Alot of Antec PSU's are being shipped with cheap Fuhjyyu capacitors. I just recapped my 2 year old SL350, which was full of these, and most all were swollen and leaking. A total recap with quality caps is fairly cheap (around $10 or less):
Some quality caps to use to recap:
Chemicon: LXZ, LXY, LXJ, KY, KZE
Rubycon: ZL, YXG, YXF, YXH
Nichicon: PL, PM, PW, HE
Panasonic: FC, FM, FK
Sanyo: WX, WG
Whats a bad cap?
Read here:
http://www.badcaps.net/forum/index.php
Power Supply Section:
http://www.badcaps.n...isplay.php?f=32
Picture of a failing Fuhjyyu cap inside an Antec. Mine looked almost identical when i cracked open the housing:
http://www.jonnyguru...ec/IMG_1099.jpg
The other 90% of your Antec psu are usually good quality, but should be recapped along with the best quality fans you can buy after 1 year, especially if you plan to OC or have alot of stress/load from mulitple drives along with OC'ing. This will void your Antec warranty, but your warranty wont cover the other parts it takes out by ignoring it and after a recap and fan replacments it should outlive the warranty many times over.
If you have any psu/motherboard, that is over a year old you may want to check your caps for bulging (domed) tops and/or leaking (brown substance on the main top or under the caps) before they take down the hardware. Strange smells from your case is a sign of failing caps as well.
Recapping a motherboard is alot more expensive because they are more caps. Its cheaper to just buy an Asus or newer Abit board which come with quality caps already.
Watt ratings can be misleading on some PSU's as well. If its rated at 500 watts, but the 2 large input side caps have a UF rating smaller than at 680 its most likley a cheap and overratted value.
This post has been edited by Randy Rhoads: 29 September 2006 - 12:51 AM