Greetings everybody,

It's about time to raise a hand after a long long time since you last heard of me. I won't waste your time explaining what took me so long to even get started with building my new computer, so I'll skip to my troubles and why am I being suspicious about Antec PSU.

I bought my Neo HE 430W new last year in June, from a web retailer that sells on German Amazon. It's an A4 revision, S/N: S06040252352, seal unbroken. I knew the risk I would be taking, even though the bad units should have dissapeared from the European market by then, but since so many from old problematic batches were still being sold new, I was really weary about mine. The "A4" sticker was promising, so I didn't test it until I got all the components.

- Intel SC5250E case
- Zalman CNPS7700
- Athlon 939 X2 3800+ (ADA3800BVBOX, E4)
- MSI K8T Neo2-FIR S939
- 2x 512MB Corsair XMS TwinX 3200C2
- Matrox Millenium G550 AGP 4x graphic card
- Two optical drives
- Floppy frive
- Antec Neo HE 430W

There's more, but this is what I plugged in initially, even no hard drives (two Seagate SCSI drives), just see if the system starts up and to load the latest BIOS, required for motherboard to recognize dual core CPU. All I got was all three case fans and CPU fan blowing - no video signal, no beeps. I checked the video cables and replaced graphic card, with no avail.

I checked the speaker connection, which is really just a buzzer, but has a speaker 4 way connector with just #1,4 pins. I noticed this motherboard has a provision for connecting either speaker or buzzer, so a split the connector apart with snippers and plugged it on separate "buzzer" pins. Now here it becomes weird. I turned the PC on, the fans started and stopped after two seconds. Put back the speaker connector where it was, the whole thing repeated. I cleared CMOS and then the fans would blow again without stopping. It's been like that ever since, I tried everything from swapping memory sticks, using both or just one of them, nothing changed.

This motherboard has an extra connector where you can plug in a cable, connected with optional back panel slot bracket with four two colour LEDs for diagnostics. Based on red or green pattern of these LEDs, one is supposed to determine the source of trouble using the table from User Manual. This is what the LEDs are telling me when they stop flickering (glowing steadily), and initialization stops:

"Boot Attempt; This will set low stack and boot via INT 19h."

CPU should be fine (if I can trust these LEDs, they would light in different pattern if CPU was faulty). I haven't tried a different PSU yet, but based on what I've read in this Neo HE User's Poll, my troubles seems identical to those that some of you experienced. Messed-up BIOS (bought this motherboard secondhand) could be the other culprit, if previous owner made an incomplete flash procedure, but for now, I would just like to confirm or rule out that my Neo HE is causing all this.

If this post is in a wrong section, I do apologize, but the symptoms really are suggesting that PSU is the strongest contender for being a source of problems. I will get another PSU in a day or two and report my findings. In the meantime, should anyone have a suggestion or two, please do come forward.

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.

Forget NeoHE. This issue has convinced me to avoid Antec PSUs, period. (I love their cases, though.)

I recently acquired a rev A3.1 that came with my P150. With all the problems, I was very hesitant to even test the PSU. However holding my breath I plugged it in and am one of the fortunate ones. I had no problems powering up an overclocked Opty 170 on a DFI LanpartyUT NF4-D mb (total AC draw around 230W). Unfotunately once I fired up some 3D apps, the system started up an orchestra of coil whine (this is the loudest and with most simultaneous varying pitches I've heard). A Tagan 380U and S12-430 had no whine in the same system. To be fair the system was stable and the Tagan also caused whining when paired with another system. I switched the NEO into an MSI S754 NF3 board and there it has had no whining or other problems so far (suspend, restart, power up/down all ok) so I voted working.

One interesting comparison with the S12-430 in the OC Opty rig, both the HE and the Tagan was able to keep it stable at 2.8GHZ stock vcore, however the S12 needed the vcore bumped up 0.5v to maintain stability, guess either the S12 rail is slightly low or both the Tagan and HE are slightly high.

Hey, I posted on this thread before, but I stopped after I continued to have problems after swapping the NeoHE 430w for a Smartpower 350w. I assumed that the PSU was not the problem (and it was one of the newer A4 versions).

I continued to have great problems with the Asus P5N E-SLI motherboard. After looking on Asus forums and others I found many people were having problems with this board on it's own, separate from the NeoHE problems.

I tried every thing that I could think of or was suggested to me but nothing could make it stable. So tomorrow I'm RMA'ing the board back to NewEgg for a replacement.

The reason I'm posting on this thread again is that I ran into an interesting problem involving the NeoHE.

I had re-installed windows the other day in hopes of solving my instability problems. It worked fine and had no problems, but then a few hours later the pc just shut down out of the blue. I got it back up and kept working with it. I installed an app and had to restart to finish installation. When I shut it down I realized that I had left a cd in the DVD drive, so I opened the DVD drive and took the cd out, but the computer shut down with the drive still open.

When I tried to restart the computer it would not start. The lights came on and the fans started to go. Then the DVD tray started to close and moved about 1" and then the pc shut down. I tried again and the same thing happened. So I shut the DVD tray with my hand and pressed the power button and it started right up.

Tonight when I got home I tried a test and found that the reason it would not start with the DVD tray open was because I had my Maxtor USB drive plugged into the two front USB ports (it used two ports for power, but only one of them for data). I only had two cables plugged into the PSU. One for the SATA drive and the other for the DVD and the rear fan.

I found that if I plugged a third modular connection in and plugged the DVD into that and the fan into the other then it would boot with the DVD tray open and the USB drive plugged in.

I believe that I had the SATA drive power cable plugged into the #2 slot. The DVD/fan was plugged into the #5 slot. When I hooked up the third I plugged it into the #3 slot.

Does this seem odd that it would not have enough power with the DVD and single fan plugged into the same cable, and what would that have to do with USB power that is coming from the motherboard and powered from either the main board connector or the Aux12v?

Bought a new P150 + Neo HE430 at Provantage last week (2/6/07). Got my case+PSU shipped real fast.

PSU S/N: 05110070024

First tried with my (very old) Celeron300 MB, didn't work. Thought that might be because that board might require an older ATX spec (e.g. the -5V lines or something)

Bought a new MB: ECS RC410L/800-MGF with Pentium D 805 chip.

Still nothing. Fans come on just fine, but no video or POST.

I noticed that the 12V line was at 11.8V and the 5V line at 4.8V. Not sure if that's too low?

What's my best recourse? RMA to Antec directly? Try to deal with Provantage?

I can't believe that in Feb 07 there's _still_ issues with this PSU...

-Leto

What I find hard to believe is that in Feb 07 someone is selling a 'new' HE430 that was made in November 2005...

I couldn't either but ... Yes Believe It!! (Please read my previous post).

Your voltages are lower than mine ... I have 2 of those Neo430s and the voltages on both units are slightly low as well. Sorry, I can't remember the exact voltage taken with a DVM.

This is interesting though. Your Neo430 is very close to the first one I got that works ok (S0512...). I took it out of my brand new P150 case and found that it had a broken warranty sticker.

Is the warranty sticker on yours intact? ... You can't see it until you lower the P/S in its case since the sticker is on the top left corner of the unit.

Meanwhile, I bought a Seasonic M12. Its more expensive but man oh man what a classy unit ... high quality and of course its dead quiet and works flawlessly. (Just for interest: 12.23V / 5.04V / 3.4V with DVM)

Regarding my 2nd Antec NeoHE430, I RMA'd it back to Antec last week and requested that they apply the so-called "Asus Fix". I'll keep you folks posted on the outcome.

Leo

A long time ago... a very long time ago, Antec should have done the right thing, bitten the bullet and issued a re-call. Just like they do for automobiles etc. etc.

There's no excuse that this same scenario should be played out time and time again on unsuspecting customers.

Retailers can't be to blame because they may not know about the problem. But Antec sure knows about it and sure hasn't handled it properly. Even my Rev. 4 (April 2006) isn't behaving as it should.

Bought a P150 last month from Fry's, just hooked it up this weekend - and wouldn't you know it - the 430w Neo HE is defective. I'm using an ECS P965T motherboard, and it would boot up for 2 or 3 seconds and then immediately turn off. I swapped out the Antec PSU with a spare 430W ThermalTake and it booted just fine.

I already submitted a ticket to Antec, but I noticed the website said that if it's been less than 60 days you have to return it to the dealer. I already have the motherboard and all the components installed so I really don't want to have to return the entire case, will Antec allow me to just RMA the PSU?

Serial #: S06040259XXX
Purchased from Fry's/Outpost on 1/31/07
Has the "A4" sticker

Thanks.

Just to check, my friend had the same problem with his pc (shutting off after 3 seconds) and found the problem was he didn't hook up the Aux 12v cable to the mother board.

That was my first thought, mainly b/c the ECS motherboard has an 8-pin 12V connector (so you can hook up 2 x 12v I guess). But after I found instructions on where to hook up the 4-pin 12V on the ECS mobo and it still wouldn't work, I did a few Google searches and started running into threads about problems win the Antec PSU. I swapped out the PSU with a ThermalTake and it immediately booted up just fine.

I've already got an RMA # from Antec, so I'll hopefully get it in the mail tomorrow. I've purchased a number of Antec cases/PSU's over the years and this is the first problem I've had, so as long as they send me back a working 430W Neo, I'll be happy.

Has anyone been able to get Antec to pay for return shipping considering this is a known issue that they have neglected to correct?

Hi,

I bought the Antec P150 from Frys on 1/31/07. I took the Neo HE PS from P150 to the new Antec Fusion case for the HTPC that I am building now.

I have MSI K8NGM2-FID Motherboard, AMD 3800+, 2GB PNY RAM, Nvidia Dual Tuner Card, Samsung T400. I installed windows MCE 2005 on the machine. All the time I was doing a reboot and never had problem.

Once all the installation of software was done, I did a shutdown and tried to start again after it did a shutdown immediately. The computer never came up. I had to take the power cable out and plug it back after 5-10 sec and then the machine came up. Reboots are not a problem but shutdown and immediate start doesnt work. It started giving me problem after the full shutdown also(not coming up unless I unhook the power cable).

I got the A4 rev with S No S06040260019 with the seal intact.

I am RMAing the PS now back to Antec. Do you think they will correct this PS and send me the good one. I think I just got sucked into Antec reputation before doing my research on this power supply.

Thanks

My friend's machine was setup with a NeoHE 500W with a serial of S0609, A4 rev, his is working just fine with not a single problem so far. I've also got a S0609 with the 550W version, but this hasn't been fully tested. I've verified it can power a computer with only mobo connector in just fine. (haven't done the psu jumper test yet)

There was a small concern on friend's machine where the system wasn't powering up immediately, but this seemed to be fixed when the mobo bios was fully updated. This was a msi p965 board.

I just got new ram for system and since installing it I have had no problems at all.

So put me down for 'NeoHE works with no problems'.

P.S. I bought it about 1.5 month ago from Antec B-stock site.

I bought an Antec NeoHe 430w a few weeks ago. Seemed to work fine until installing a 7900 GS graphic card.

Now, 90% of the time the system loads up perfectly with great performance.

10% of the time, I boot and get weird POST beeps.

Have tried troubleshooting everything and have found nothing. Have not replaced the PSU in troubleshooting yet though cuz I'd just have to buy another one.

Can't imagine it is the graphics card as it works PERFECTLY when the system loads.

Does this sound to be consistent with the reported NeoHe problems?

Hello. After reading whole alot about HighEfficiency psu coldbooting problems. I came across this forum and I have to say that it helped me ALOT.

My specs are

Antec p150 with NeoHe430 #S06090350068 (it has A4 marking and W)
Intel e4300 cpu with boxed fan
Gigabyte ds3 rev 3.3
Kingston kvr667d2n5k2/2G ram (two pieces set 2G total)
MSI GeForce NX8800 GTS HD 320mb
Two old maxtor harddrives (40gig and 80gig both are ide/PATA)
Samsung DVD+-whatever (SATA)

So after putting everything together I was hit hard. It wouldn't fire up. My fans tried to fire up but then quit after a second or so. I got afraid that I had destoyed my new machine so I took everything out(yes motherboard too) and even installed the cpu again. Depending from my current test setup inside the case, sometimes I got the fans to try to start and quit and start and quit in a loop. Sometimes just once. In the end nothing helped.

Then after reading that the 12v rails need to even out the load and have min load more than something or some bs like that(WTG antec). I started to hook up more load for the psu to realize it was needed. First success came after I dig up really old S3 Trio videocard and put it in (I removed the geforce 8800 ofcourse. S3 is way more superior) after that I got it to boot without harddrives (I tried one and two). Just staring at bios screen was fun for a while. I tried to run ubuntu live cd too but it gave me some pci error (error msg just was too fast to read) and it gave me blank screen.

Finally after reading more about what slots to put my detachable cables in the psu I got progress again. I put back my gts8800 and my trusty old S3 went to to closet where it belongs. I hook the PCI-E powercable to the slot next to the nondetachable motherboardcables. Then I put my SATA dvd power cable to the other end of the rail(you know furthest from the mb cables) and finally I put my harddrives and casefan molex to the middle one. It didn't boot :/. So I hit a third(1gb seagate. hands up!) harddrive and put it on the same hd hd fan molex cable and IT WORKED.

So in the end I have geforce first in the rail sata dvd last in the rail and three harddrives & tricoolfan on the middle. I have to say big thank you for this forum and this thread and the users in here.

Now I only need to figure out how to get rid of the extra harddrive and be able to boot still) Any tips? I read something about some resistor thing connected to the molex connection but I'm not that good with electronics but it sounds doable. I might go buy some case fans if they would help to bring some load.

PS. it only took me a day to get here.

Hi Pempu, you are lucky you found this thread and that it only took you one day to get this far!
Honestly though, with a Sep '06 NeoHE 430 PSU, *according to Antec* you should have no problems whatsoever with your system booting.
They said only Asus MB's were giving problems, and that as of Jan '06 they fixed that problem. Yeah right!!!

I spoke with them several times on the phone and they told me there was no minimum voltage requirement on the rails! Give me a break!

If you don't want to mess with a resistor, then a case fan should do the trick. You could remove the extra HD and use the fan instead.

Of course this is all totally absurd, when you think about it.

No, this one isn't the power supply. The issues with the Neo HE cause the system to shut down entirely. You don't have that problem: Your motherboard is still powered if it can give you POST beeps. This sounds like an issue with PCIe timings or the graphics card itself. I don't buy the excuse that it's not the graphics card just because it works flawlessly when it works. In a way, your graphics card is similar to the Neo HE: When it works it works flawlessly, but that doesn't mean it's not flawed. It just means that the issue is isolated to booting issues — not performance issues. Your graphics card is the same.

Back in October and November of 2006 I reported my experience with a couple of Antec NeoHE 430 power supplies. The first one, S/N S06050273727 (A4), would not work at all. The usual symptom of pulsing every couple of seconds. The RMA replacement, S/N S06080319082 (A4), worked better, although it still was a bit quirky. The first attempt to start from a cold power-on always gave the pulsing, but only for three pulses. The second attempt always worked. The power supply never failed in any other way; no shut downs, no noises, etc.

Today, I shut down the system to do a little work on it, and the PSU would not start up at all. Back to the continuing pulses every couple of seconds, indefinitely. Nothing I tried brought the system back to life.

I replaced the NeoHE 430 with a Smart Power 350 I had purchased when the first NeoHE failed. The system started right up without a glitch.

I have had it with the NeoHE 430. I don't plan to RMA it again. I will just keep it on the shelf to remind me to never buy Antec again.

Antec P180 case
Antec NeoHE 430 PSU
Intel DG965WH Mobo
Intel Core 2 Duo 6600
4 x 1 GB Kingston 667 DDR2
3 x Seagate 7200.10 320 SATA in RAID 5
2 x Lite-On DVDRW
nVidia 7600 GT (XFX)

I bought an Antec NeoHE 550 last December seal unbroken, I don't have the serial number because I had it replaced asap with a Silverstone ST50EF-Plus. I really wanted the Antec because it was cheap and modular (sleeved too), unfortunately it didn't work.

Nothing happens after switching the pc on, no lights, the fans didn't show the slightest hint of moving. I tried it on two different systems and got the same result, nothing.

I tried "balancing" the load the best I could, but I don't understand how I was supposed to really, I shouldn't really use the better part of my day balancing loads, it should just work.

I tried using different slots, and different device configuration, adding some, removing others but it was just frustrating.

systems I tried the antec on:

intel 6400
gigabyte ds3
2x corsair ddr2-800 c5 1gb
2x 160gb sata hdd (seagate and maxtor)
250gb sata hdd (western digital)
leadtek 7600gt
3x 120mm led case fans
1x silverstone fm122
2x 90mm case fans

athlon 64 3500+
msi k9n neo
2x kingmax ddr2-667 1gb
80gb sata hdd (seagate)
xfx 7600gt
2x 90mm case fans
1x 120mm delta case fan

I'm done with Antec - every case I've owned since '99 has been an Antec case, but never again. They received my RMA'ed PSU 2 weeks ago and my ticket has yet to be updated. Since the damn thing is closed I had to open an new ticket just to get an update - still nothing of course. Sad to see a good company go down the tubes like this.

Is Antec a publicly traded company? Would be interesting to see the financials, all the RMAs can't be good for the bottom line.

Hey guys, I had a similiar problem to most and figured I should post as well.

About 1.5 years ago I assembled a rig for myself. My PSU was an Antec NeoPower 480W and my motherboard was an ASUS A8N-Sli Premium. Everything worked until January when the computer just died. After running tests, I RMA'ed both the PSU and motherboard.

Antec sent me a new NeoHE 500W (serial number indicates it was manufactured in September of 2006). ASUS sent me another A8N-SLi Premium. After replacing the parts, my computer would not run properly.

I took my computer again to a friend's for tests. Everything works, just not with each other. The PSU and motherboard are incompatible. My friend's NeoPower worked fine with my setup and my power supply worked fine with his A-Bit board.

My revision on the PSU indicates it is revision 4, and should work with ASUS boards but does not. I'm not sure why this incompatibility exists, but it's there. Right now I'm running of a Dynex 500W (Best Buy brand) until my Enermax 500W Liberty arrives (I like my modular PSUs).

If anything, I've learned to not mix Antec and ASUS. On the upside at least I received decent service and prompt replacements from both companies.

If you're curious about my other parts:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ (2x1152kb cache, not the 2x512kb one availble now)
OCZ PC-3200 DDR 2x1024MB EL Platinum RAM (2-3-2-5)
BFG Geforce 7800 GT OC 256MB PCI-E
Soundblaster Live! (just took this from my previous computer)
Western Digital Cavier SATAII 200MB
all in a P180 case

I have a Neo HE 500 and have had for a fairly long time. It must be more than a year now. I can't say that I've had a single problem with mine. The closest I've got to a problem is leaving a modular cable at home so I couldn't power my floppy drive at uni (trying to instal Windows on SATA drives).

My specs:
Conroe E6600
Radeon x1800
ASrock Motherboard - ConRoeXFire-eSATA2
2x 250Gb SATA drives (I upgraded from one drive recently)

I'm pretty sure that I bought it from overclockers.co.uk, though I can't remember the exact date. It wasn't long at all after Conroe came out, perhaps a few weeks at most.

I hope this is useful, sorry if I've missed anything out

Another addition to first posters on this thread!

I've had NeoHE 430 for ~2 weeks now and hadn't had any problems (i don't recall any, atleast). Is there a way to test if mine is behaving correctly?

System:
-NeoHE 430 - S/N: S060903*****
-Asus A7V333-X
-AMD Athlon 2600+ Barton OC'd a little.
-Radeon X700 AGP
-2 old IBM HD's (14Gb & 10Gb)
-Western Digital 160Gb SE 8Mb cache
-Technisat DVB-T Tuner card
-Linksys WMP54G PCI WLAN card
-Terratec DMX 1024 soundcard

PSU is quiet enough for my system atm. Next step is to replace stock HSF with Zalman 7000B Al-Cu, add a nexus 120mm case fan and build suspension for HD's (and dump the 2 old IBM's).

Thanks for a great resouce on making a quieter PC!

Yes there is a way.
Disconnect most or all of your peripherals (cards, hd's etc.) and then see if your system will boot up.

But if everything is working for you now, you probably shouldn't mess with a good thing.

I bought a Neo HE 550 in an earlier Fry's.com deal for $49. Thanks for everyone who posted in this thread and these messages did help me a lot in preparing me for the bad news .

I had exactly the same experience as Bgtees and Pempu. The fans powered up, turned for a second and then shut down. After retrying for 20 times, I thoroughly checked the board for short and wiring problems but there's nothing to be found. I then went to Fry's to get a retail Neo HE 550 and swapped it in. Guess what, this one worked immediately despite the load was exactly the same! I haven't connected my video card and installed OS yet. Hopefully it will keep working after everything's installed.

I saw from the poll result that half of the posters had their Neo HE failed. For a PSU priced at $119 (current Fry's B&M pricing for 550), Antec's quality control for PSU really needs to catch up.

I have a couple of Antec P150 cases with Neo 430 power supplies. One works without problem, the other one does not. Based on the serial number the problematic one appears to be from the Nov 2005 time frame. Both were bought only a few weeks apart.

After much trial and error I discovered the following:

• With everything plugged in and ready to go, the system will NOT POST. The fans turn on but that's it, no beeps, no video, nuttin.
• The system WILL POST if there is NO hard drive attached to the power supply (does not matter if it is SATA or PATA, or if there is more than one, or which power cable slot its plugged in to).
• The system WILL POST with a hard drive attached if there are NO PS/2 devices attached (ie keyboard and/or mouse).

In other words, the system will POST if you disconnect the hard drive OR if you disconnect the keyboard and mouse.

A USB mouse is not a problem, but a PS/2 one is. I don't have a USB keyboard (yet) but suspect that a USB keyboard will work without problem.

What I'm doing in the interim is booting with the keyboard unplugged and then plugging it in as soon as I hear the BIOS beep. I normally have to reboot to get the system to recognize the keyboard, but rebooting is not a problem, as long as you don't cycle the power. There's only a problem when you first turn on the power. I leave my system on all the time so this is only a minor inconvenience until I get a USB keyboard.