Time Capsule Powered Off, Won't Power Back On

Bah...I'm post # gazillion with this problem. Mine died today out of the blue. It sort of died a couple of days ago...it was plugged into a power strip just fine so couldnt explain why it was not powering up. I just flipped the pins 180 degrees and plugged it back in and it powered up! Today, it just died on me again. The old trick did not work this time.

Probably will need to go to apple store. They should just recall this product or do a free repalcement...so many people having the same exact issue.

Add my Time Capsule to the list. I bought mine July 09 and was working fine, come in one morning and its all off. Power supply dead.

Called applecare, they said I would have to purchase Applecare for it to be repaired. I think the £230 I paid for it it should last a lot longer than this. I have now purchased a reliable My Book drive. I have a number of Apple products but apparantly my applecare on them wont cover the Time Capsule.

I am not going to purchase Applecare for my iPad, which was suggested. I would of thought the 12month warranty is irrelevant here, you would expect the product to be durable and last for reasonable time, especially from APPLE.

Has anyone here got anything sorted when out of warranty? Does anyone have suggestions? or a point of contact?

Same problem here on a 2nd Gen 1TB TC A1302 Serial No XX91 purchased May 2009, stopped working couple weeks back and when I plug the power lead in the LEDs above the ports flash momentarily then nothing more. Went to Genius Bar in Covent Garden who told me there were no known problems but probably a power supply issue and as out of warranty nothing they can do about it. And then I came across this thread. No known problems?? Yeah right! Not impressed!

Your Time Capsule can be repaired. Even if Apple replaced your Time Capsule with a new device, you would lose all of the backups on your old Time Capsule, unless you were willing to pay to have them transferred...which would again likely cost more than the cost of repairing your Time Capsule.

By repairing your current Time Capsule, you should be up and running again soon. Some suggestions for repair:

http://sites.google.com/site/lapastenague/a-deconstruction-of-routers-and-modems /apple-time-capsule-repairers

vinegarman wrote:

Add yet another unsatified Apple evangelist. I got my TC as a replacement for another Apple screwup. I think I got screwed again.

Anone found a solution for someone without a soldering set up and electronics experience worthy of a $500 piece of equipment?

Check with repairer list.

https://sites.google.com/site/lapastenague/a-deconstruction-of-routers-and-modem s/apple-time-capsule-repairers

Some of the local independent Apple repair places might be prepared to look at it.

Some of the people I have listed can sell you a refurbished power supply or an external power supply. Or they can do the work for you at reasonable amount. The charge should be around $100-150.

I have heard of this and repaired one that did the same.. died immediately after a firmware update. You can assume it was on the edge of going anyway. But something in the new firmware makes a slightly greater demand on the power supply and trips it over. It can be something very simple. eg in older firmware the hard drive does not spin up for several seconds after the boot. Try to shorten that time to get the TC active faster and the load of too many things starting up can trip the supply over the edge.

Apple have denied their is a problem except in the first 6months worth of production which is now well and truly past 3years so the extended warranty for that first batch has finished. They seem to believe a backup product that lasts 3years is adequate. It is a consumable,, in their opinion.

The design is actually quite good. It is let down by an appalling flaw in the cooling. Well, let me re-phrase that, a flaw in the addition of components that seemingly have no purpose inside the TC.

There is a cooling fan. Quite a good addition to the insides of the TC case. The hottest part of the TC circuitry is the PSU (power supply unit) and it in next to the cooling fan. The outlet of the cooling fan is designed to be the same size as the opening of the PSU plastic cover. This is a good thing... however...

The fan has no air inlet hole - pretty basic error.

The fan points the wrong way - it does not blow air through the PSU - another basic error.

The fan is not turned on - error maybe? This has been altered on the latest TCs. So this makes it slightly less useless!

The rest of the TC is really very well made and in concept works well. Get the **** thing modified to keep cool and it will have a VERY long life.

My prototype conversion is now over two years old and still runs cool. I added very little extra stuff, I merely reworked the parts added by Apple.

Cheers,

Chris F.

YORK - UK.

The Delta are superior power supplies.. If you powered on with all the unpluggable components removed and it did not start up then logic board is dead.

What are the exact symptoms??

Does the main LED flash at all?

What about the ethernet ports, they should all flash for a moment?

What about the fan .. does it go on at all?

Have you measured that the power supply is actually putting out 5v onto the board?

Power supplies can blow primary fuse. Or loads of other things happen. You can also just supply 5v to the main board and see if it works.

Measure the voltage from each of the converters on the board. There are 4 in total.

Measure from Gnd to each side of the inductor which is grey square near the power input.. marked 1R8.. the one on top is 1.0v underneath are 1.1v (maybe should be 1.2v) 3.3v next to it and the wireless card.. and 1.8v next to the processor. Any of those not working .. particularly 3.3v and 1.8v and it sure won't start.

There is definitely an issue in Gen 3 boards. I am trying to find the cause but I have no idea even if I find a cause if a solution is possible.

I can barely see most of the components on this thing let alone fix them.

No, the tester will not help. it has to be tested under load.. If the hard disk does not spin up, then I would say the power supply has failed. There are multiple types of failure.. you could have a high voltage surge that blew the primary side.. it is not just failure of the secondary capacitors.

If you are really intent on trying,, leave the power supply out of the TC.. but plug it into the board plug.

Look carefully at the power plug.. just below it is the first of the power converters. There are a pair of large brown capacitors to the right of the chip and the grey coloured inductor.

Turn power on..

Switch the meter to 20v dc range.

Place the black meter lead on the TC metal frame.. anywhere on the frame is gnd.

with extreme care place the red meter probe on the large brown capacitor ends.. one should read 0v and the other side should read 5v. (the side closest to the chip). Sorry I am not able to fiddle with the pictures at the moment.

You can also put your meter probe on the end of the grey inductor. it has a very large metal end.. it should measure 1.0v

If you blow up the TC, your meter.. or yourself ... be it on your head.

I went to the apple store and they replaced mine free of charge because I had Applecare on my laptop, bought it around the same time.
I think they are aware and will do their best to help if there's any way of putting it through an extended warranty plan.

My Applcare has well and truely paid for itself.

Yes, mine too was replaced by the Apple Store for free. They dug for a way to replace it under warranty. When I had purchased the 1st gen TC 500GB, I already had an Apple Care for a MacBook Pro. It has long expired. It just so happens I had purchased a mac mini a few months ago and it was still under its 1 year warranty. They replaced my TC under that warranty, even though it had been way over 3 years since my purchased. You can't beat Apple for customer service most of the time. They take care of their customers if there is any way possible.

If it wasn't resolved by Apple, I would have fixed it myself. Thanks for the great thread.

smanders

I had a 1st gen 1 TB TC. It died within a short amount of time. And I agree, there was a design flaw in the first gen. I also owned a cat, and kept the TC in a corner of my apartment. My unit was always getting warm, even to the point it was excessivly hot. Theire was at one time a recall from Apple that let a person replace it with a refurbished one. I off course missed that window, and had to exchange my unit for a refurbished unit (1TB was the only one that was offered as a refurbished unit.) (And they sold it at a discounted price.) I have been using the newer (refurbished unit) since then with no problems and the unit is not as hot as my oringal unit. So something was done yes inside the unit, at the same time (when my unit did go bad), I went thruough all same emoticions. But I also became wiser about having clutter arround the unit, airflow, and dust how these all play a part. Anything that produces heat is a magnet for dust. I was upset that I had to buy a refurbished unit (and money is tight for everyone), but in the end, I figured it is no different than anything else that could break, or needs repair. Eventually everything needs to be repaired or breaks. I took the advice of someone, that told me, go get another unit - I did, and I am happy I did, and if my unit broke again, I would buy another unit, even a brand new unit this time around. I feel the frustration, but life is short, and this is not something to get yourself sick over.