpuburn+Testfillrate from 12,10 to 11,92V (Earth Watts 500).

I am not "Pro" Antec and if I had to buy a good PSU today I would go for the Akasa Power80+ 500 (+/- 90€) http://www.matbe.com/articles/lire/342/comparatif-de-105-alimentations/page16.php
but I am satisfied with my recent Fortron BlueStorm2 500. It is just that other PSU have better specs :cool:

Did

[Lenny_Nero]

Seasonic all day long, they make the best PSU's and do so for all of the other big names and do a very good job with their own stuff as well.

IIRC there have been quite a few Asus boards that have been hard loads for PSU's my ASUS A7N8X has always been known as a 'lop-sided' load I cant remember exactly, its something to do the the 5+ve said of the load, or a lack of it. My S12 has no problem running it 24/7.
I also have a Corsair HX620 made by Seasonic and it seems able to run most things, I have read about tests with it running dual C2D and 8800's without breaking sweat, its very good for the money IMO.

[AntecRep]

I am interested in finding out more about your problem and would like to help. Please post what Antec PSU you are using, as well as what model Asus board you have.

Also, I feel I should point out that it's not fair to make blanket statements implying that all Antec PSU's do not work with all Asus boards. This simply is not true.

The only known problem encountered between Antec and Asus was quite a long time ago, regarding a compatibility problem discovered between one of our PSU models (neo HE) and two Asus board families (including A8N). The problem has been long since fixed on both the Antec and Asus side of things and there should be no reason that you would be running into this problem today unless you have very old revisions of both your Asus board and your PSU.

I encourage you to contact Antec Customer Support about this issue. You can reach them by email at customersupport@antec.com or europe.customersupport@antec.com. Please include the model and unit serial number in the report.

[morph166955]

Appologies for the delayed reply, I've been going crazy with graduation and moving for the past week. I'm now home and after I get back later on today I'll give you a very detailed reply and more info on the situation and my solution that as of yet has not had a single issue.

[Dr.Khron]

Yeah man, please be a little more careful with the blanket statements. While its implicit that whatever issue you've found is from some new combination of harware, you didn't say that.

I've been running an ASUS/Antec combo for 4 years now, with no problems.

[Mr_Odwin]

I just bought an Antec case/psu combo and an Asus board so I'll report on whether I have difficulties when it all arrives.

[MrSeanKon]

Seasonic all day long, they make the best PSU's.Add Enermax also. :devil:
Antec PSUs suck....:cool:

[Surf]

A lot of Antec psu models are made by Seasonic...:D

Yes, I too read about the Asus & Antec issue but that was way back in 2003-04...

Still waiting for the substantiality.

[morph166955]

OK my much belated reply (SORRY!). I just got home from school and I'm moving to NC in the next week so things have been a little crazy around here.

First, heres the systems full specs so you have a reference of what I'm using when reading this:

2x Intel X5355 2.66GHZ 1333MHz FSB Quad Core Xeon's w/ Dynatron H6EG 60mm Coolers (THESE ARE AWESOME!)
4x Crucial 1GB DDR2 667 FB-DIMM's in a Quad-Channel Configuration (Located in the 00, 10, 20 and 30 slots)
Asus DSBF-D12 Motherboard
Western Digital WD1500ADFD 150GB 10000RPM Raptor (OS Drive)
2x WD5000YS 500GB 7200RPM (Video Scratch Drives, disconnected while testing the system voltage)
NEC AD-7170A DVD Burner (18x DVD SL Write, 8x DVD DL Write, also disconnected voltage during testing)

System was purchased via newegg between 3/27/07 and 3/30/07, Power Supplies purchased shortly after via Antec's Online Store. All bios updates were verified to be current from manufacturer.


The original case was a Antec 2U26ATX400XR-2 2U Case w/ its stock SP2-400SXR Power Supply. I then Installed a TP2-550EPS12VXR Power Supply which was from an Antec 3U25EPS550XR-2. It was used because of the front mount design and dimensions of the power supply which is IMPOSSIBLE to find anywhere else...trust me I looked. This one barely fit the case and it blocked the top fan HOWEVER before anyone jumps saying that it didn't have sufficient cooling, the tests were run with the top off and the dust filter in front removed so it had plenty of room to breathe. The motherboard REQUIRES EPS12V otherwise it wont turn on. For those not knowing the specs, the ATX PS that came with the case had 1x 24pin, 1x 4pin, 2x 6pin, and the usual supply of sata and old 4 pin hdd plugs. The EPS12V spec (much newer, designed for the dual+ core systems and servers) requires 1x 24pin (main power line), 1x 8pin (in this case, this powers the cpu's) and 1x 4pin (in this case, this powers the ram) plugs to supply power to the system. The 8 pin plug is basically two 4 pin plugs meshed together with one added benefit, it runs two separate 12V rails so that it has enough juice to power the system w/o voltage drop. Some EPS12V supplies let you actually disassemble the 8pin into 2x 4pin plugs to use on older systems, this one however didn't. Also it should be noted that the 4pin plug was a small little extension off of the 8pin plug instead of being straight out of the PS and directly off of the rail inside of it like most of the other EPS12V does (including the one I now have). This 8pin plug is the critical one since it actually supplies most of the power to the CPU's to run and in this case, it has to run 8 cores!

When using the original 400W ATX power supply with a whole slew of adapters on it (ATX 4pin to EPS 8pin & 4pin Molex to ATX 4pin), it would work with the only problem being that at about 85% CPU usage it would overrun the power supply and the system would shut off. Using my inline watt meter, I found this number to be right around 485W which btw good job Antec (seriously, I'm not being sarcastic) for making a PS which can sustain the system more then 20% higher then its rated max.

When I had ALL 3 of the 550W EPS power supplies plugged in the system could reach the 100% CPU usage and hold it there for as long as I wanted (I left it pegged for 60+ mins no issues)... when it would actually turn on that is. Two were bought direct from Antec's site and the third was originally taken out of an Antec 3U case we had sitting around (see model # above), all three had identical model #'s and the two ordered were listed as replacements for that specific case. If the system was cold, and had been unplugged for 10 mins or more it would boot up with no problems and stay on and running with out issue. However, if at any point I attempted to power the machine down (using either a shutdown command from the OS or a hard shut down), the machine would refuse to turn back on no matter how long I waited after it went off. The fans would just "kick" for about a half of a second and that was it. Sometimes, for reasons unbeknown to me, they would continue to kick once every 15 seconds or so unless the power was pulled from the case and the motherboard discharges (the little green light thats always on even when the system is off goes out). If I discharge the machine and then plug it in again before ~10 mins have past, no luck. After 10 mins or so goes by though it decides too work again. This SAME EXACT response happened on all three of the 550W power supplies that I had, yet the 400W power supply would NEVER have this issue (it just wasn't strong enough to power the whole thing).

I should also note that due to the large number of cpus/cores in this, it takes on the average of 15 seconds after the system has powered up before the CPU fans kick into high gear (there on just low normally) and the system has finished its initial tests and gives me a beep and then turns on the display. This is very noticeably longer then any other computer I have ever worked with however I'm not very shocked and some of the quad-core owners have told me they see similar delays when they boot just a smaller time frame. I believe that this is normal operation for this system but I'm just mentioning it to make this as complete of a reply as I can. Also to note, when the 550W PS doesn't work (eg it just kicks), the only other noticable thing is that the lights on the ethernet plugs go out momentarily as if their power is being sucked out.

I have since replaced the whole thing with a Chenbro RM21760 case (which for anyone looking for a case this thing is AWESOME!) and a Zippy (some times known as EMACS) P2M-6600P 600W EPS12V power supply and have had no issues at all, in fact I think the whole thing is running amazingly and possibly faster. The Zippy power supply is amazing although its fan is rather loud and always on, louder then my 4x ThermalTake A1357 75cfm/48db 80mm fans together!

Now for some more proof of how I came to this conclusion. First off, I used our old friend Google. While Google didn't find any direct references to this specific PS (or its line) and my motherboard, I did however find SEVERAL very recent references (even some as recent as a few days before I was working on it) to the Neo line and to several newer Asus boards both AMD and Intel processor based. The reason for this is lack of a link is obvious, very few people out there have a system thats as huge as mine right now (at least personal machines since most larger companies would drop the cash on a fully built Dell or something instead of building their own like I did). This thing sucks power like its job. At idle it needs 400-425W. At full load it hovers around 550W, occasionally peaking to 575W if all of the hard drives and the DVD are spinning as well as all the fans being at full blast.

After Googling, I called a close friend of mine who has a degree in electrical engineering and currently works for a major (he asked me not to mention the name) electronics company where one of his responsibilities is matching power supplies (their own not computer ones, but ultimately similar) to boards/circuits that they have created to run their gizmos. He told me that the best thing to do was to test the voltages that are getting to the system in as many ways as possible, so I did. While I'm no EE, I have a fair bit of electrical experience and knowledge seeing as I minored in physics with a concentration in electricity and magnetism so I didn't see measuring voltages as any big issue. I went online and got the pin-outs of the plugs to see which ones I should be testing and what the valid ranges should be. In almost all cases I was seeing between 11.2V and 11.5V out of the 12V+ lines (both rails) at all times. This was verified by going into the bios and seeing what its hardware monitor was displaying (yes, sitting idle just watching the bios the system was running at 11.5V) as well as using lm_sensors/gkrellm while the system was on to get readings from that. All 3 #'s were in sync with each other when ever I checked so I'm confident that they are right. To correlate, the Zippy supply feeds a constant 12.05V to the system both when idling in the bios and when under a full and constant 100% cpu load.

The next step was to call Asus to confirm my thoughts. In a nutshell, Asus agreed with me and said that because of the large power requirements of the board, 2x quadcores and the fb-dimms as well as the fact that the system does perform normally under low loads with the 400W supply, the power supplies must be faulty. They also mentioned that they have had several people calling in (even recently) in regards to Antec supplies and their motherboards, specifically dual/quad core systems and/or multi cpu boards.

After that and three separate attempts with three different brand new power supplies, I came to the conclusion that this was either a design or manufacturing defect on Antec's part. So I called their tech support (again, the first time being after the first power supply ordered from them didn't work). I explained the issue and they said they would research it and call me back (I believe this was around 11:30am EST, which translates to 8:30AM PST). As time crept on through the day I continued to play around with it. I again removed the whole thing (mobo, the os's HDD and the PS) from the case and had it sitting on a static resistant table that I have in my bench to ensure that I wasn't having some sort of a grounding issue with the case. No change. It should be noted that I tried this several times on several occasions and it showed no difference between being in or out of the case which in my head ruled out the motherboard grounding to the case as an issue. At some time around 5:30PM EST (2:30PM PST), I called back. At this point I was obviously on edge now since I started this project almost exactly a month before and I wanted my shiny new toy to work! I spoke with the same tech that I had earlier who told me that they have no idea why it was doing that and he wanted to pass me on to a more senior tech to discuss the problem. This first tech was very polite and he admitted he had no idea what was wrong (which I find to be a very good quality that most techs lack these days, most will just say "its not our fault" or "you did it wrong" or something similar). This second tech, the senior one, was however much less polite. From the first second he got on the phone he sounded rather pissed at me for having him actually do work! After starting from the beginning and explaining the whole situation too him, he started to ask how I came to my conclusions. I explained my method and at almost every chance he could get he would twist what I was saying and then imply that either I was lying or I had no clue what I was talking about. This got really old really fast. The words "yea, prove it" came out of his mouth way too often. I mean come on, why would I be lying and wasting all this time if the thing actually worked. When I asked him if they had tested a higher end system like this against the power supply he very quickly said "sure we have we test against several systems." Eventually that changed too "well I'm not sure what they have tested it on actually." Finally after about 15 minutes of this and repetitive finger pointing in my direction by him, I said something on the order of "ok enough of this I want to return the whole thing and I'm just going to have to give up on Antec for this project since its obvious that this unit just doesn't work." He (now in a very pissed off tone) took my info and gave me an RMA number to return the item with. After that, I asked to speak to his supervisor because I was now really irritated by this guy. He proceeded to tell me that "he was the supervisor." and that "he is the top level." I replied simply with "so you own Antec then and you report to no one?" He paused for a moment and said "well I am the head supervisor here so you can lodge your complaint with me." Now I was getting mad. I replied with the question of "who do you report too, who is your superior, who is the person above you." He finally (after pausing for a few moments) said "my managers name is ____ and heres his extension" (i don't have the mans name off hand and I'm not going to post it here so that he doesn't get a swarm of phone calls, if AntecRep wants it please send me a private msg and I'll see if i can find that info again). After leaving a message to call me and finding out that he was on vacation for 2 weeks, I proceeded to contemplate what to do with this $250 case that I now had and couldn't use which I had now owned for 32 days (neweggs return policy is normally 30). Thank god for newegg being the ballers that they are, they agreed that since I had been involved in the RMA's and its not that I just didn't want this thing anymore and that it was still in good condition, they would take it back minus a small restock fee which I really couldn't argue with.

Now that this is all said and done and my system has been up for a few weeks with out any glitches, I can feel very confident in saying that it was definitely the power supply seeing as everything else (minus the case) has remained unchanged. For those looking for an absolutely sweet case, I HIGHLY recommend the Chenbro case and the Zippy power supply. Not only does it have HUGE standoffs (they are easily 8-9mm wide, larger then anything I have ever seen), but they are also SSI EEB/CEB/TEB compliant and have the mounting screws for the CPU fans directly in the case like they are supposed to to reduce the weight/stress on the motherboard.

I am very confident about this, my approach, and my results and stand by them 100%. Also just for reference, I have worked in the computer business now since I was 13 (im 22 now). My original responsibility in the company (owned by my father) was assembling workstations for his clients. As I got older and more knowledgeable I have been working as one of his senior tech support engineers. I have built hundreds of workstations and servers in these past 9/10 years including all of the computers I currently have. Now that I have graduated with a bachelors in Computer Science with a Physics Minor I am going out into the real world to work. As of the beginning of June, I will be leaving my fathers employ and going to work for Cisco Systems in their associate Network Consulting Engineering program down at their RTP campus. So as you can imagine computers are no new thing too me. I'd like to call myself an expert by this point in terms of building and diagnosing systems as well as having quite a bit of experience in troubleshooting hardware problems like this.

Thank you all for your time and patience reading this obviously HUGE post and for bearing with my delay in reply. I didn't want to give a rushed version a few days ago since I realize many people may be watching this thread and I don't like to half-ass things. Please feel free to ask any questions of me either in here or via private message if you don't want to share your questions with the whole world (although for the most part since this is a forum to learn and grow posting in here is obviously preferred) . If anyone has any off topic questions please send them to me via private message so that the topic of this post stays on target and doesn't go askew.

[graysky]

Slightly OT, but I have a P5B-del + corsair 620HX and have seen no issue with this combo.

[MLS]

I hope you are not suggesting that Antec PSUs and ASUS boards are completely incompatible, because I think it can be proven pretty quickly that this is not so. All your experiences tell me is that there is a 12v line problem with a particular line of Antec PSUs (maybe others), and this caused issues in the setup you had, as out of spec voltage may cause in any setup--ASUS or not.

Cheap PSUs have been known to deliver under spec or shaky voltage, the only thing remarkable here (if you can call it that), is that this problem is with a respected PSU dealer.

/MLS

[morph166955]

I'm NOT saying that ALL combinations of Antec and Asus are incompatible, far from it in fact. I'm giving a "buyer be ware" that they "may" have an issue with some of the EPS12V supplies and newer dual+ core systems so not to discount it as a possibility. I have used Antec's and Asus's stuff for years and its rare to encounter a problem (minus the occasional defective part, but i stress the word occasional in that). However 3 different brand new PSU's failing in the exact same manner when other PSU's work does to me show a problem in either the design or manufacturing of the units (possibly a bad component inside of the PSU that Antec is unaware of).

The purpose of the post was simple, to give the people on here who have helped me out with so many different questions and problems in the past some heads up in case they either were having a similar issue or they were considering building a new system. The system I built is on the bleeding edge of whats out and there aren't many reviews or places to look so I figured I would help some people not have the headache I did. I'm sure Antec will resolve this issue sooner then later and then things will go back to normal but for the time being, I'm avoiding putting the two together until I hear that this issue is resolved.

On the flip side of the coin, I am extremely pleased with my Chenbro/Zippy setup so for anyone looking to build a system like that, I HIGHLY recommend using those two brands since they are very solid in their construction and operation.

[delacroixp]

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:):D:eek:
Pascal