Antec *&^#$##$!! case rant

[Tea]

Guy rang up today, had some problems. From his description, it sounded like it was probably a power supply going bad. Told him to bring it in and we would swap out the PSU.

So he turned up an hour or two later, some two or three year old shiny silver thing with a window in it. Pentium 4 2800, 1GB RAM, Gigabyte mainboard with a SiS chipset. Seemed a reasonable quality system, not the best but OK. (Don't care much for SiS chipsets, or, indeed, for Gigabyte boards for Intel chips - they are much better at AMD boards, IMO.)

Went to pull the old power supply out. It was an Antec 350w - Antecs are supposed to be pretty decent, but even the best ones fail sometimes, and the symptoms still sounded like PSU to me. Undid 4 screws, wouldn't budge. Looked a little harder: there was a metal bracket holding it in. Unscrew bracket. Still won't come out because the bracket is affixed in some way behind the power supply. OK, time to pull the back off the case. Can't: it's rivetted on. Right, maybe the top pops off. Nope: that's rivetted on too. Right, you must have to remove the sturdy rail that runs between the back of the case and the optical drive cage. Nope. that is rivetted!

Grrr.

There was absolutely no way to remove the PSU with out removing the metal bracket first. And ... here comes the good bit .... to remove the bracket, you have to first remove the motherboard. Yep, fair dinkum. To change an Antec power supply in a fairly recent model Antec-branded case, you have to:

* Undo two screws, remove side of case
* Undo four screws at back of PSU
* Undo screw retaining outer part of bracket.
* Undo three screws retaining video card, network card, and sound card.
* Remove video card, network card, and sound card.
* Undo six screws retaining motherboard
* Remove motherboard
* Unclip hard drive cage, disconnect HDD & FDD, remove cage.
* Undo four screws retaining optical drives
* Unplug cables from optical drives
* (with difficulty, cause there ain't much room) push PSU backwards, twist., and remove.

So, apart from the power supply, what was left in the case by the time it was possible to get the damn thing out? Nothing. Not one damn thing. Disassemble the entire bloody computer, just to change a faulty power supply. That sucks. I mean that seriously sucks. There is no way in hell that we will ever buy an Antec case after meeting this particular design disaster. F&ck me, I'd sooner work on a Hewlett-Packard than that POS.

Un-be-lievable!

 

[Mercutio]

That doesn't sound like any Antec Case I'm familiar with.
Was it an extra-tiny microATX or something?

I know the P150 and the P180 and the Solution series and the NSK series and the Sonata and the Aria and the Performance series, and most of them are among the easiest cases there are to work with. I can't say I've worked with all of them...

But then I don't know what Antec case has a Window in it, either. Cases with windows in them are usually retarded for lots of other reasons, too.

 

[Buck]

I have to agree with Mercutio since most of my recent experience has been with Antec cases and power supplies. The only Antec cases with oddities similar to what Tea mentioned are earlier Solution series where the top panel and the side panel underneath/behind the motherboard are riveted to the chassis. The most recent Solution series, which has been out for a couple of years, easily disassembles in its entirety. Too bad for Tea, because I know this will prevent Tony from every purchasing an Antec case. Oh well, I guess that leaves more supply for me, Mercutio, DD and others on this side of the globe.

 

[Mercutio]

Actually... I guess the P180 could be a power-supply problem child, depending on the size and type of motherboard involved. But the metal bracket on it unscrews independently of anything else in the case, IIRC, and nothing in it is riveted.

 

[P5-133XL]

I too have delt with multiple Antec Cases (Including full tower Antec cases with windows) and what you are describing has not been my experiance. Power supplies have all been easy to remove. By the way, all my Antec Cases invariably have the Word Antec stamped somewhere on the outside.

 

[Tea]

I didn't get a model number, but it was about two to three years old, according to the owner, Antec power supply and Antec badge on the front (part of the case, not added on as a sticker or anything). There are no excuses for this idiocy, it is a standard-size midi-tower. Smallish as midi-towers go, but not particularly so. Big enough to take a standard ATX motherboard and a standard ATX power supply with a centimetre or two clearance between them. Silver-grey colour, stupid swing-out door on the front that you have to open to acces the drives, and a particularly stupid optical drive mounting arrangment involving pull-out-from-the-front mounting rails with spring clips on the far side and screws on the near side. (Worst of both worlds!)

I would have made a note of the model, but Tannin said not to bother: any company that could build something this stupid wasn't going to get any of his business anyway, so why bother with the model. Or something similarly bad-tempered. Mind you, I was pretty bad tempered myself after dealing with that indescribably idiotic design. I mean, at least Compaqs and Dells have the (bad) excuse of having to cram everything into a too-small housing. This had plenty of room, it was just plain, old-fashoioned stupidity. Or possibly arrogance: maybe they said "our power supplies never fail, so no-one will ever need to change one".

But seriously, how could you ever trust a company with a product as bad as that?

 

[Tannin]

* Undo two screws, remove side of case
* Undo four screws at back of PSU
* Undo screw retaining outer part of bracket.
* Undo three screws retaining video card, network card, and sound card.
* Remove video card, network card, and sound card.
* Undo six screws retaining motherboard
* Remove motherboard
* Unclip hard drive cage, disconnect HDD & FDD, remove cage.
* Undo four screws retaining optical drives
* Unplug cables from optical drives
* (with difficulty, cause there ain't much room) push PSU backwards, twist., and remove.

You forgot:

* Remove motherboard
* Unscrew stupid retaining bracket and vomit on it
* etc .....

Un-be-lievable!

Have to agree with you on that, small furry thing.

 

[Mercutio]

Sounds like a Solution series case, kind of, but I can't recall seeing one with the metal bar in question.

 

[Tannin]

Most people assembling them, Merc, probably had enough brains to throw the damn retaining clip away before building the system. Or else couldn't figure out what you were supposed to do with it in the first place and left it out, which for our purposes is just as good.

Solution Series, eh? Well, I can think of a solution for it. A perfect bloody solution. But should that solution be hydrochloric? Or sulphuric?

 

[ddrueding]

I'm actually guessing it was an original LanBoy...let's see if I can find a good picture:

Ahh...here it is:

And yes, it is IMHO the worst case they ever made. I was able to swap the PSU without removing the MoBo, however. IIRC it slides forward, so removing the optical maked it easier.

 

[Handruin]

An antec 2 to 3 years old may have been built by someone else. I don't know which models were actually built by Antec, but they had some that were built by chieftec (and other similar companies) years ago. I realize that doesn't excuse the idiotic design...

However, like the others in this thread, I've never encountered such a frustrating situation with Antec cases. I've had some of the much earlier models and I've used a few of the cheaper ones all the way to the P160 and P180. Non have had this issue (yet).

 

[Santilli]

HMMMM. I wonder if Furball is to Antec cases as I am to ATA
drives???;-)

While they are getting complicated, I really like the two 160 cases we have around...

Greg

 

[Adcadet]

My Antec P180 arrived and I finally had some time to take a look at it. So far I'm very impressed. Great construction, looks like an excellent design. We'll see if I still love it after actually building a computer around it.

 

[Mercutio]

Only problems I have with the P180 is there aren't enough drive bays (I wish there was another four drive cage instead of the two-drive bay in the middle) and the lower, right hand corner of a full size motherboard is EXTREMELY crowded by power cabling, SATA drive and I/O headers due to the chambered design.

Oh, and that blue LED, if I ever bothered to plug one in.

The NSK 4400, for a non-premium case, is all kinds of awesome. I've loved that design since I first saw it as a Compucase, but adding the 120mm fan and the rubber grommets for drive mounts takes it to a whole new level.

 

[ddrueding]

I loved my P160, then I got a P180 and liked that even more. I'm currently using a P150 as a chair (one of a half-dozen I bought this week). And my new PS is in an Aria (SFF) chassis that has become awesome after some severe modding. There are QC issues, but their engineers certainly have the right ideas.