Hi Everyone, I'm new to this forum and so far I've found it an incredible resource ... Hopefully I can contribute something as well.
Its incredible to believe that this has been an issue since what? 2005? Since I didn't do my usual research I've now got 2 of these units (NeoHE430) so ... well, let me explain.
Back in April/2006, I bought an Antec P150 case which includes the NeoHE430. This was destined to replace the older noisy main system that my wife uses all the time ... I just didn't get around to it
Ignorance is bliss ... I didn't know there was a problem!
So, a few days ago (Jan 27/ 2007) I bought a 2nd NeoHE430 in a retail box. (S0608... Rev. A4) to power up my own personal new quiet system: Asus P5B Deluxe.
The system is lightly loaded: E6400cpu/2Gb Ram/EN7600GT PCIe/320GB HDD/CD-Rom/Floppy. No Extra Fans of any kind.
The NeoHE430 booted without any problem so I installed the OS and some of my applications. Then I enabled "Standby" mode (S3) and when I tried to recover from Standby, the system just sat there trying to start ... with the cpu fan going up/down ... up/down. I had to shut the system off by holding the Pwr Sw > 4 sec. and then restarting. At that point the re-start was erratic but after a few tries it went ok and worked ok afterwards as long as I didn't go into Standby mode again.
I flashed the latest BIOS using Asus Update (Its a Windows Update Utiliity). After the BIOS was successfully updated it required a system re-boot. It didn't re-boot ... it just sat there in a continuous loop with the cpu fan going up/down and I had to resort to the main Power Switch on the NeoHe430 to shut the system down. The next boot-up was also erratic and I had to shut down again and then the 3rd try worked. I went into BIOS and loaded "Setup Defaults" and on the reboot again the system went screwy. After a few more re-boots and doing nothing out of the ordinary except normal start-up / shut down and running the computer, everything went fine.
Then I checked out the FAQs on the Antec website and found out about this incompatibility issue which was all over the Internet.
NOW FOR THE REAL TWIST -
I took my previously purchased new Antec P150 case and removed the NeoHE430 that was in it. It had an older S/N of course: S0512... - Rev. A2. Guess what? The warranty sticker on the new power supply was broken ... like, really ripped! (??? How ...What could have done that??)
And heres the real twist ... It powers my Asus P5B flawlessly ... no matter what I throw at it.
BTW - I had previous to this tried an older Asus SP450 and there were no issues whatsoever with it either.
I think this is a really great power supply when its been moded but you can't really tell if its been done or done right until you try it out.
Antec really dropped the ball on this imcompatibility problem. It should have been handled in an up-front way instead of denying knowledge of ripped warranty stickers and blaming that on power supplies that have been dropped or twisted ... thats silly.
I put an Avery label over the ripped sticker and tried to twist the P/S to make it rip ... I even installed it in a case with a shim under one side and tightened it down. The Avery label didn't rip! (Avery 08920)
The ripped warranty stickers work in Antec's favor ... they deny opening up the unit and they can always argue tampering if anything goes wrong and limit any liability.
So here it is February, 2007 and you can go out and buy a brand new Antec NeoHE430 and still have issues with your new motherboard ... I can verify an issue with the Asus P5B in particular.
In my humble opinion ... I would avoid the Antec NeoHE power supplies ... its not worth the hassle and the extra costs involved in RMAing for a "repair or replacement" and then hoping it did the trick.