I purchased an Antec Phantom on March 30 from Directron and just installed it yesterday. It is quiet and barely warm and uses much less power than the relatively noisy Zalmon ZM300B-APC that I replaced.

The Serial number is D05015525578.
I have an Intel 865PERLK with P4-2.4GHz 800MHz 512KB
1024MB RAM, 300GB SATA Maxtor, Plextor 16X SATA, ATI AIW Radeon 7500

Idle power dropped from 80W with the Zalmon ZM300B to 68W. Full load power dropped from 120W to 104W.

It has been running full load for a couple hours and the power supply back is at 110F or about 44C with surrounding temps at 71F or about 22C.

I am very happy with the noise reduction and power reduction and hope it does not fail any time soon.

Well, now it seems that the replacement is dying. I couldn't believe the power supply could fail again so I've checked every component in my system. After two weeks of freezing issues I'm convinced that my Phantom is failing..

Is there any customer service available in Europe in terms of getting a replacement directly from Antec? I have received very poor customer service from the store where I purchased the power supply.

I just bought my Phantom yesterday.

10pm- Installed Phantom, Worked Fine
6am- Registered for University summer school
9am- Computer turned off, and my PSU never came back to life
11am- Put in my old Zalman PSU and it works fine.

Looks like I'll have to email Antec as well.

Serial Code: D04115401330



Btw, if you had a choice, would you just refund the Phantom or hope for the best when getting a replacement?

Im kind of skeptical of getting another Phantom after this incident.

I only used the PSU for a night

PS- I'm new to this forum because AnandTech Forums said I'd have better luck asking questions here.

Hey, where did u buy u're Phantom? I got mine at Canada Computers and I was worried that i got a shady refurb.

My phantom miraculously shat itself!

Purchase a few days ago(second hand)-original date of purchase 3-3-05. Woke up and the computer was off.. and doesn't turn on. The PSU still provides enough power for the mobo led to light up(+5V standby), and the network card LEDs.. but when i press tee button the fans spin and then turn off, much like when you want to discharge the PSU.

Serial Number: D04125469874
PS. Shorting the green and black wires turns on the light at the back of the PSU--> is it still working? Am I covered by warranty? since i bought this off another guy? i have the original receipt!

I have the identical problem.

What options is Antec giving us? I'm afraid even if i get a new PSU, the same thing will happen.

What do u mean? I've taken my PSU to the retail store. They are going to test it and send it off to the distributor for Antec(which happens to be Altech computers in Australia, i think)

I bought mine at Canada Computers too. Never had any problems with returns/exchanges. My phantom died on me after a few days .. just shut down all of a sudden .. tried again, also on other systems and it would only last a few seconds. Luckily I returned on the 7th day after purchase and got a full refund on my debit card, eventhough it worked without problems for at least 15 min. several days later when they tested it at Canada Computers. Thus I suspect overheating. Luckily it died sooner than later, or else I would be stuck with a 2nd dead phantom. No other components were damaged, thankfully.

My first one was from PC Village, only $185 CDN which is one of the best prices actually. That one died within seconds after booting with minimal setup (motherboard, cpu, ram, fan, hard drive in open area). Though it seemed to work fine with only a motherboard w/ fans attached (fanless PSU is perfect for testing fan noise!), obviously it didn't like my setup. Since it was already past the 15 day exchange period, I had to wait for them to send back to manufacturer.

Since Seasonic isn't available locally, I grabbed the Enermax 485W (see my sig) and it's been working fine since.

Great thread guys, thanks!

I've had a Phantom for about two months now, and it's been running great up until today. My Intel Active Monitor has gone off twice today, registering a warning that the power supply voltage has gone out of specified range. I checked my CPU temps and they're fine (mid-30ºC). Other than the warning message though, it appears to still be working OK...

If my Phantom dies I will pull it out and post the serial number. It doesn't appear to be located anywhere that is easily accessible.

My unit was purchased at BCOM Computers in Edmonton.

The serial number is on both the box and the unit. Start with a "D".

Finally got my RMA from the computer store. I was told they had to take it out of the box and send only the power supply to Antec, which was the reason why the serial number doesn't match the box. Make sure you get them to record the new serial number on the receipt, in case you need to RMA it again (probably very likely) and they think you've swapped it with another defective unit.

The replacement at first glance looks used with minor dents on it. Still I figured as long as it works then it's fine. So far it's been working alright, on a Pentium 3 machine in an open case. Let's see how long this one lasts.

Serial number : D04115401xxx
Received : 13/04/2005
Failed : 18/04/2005
Supplier: Komplett.co.uk

Today the PC was just idling (case temperature was 31C) when it shutdown without warning. Ruled out everything else, because the PC works with another PSU. Several hours later and the Antec Phantom still refuses to work. When I first installed the unit, I was careful to ensure that there was airflow through the unit after having read other owners' experiences, and ensured that I could feel air travelling through the unit. Awaiting RMA from Komplett. BTW Komplett is no longer listing the Antec Phantom on their site at all now, since I bought the very last one they had. Maybe this PSU was from the problematic first batch?

Got mine on 3/26/05 at Compusa, it's been working fine so far with no problems. As long as I don't have my Nexus turned TOO low, even after gaming for half an hour (using the Half-Life 2 demo as I currently don't have any REAL games to play, sigh), it'll get warm but NOT HOT on the portion inside the case next to the CPU heatsink. The outside portion will occasionally get SLIGHTLY warm.

Note: Sorry MikeC, but I'm not going to provide a serial number. While the SPCR folks are pretty above board, I never know if someone might use the information in a way that might screw up any future RMAs if I ever need one. Paranoid? Yes. Justifiably cautious? Maybe.

You could always blank out several digits of the series.

For instance:

d04115401234

would become:

d0411540xxxx

in your post.

Shadowknight - I understand your reluctance to provide the whole S/N, but could you let us know whether it's the D04 or D05 numbered series? Thanks.

Am I wrong in thinking that most, if not all, of the failures have been from the early D04 numbered units?

CT

hmm. .. interesting. One of my defective units was D04 as well (same with the replacement). I no longer have the serial of the other unit (Canada Computers kept the original receipt after I returned it).

the partial serial is

d0411540XXXX

UPS contacted me yesterday, and it appears they'll deliver my replacement unit today. Finally, only had to wait about 2 months (They had no Phantoms in stock at their European warehouse, so they had to wait, wait, wait and wait some more for another shipment, but ohwell).

Hopefully the new unit will work OK... provided my computer will even power up, as a few hours ago my Antec TruePower 480W made a loud bang, and went to the afterlife. No idea if it took any of my other hardware with it though.

I'd like to follow-up on my Antec Phantom experience. AntecRep put in me in direct contact with a product development manager who shipped me a current production model new replacement Phantom (paid shipping). I installed this and have no problems since (it's been about 3 weeks now). Also, he worked with me to address concerns about the noise and airflow in my system. I have replace the two Antec 80mm case fans and two Zalman 92mm (for my CPU/GPU) with 4 Nexus 80mm fans which provide more than adequate ventilation and are very quiet.

I'm very happy with this follow-up support after my initial problems contacting Antec. The manager even let me off the hook after UPS seemingly picked up my defective Phantom return, but never scanned it and lost it (I'm still trying to figure out exactly what happened)! I feel that Antec has really made sure I'm happy with my Phantom. Thanks to Antec, AntecRep, and the product development manager (I'm not sure if I should give out his name, so I'll let AntecRep reveal his name if he feels that it is ok).

My new phantom has arrived ( I took my old one in for warranty- see above). New serial is D011..... compared to the original one I had D012....

I've had to set my stuff back to stock. undervolted the CPU, and temps have risen by about 3 degrees across the board, compared to my Antec SamrtBlue350W. Lets hope this one lives longer

I got mine on 03/10/05, Serial #D0412550xxxx. I purchased it at Central Computer Systems in San Francisco. I'm running an Athlon64 3400+ on an ASUS K8V SE Deluxe, with 1.5 Gigs of RAM, three Seagate 7200.7 drives, a LiteOn combo drive, a Pioneer DVR108 DVDR and a floppy drive.
It's been fine so far. The only time it raised cause for concern was when I connected a fourth hard drive to retrive data. It got rather hot. It's been fine so far otherwise, even during extended HL2 gaming sessions. and during DVD burns (I'm about half way through a spindle of 100 as of this month).

Hi,

So a followup.. I installed the replacement Phantom around Feb 22nd and to date as of May 9th everything has been working fine, no problems. The warmer weather is starting now so it'll be interesting to see how it goes.

I've had my replacement Phantom installed for a few weeks now, and everything is working perfectly. Whatever problem some of the units from the first batches had seems to have been resolved.

But yeah, as technarch said, summer is approaching and we'll see how it turns out.

I hope so. I've been watching this thread and finally ordered one from buy.com the other day. It's installed now -- so far, so good. If I don't post here again, you can assume it's doing fine. FYI, serial # D050155.....

The Good news: Finally got rid of that PS fan noise. The Bad news: Now my low noise Zalman 7000Cu is starting to bug me.

I'm guessing my CPU is ~5 degrees warmer without the PS fan drawing off CPU heat; the board might be about 3 deg higher. Not bad, considering. My four low-CFM Papst 80mm's seem to be coping. (CPU stable at 46-50degC.) It might be a good idea for me to go back to a higher CFM fan behind the CPU, though, despite the nudge up the noise meter.

BTW, the new PS was a very tight squeeze for my Coolermaster case. I only managed it with a lot of wiggling. It wouldn't surprise me if the stickers on the sides got scraped off. Also just barely had enough 4-prong power connectors, but a couple will free up when I move to SATA 3Gbps drives.

Craig

Antec Phantom 350 Purchased 1/19/2005 from Buy.com
Serial Number to be entered (I am elsewhere now)

System:
A64 S754 1.8Ghz (2800+)
MSI k8n, nforce 3
Evercase 4252
Nvidia 6800GT
3 Sticks, 1gb+2*512mb.
PCI card: revolution sound card
Nexus 120mm intake at bottom of case
Nexus 120mm out in middle of case (above agp slots)
Hard drives:
WD Raptor 74gb
Samsung 160gb
Maxtor 300gb

System runs 24 hours a day, it's probably on about 70% of the time.

PROBLEM:

Needed more storage. Added new 250gb Hitachi.
* It runs in CHS Mode instead of LBA. Setting it to LBA manually does not help. Jumpers are set as standard, nothing funky there.
* System started rebooting. Problems booting into windows XP. BSOD's.

POSSIBILITY:
* Something faulty in hardware, causing shorts.
* PSU failing.

Last night, was copying contents from 160GB drive to the new 250GB. Then I started using the old 300GB, system powered off. Note: 300GB drive was sleeping/suspending.

My guess is waking up the drive uses up the max power draw and using this last drive pushed it over the top. Will do further tests today.

Other possibilities:

* bad drivers, other software problems. Eliminated this problem because I decided to reinstall Windows (been a bit, it's nice to get a fresh copy).
* Shorts in the motherboard, loose cables, etc. I removed all cables and motherboard from case and rescrewed everything in nicely. No help.

==
MSI forum had a nice excel calculator for my motherboard. (MSI Neo Platinum K8N)

http://forum.msi.com.tw/index.php?topic=80186.new

Ran the detailed spreadsheet and it lists usage:

17 Amps * 3.3v + 22.3 Amps * 5v + 20.8 Amps * 12v

Antec specifications for the Phantom 350 are

28 Amps *3.3v + 30A * 5v + 16A 12v1 + 18A 12v2.

Seems well above the specifications thought the 5 volt line is a bit close.

Workaround: Unplugged one of the hard drives (any of the data drives) and the system boots fine. This seems to indicate power problems. Will confirm by checking unpluging each in turn and trying to boot.

damn .... third phantom died just 2 days ago. Looks like it lasted just over a month. Same problem as last time. Woke up one day and found my computer shut down, with power light blinking. Turn off power supply and on again, no go. Then waited a few hours/minutes and turned it on again and lasted a few more hours before it shut down again.

It's a D04115XXXXXX. Time to RMA it again.

Edit: Forgot to mention I decided to put this in my older Pentium 3-1Ghz computer instead since it came back from RMA. The system was previously using a Q-Technology PSU that ran warm also without problems. I upgraded my 80mm Zalman fan to a new 120mm Nexus, and replaced my CPU thermal paste from AS2 to AS5 to help with cooling .. in addition to running in an open case 24/7 rather than closed case. So unlikely a computer problem.

Dang, I'am getting scared, my first Phantom lasted 3 weeks and now my replacement installed since March 1st just rebooted my comp for the first time in 3 months. I will see within the next few days it starts exhibiting the same symptoms as the first one I had.

Serial: D50155225409

I bought mine exactly one month ago, so far no weird crashes or anything. Its running fine and feels just barely warm to the touch, and the computer is Folding @ Home 24/7, has been for the whole time

I have one exhaust 120mm Nexus at about 650rpm, and as i have a pretty restricted front intake(on purpose) it pulls some air in thru the phantom and keeps it cool but still moving anough air to keep all toher components cool enough. Link to full system specs in sig, its a SPCR gallery thread.

I also noticed the phantom warms up very quickly when i remove the side-panel, in just a minute or so it feels clearly warm, guesstimated 40-45c, i can keep my fingers on it but it continues to feel warm. I know 50c feels burning on my fingers, and 60c i cant hold my finger on the surface. The Phantom dont get this warm even without the side off though, but it definately is more cool when the side is closed, it gets better airflow this way.

So as a conclusioon, im very happy with the Phantom so far

Heres the SN, is this from an early or late batch? I read all the posts in the thread but didnt find any advice on how to interpret it?

Serial:D04115343xxx
Pop: Mikromaja, www.mikromaja.fi

All,

last week I got my Phantom 350 from Amazon (because they don't charge shiping, etc.), european version.

Serial #: D05015567301

I have a
- Gigabyte Nvidia 4 board (GA-K8N Ultra 9)
- AMD Athlon 64 3000 processor (Venice core)
- 1 x 250BG Seagate,
- Asus Radeon EAX350 grafic (its a software development system, no games)
- 1GB main memory
thus not a big system yet

After setting up my new system I pushed the power button - nothing happens .

But, who am I to surrender to a PSU ? Not me !

Looking at the power connector pin layout and getting some wires I tried to start the PSU manually. With some success:

- Switch off main power (switch on the back)
- switch on again
- bridge pins 16 and 17 (PS-ON - ground)
- PSU started - but only for a half second
- tried again - another half second
- after 3-4 tries it started and worked
- remove the bridge between 16-17 - PSU switches off

Now tried to use the standard power switch (front panel connected to main board):
- sometimes it works, most often not
- if it does not start with the power switch then I had to switch off main power before I can use the trick with the brige 16-17 again. Seems that the 5V standby power holds up some circuits and don't reset. To me it seems (guessing here only) that one of the many protection circuits does not work correctly during the switch on phase.

At least I managed it to install the base system (using th switch-on tricks mentioned above). During the 1 hour installation the PSU was about 42-47 degrees, thus not really hot (case is a Lian Li V1000, case was open on one side).

Guess I will call Antec's tech support tomorrow morning, maybe need to return the whole stuff to Amazon to get a refund (they don't have it on stock anymore).

Any other good fanless PSU that works just out of the box?

Regards,
Werner

If I ever get the balls to use a fanless PSU, I'd use the Silverstone ST30NF

I don't know .. but i just ordered a Phantom 500 (the new fan/fanless hybrid). Hope it not a big mistake and doesn't have the same problems as the Phantom 350 ...