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Failing Antec PS

C

c2rex

Weaksauce
Joined
Aug 26, 2003
Messages
76
My workstation power supply, an Antec 430 has started having issues. The system it was in is an older Pentium 4 system. I booted it up one morning, went to get a cup of coffee and when I came back the monitor was black. I rebooted and it did the same thing. I've since replaced the power supply but went through this one just to see what happened and have noticed the cable marked FAN ONLY was hooked up to all of the case fans, none were working. I also noticed the 2 fans inside the power supply are also not working. If allowed to cool to room temperature, and hooking case fans to other molexes, the computer will boot and run. I did not let it run long because of the fans not spinning inside the power supply. Opening up the housing, I can't see anything that appears to be wrong. All the components I can see appear to be in good shape.

I was wondering if anyone here had any idea what has actually happened to this power supply unit.
 
Are the fans gummed up? Unplug the AC power cord and try moving each fan manually with something non-metallic, like a straw, chopstick, or cheap all-plastic pen.

If your 430W Antec has 2 fans, it was probably made by Channel Well Tech (CWT may be printed on a transformer) and is full of horrible Fuhjyyu brand capacitors, which can go bad even in storage.
 
c2rex said:
Antec True 430

The fans do not feel stuck. They feel normal. I don't know who actually made it for Antec. Nothing looks fried, that I can see. Below are links to some pics I took of the inside.

http://i43.tinypic.com/8z2qo6.jpg

http://i39.tinypic.com/11gp1mr.jpg

http://i39.tinypic.com/33p56wo.jpg
Click to expand...
That's an Antec TruePower made by Channel Well. Notice that while the large transformer says "Viking" on top, the smaller one says "CWT", which stands for Channel Well Technology. Do NOT have the power supply plugged into the AC power without its cover fully installed (screwed in place)! There's a lot of exposed high voltage inside, including 170-340 volts DC riding on the big heatsink near the top of your first photo, next to those two large cylindrical capacitors.

Because the fans feel normal and both aren't spinning, I'd check the wiring going to them, including at the connector seen on the left of your 2nd picture. I think that cable goes to another connector soldered to the circuit board, so check that, too, including the solder connections on the circuit board (use a bright light and a magnifier -- solder cracks can be nearly microscopic).

If you find no problems with any of that, check the fan controller, which will be near that fan connection and where the thermistor connects to the board. The thermistor is a 2-wire device on the heatsink and may be held to it by a metal bracket and covered with dark grey heatshrink tubing. The thermistor itself is probably a green plastic bead. If the thermistor is disconnected (solder may be cracked), the fan controller will think the temperature is real cool and may not run the fans. Another possibility is a bad transistor in the fan controller. If that TruePower is like my SmartPower of the same vintage, it uses a simple controller consisting of just a couple of small plastic transistors, some resistors, and a thermistor. The bigger output transistor may look like this:

TO92L.jpg


But transistors tend to fail by shorting, which should make the fan always run full blast, not turn off.
 
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