TruePower 550 fans dead...

[TekDemon]

Apparently my Antec TruePower 550's fan rail decided to go kaput. Fans hooked up to the "fan only" power connector no longer work (but will work on other connectors), but more importantly the stupid PSU's own internal fans (both of them) appear to be on this same power rail.

I noticed that something was wrong when I started smelling weird blow-dryer like smells by my PC, but I *REALLY* noticed when the top of my PC was burning hot. After I realized that the fans were off I quickly shut the PC down, and tried to get the PSU out to see what was wrong, and it was literally burning hot!

For now I've rigged (taped) an 80mm fan onto the back of the PSU so I can keep using my PC since I have no spare PSUs, and it seems to be doing an OK job of keeping it from overheating (I also underclocked my CPU and disconnected most of my stuff so my system isn't very power hungry right now).

Now, for the actual problem. The PSU is technically under warranty still, except I have no f'ing clue where I put my receipt and Antec needs the receipt for the RMA. So...if you happen to own a TruePower 550 and still know where your receipt is and could send me a scan I'd really appreciate it, since spending another $110 to buy my PSU again seems like a crappy idea.

I bought it from buy.com and tried to find my order in the order history. I'm pretty sure that I bought it with my school e-mail address but buy.com shows a blank order history for that account, and I don't know why =( There's a chance that I might have made a new account to use one of those new customer coupons to buy it though, and if that's the case there's no chance in hell I'm going to remember what the e-mail address was since I can never remember the free e-mail accounts I've made. *sigh*

Anyways, if anybody can help that would be great! Please?

P.S. I know using someone else's receipt is shady but technically I have a warranty on this. I'm also 10000% sure that it's within the 3 year warranty period since I haven't even had the PC it was put into as an upgrade for 3 years. I can't believe the fans blew out either, my PC could have caught on fire if I hadn't noticed the smell. Grrr

Alternately, if someone has had this exact thing happen to their Antec Truepower before and there's some idiotically easy fix (i.e. opening up the PSU and reconnecting a wire) please let me know. I just don't want to remove the warranty sticker only to find out there's a burned out cap or something.

 

[montag451]

If you contact them, they will have a record of your purchase - FOR DEFINITE.
Whether they admit it is another matter.

You will have to tell them the full address, credit card no. for that purchase, date, name, what else was on the order. If you paid by credit card, then look up your old statements. - That will give you a date, and if they still don't want to RMA, take a small claims action out against them.

 

[Appledrop]

Originally posted by: montag451
If you contact them, they will have a record of your purchase - FOR DEFINITE.
Whether they admit it is another matter.

You will have to tell them the full address, credit card no. for that purchase, date, name, what else was on the order. If you paid by credit card, then look up your old statements. - That will give you a date, and if they still don't want to RMA, take a small claims action out against them.

yup, ring them up and tell them the situation

 

[superpandapower]

Antec is AWESOME. Don't worry about the receipt at all. They should be able to find your order. I had them find my order for a True430 RMA I had to do a while ago. I've always been extremely pleased with their service.

 

[TekDemon]

I'll talk to them when their RMA deparment is next open and see what they can do about looking up my order...
Here's hoping that they'll help me out, or I'm just never going to buy anything Antec again, I'm really disappointed that the fan line blew out since I did a google and it seems like Antec PSUs have a habit of blowing out the fan rail.

 

[Gentle]

If your power supply has a serial number on it, the manufacturer may be able to honor the warranty based on the date of manufacture.

I work in the warranty business (warranty underwriting, not service) and I know that some manufacturers will gladly take care of a customer instead of losing one forever.

It just depends on how nicely you go about it.

You might try these words...

"I have misplaced my receipt. Can we use the serial number off of the power supply to establish the date of manufacture and use that as a warranty start date?"

(This all depends on if your power supply has a serial number though.)

Good luck.

Gentle

 

[TekDemon]

So far I've called Antec a few times and each time been told that I have to have the receipt... =(

One guy did say if I could find my credit card statement that it could be used as a last resort...*sigh* guess it's time to go digging through my old statements.

On the upside Amex will give you any statement you want but it seems like this is gonna take a LOT of looking through old statements lol.

EDIT: OK, just paid Amex $5 for reprints of my August 2002 and September 2002 bills...HOPEFULLY it's somewhere on those...I got my fingers crossed or I just wasted $5 lol.