Antec customer treachery

[Lars A]

Never buy Antec.

Their products are cleverly engineered to last the 3 year warranty period out, then they go defective. Normally they design capacitors with certain materials that manages heat for some time (very precisely engineered). Good capacitors are designed for 105 degrees Celsius, while they use 85 degree types. Last for 3 years + some months.

Now if Antec had some moral, they would assist service techs with information on this, and provide schematics for unit that is out of warranty.

They don’t. They expect you to just buy another PSU and another "3 year subscription period".

Before you buy a PSU, ask the companies for "after warranty support".

And do like me now: NEVER PURCHASE ANTEC UNTIL THE OFFICIALLY MAKE A STATEMENT THAT THEY CHANGE COMPANY POLICY ON OUT OF WARRANTY SERVICE.

Please spread this to all forums you know of. This is a consumer concern.
The issue is well known, many companies do this. I have friends in the vacuum cleaner industry that can testify they engineer power switches to last a number of pressings. It is easy, they put the switch in a machine, then file off plastic material so it handles a certain amount of mechanical switchings, before failure. Like 2 years....

Antec is now caught, and here is their final answer to me, and after this email, they just erased the trouble ticket:


A Comment Has Been Added To Your Trouble Ticket, ID: 137046

Unfortunately there is not much we can do for you since the power supply is out of warranty. Our warranty states that any modification of the power supply or breaking the warranty seal will void the warranty. Helping you fix the power supply will go against our warranty. The information(schematic) of our power supplies are for company use only.


I tried to comment on this message, as it is disgusting, but it was not possible. "Ticket number do not exist".

Myself, I am a service technician in the music electronics industry since 25 years. I have never seen such bad policy from a "well reputated" company.

[gtirr]

I just sold a computer I built over 6 yrs. ago in an Antec case with an Antec
350W power supply. It has worked flawlessly over this time with no problems whatsoever.
I will be building a new replacement computer tomorrow when my new case is delivered by UPS. Today a new Antec 360W power supply was delivered.
Since I had nothing but great service from Antec I didn't even think twice when I went shopping for a power supply.
And Antec's customer service is also as great as their products!
Thank you Antec!!!!!
gtirr

[yamawho]

I hate Antec as well.

Their products seem to last forever so I never get the chance to upgrade

[Lars A]

So you better wait untill you get problems with it.
I was having my problem on an out of warranty product, and they did not help me - nor provided me with schematics.

That is not a good company policy, IMHO.

If I had the service responibility of that company, I would know what may have gone wrong with the PSU, AND if I hear the customer do can fix things himself, I would provide hiomn with board level help. Like "-Swap capacitors C11, C14 and C18... they are known to be bad as they are marked 85 degrees operation temparuter, they should be replaced with 105 degree caps."

Thats how I would solve it and have a grateful customer, instead of a badrap on ABX.

Probaly the loss in me fixing my computer, which was 50% that I would buy a new Antec if I failed, they probaly lost tens of deals, with me 100% buying another brand. Wheres the IQ in that?

I am not lying or anything, just reporting what happened, and using my consumer power to hopefully make them better in this area. Some CEO there will maybe see it sooner or later, and perhaps he will contact me and ask who the hell at his compay was telling me that back then!

Its hard when the products are SOOO good that they forget to employ technical service personell!

[Joe Public]

But how many Antecs have failed on you and what model are they?

I know some models used crap capacitors and went belly up, but in later years they've used quality OEMs like Seasonic for their PSUs. Besides, 85C caps aren't bad if they're from a reputable manfacturer (preferably Japanese like Nichicon or Hitachi). If they're el-cheapo Taiwanese caps that's a dollar a bucketload, well... 105C caps are better, true, but even PSUs with lesser caps can last long. I have PSUs with mediocre internals that still work after 5-6 years continous use.

[zapionics<alt>]

Well I sympathise with you to some extent, but its not just Antec who may be doing this. I think its pretty well standard practice across a whole range of products. Apart from the cost, there's also the impact to the environment.

But having said that, I have found Antec products to be generally pretty good, although people shouldnt just rely on my advice but do their own research at the time they buy.

[Lars A]

Antec case 1080AMG-EC 430W

2 of them. One after the other. Also my son bought the same after I builded the first computer. I bought a new one, so I have the same in that computer, it was after I bougt it, I wanted to fix them for two other computers, I ran into trouble and got p-o at Antec.

So... no more Antec... There are other brands today.

The fact that manufacturers do crap that is not servicable today is political.
Environmentally wrong, and crazy when you think of it. We should buy stuff that are designed to last the model warranty period, that is set high - 3 to 5 years, then they SHOULD brake, and no soul on earth should be able to fix them. Because, the profitable cycle must go on in the neoliberal consumer hysteria. Reason is something that was lost in the process.

Think about the world economics today. Its a down period. because of what?
Well the war isnt going so well. So the stocks of weapons are piling up.
Guess what? That infects the markets, especially real estates, energy and so on. So what are they doing now? Invest in space!!!
Did you know that Colin Powell found that targets was high tech bombed in Iraq up to 13 times on the same target. He checked the target logs in the AVACs. And nobody could tell why. Probably someone at Raytheon could help him with that information...
Well... thanks to over a million victims only in Iraq, we have super fast graphics engines that we can play spacewar with! Thank God!

Complete crazyness.

[DBoone]

My first Antec case had a problem with the wiring to the front panel. Called Antec, received great customer service, they immediately shipped out a replacement. My front USB ports broke off, called Antec, they immediately shipped out a replacement kit.

Second Antec case is having no issues at all. I would continue to recommend them.

[polonyc2]

I havn't heard anything really terrible about Antec cases...but I could understand the frustration if you went through some issues with them...too often people are quick to discount issues if it did not happen to them personally

now Antec PSU's, now that's another story...I've heard some horror stories about some of their previous generation PSU's

[TQ]

Originally Posted by Lars A

A Comment Has Been Added To Your Trouble Ticket, ID: 137046

Unfortunately there is not much we can do for you since the power supply is out of warranty. Our warranty states that any modification of the power supply or breaking the warranty seal will void the warranty. Helping you fix the power supply will go against our warranty. The information(schematic) of our power supplies are for company use only.

Did you attempt to modify the power supply?

[Drufuss]

I interpret his first post that the 3 year warranty is over, the PSU failed, and he wanted to fix it himself, because it is no longer under warranty.

And antec told him that telling him how to fix the psu for himself is against their warranty policy. For a psu the already is out of warranty?

Global comment:
When was the last time you bought something you may be able to repair for yourself?
When was the last time you bought something that was designed to even be repaired?
How do you think todays economy-system can achieve that "endless growth" it is based upon if everything could be repaired?

I just rememberes a kinda similiar case, where apple airport extreme w-lan devices died after several months out of warranty. You only had to exchange a fuse and a capacitor to repair it, but you had to destroy the casing to do so. And it wouldn't have failed if apple would have used better capacitors in the first place. Several hundred cases worldwide are documented and a group of users in france was trying to sue them (hidden faults). Don't know how it is/was going.

Greetings

Dru

[CommandrX]

Humm, my Antec TrueControl 550 that I bought back in 2003 is still hummin along. It runs 24/7/365 give or take a few days for PM's and/or upgrades to the PC.

[Gorganzola]

Company builds product, product lasts past the warranty period, companies obligation ends. By extending support beyond that point, they extend obligation. In addition, if someone takes that information and injures themselves, or burns down their home by doing it incorrectly, they could be held liable. Not everyone has the ability to do that kind of work properly. If they are going to pay someone to do the work they might as well buy a new power supply at the price point for most power supplies. It just doesn't make sense to provide that level of support. Beyond that, we are living in a disposable society. Gone is the day when you repair the problem, you just replace it.