Time Capsule Powered Off, Won't Power Back On

Hi Chris,

Thank you for your understanding. You are being very modest.

That techie page is not accessible if one goes to your website 'normally' as opposed to clicking on the link above. Once you click on any link on the left, this page becomes like the TC's spinning fan....cannot be seen.

Hello Meherally,

Try clearing the cache on your browser. I can get the page from any direction with several different PCs and Macs?

Send your email address to me and I'll post the PIX to you. 🙂

chris DOT fackrell AT tesco DOT net

Nil illegitima carborundum.

Kindest regards,
Chris Fackrell,
YORK,
UK

Hi Chris,

If I click on the link 'the process' and then the sub-link 'technical pages' I now see the photos of airflow explanation. But guess what, the infra-red photos are now gone. I can get them if I change the URL manually to page6 slash page6 html.

Hello Meherally,

There is a menu to pick the pages, shown on the left of the screen. The infra-red pix are on 'Just FYI'.

The actual, link to THAT page is here:

http://www.fackrell.me.uk/page4/page4.html

Good luck and I hope there was not too much shouting!! 🙂

Regards,
Chris
From the Land of the Yorkshire Pudding.

Hi all,

For those of your having problems with Time Capsule not powering on you might want to check your eligibility based on this article released yesterday - http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3351

Hello PhillNZ,

Good reference there! The range referred to for 'dodgy' TCs is: XX807XXXXXX - XX814XXXXXX.

My very first failure was outside of that, it was XX817XXXXXX and it was powered by the slightly cooler running DELTA PSU. It still performed like a slug on Mogodon, and Apple were no help ("It's one of those things...") so I pulled it to pieces, etc. The rest is history.

So... it would seem like the brackets of failure have been defined as those with Flextronics PSUs (just my guess but every repair seen so far has been between those numbers fitted with a Flextronics. The other oddities have been with the DELTA supply fitted. One has scattered molten components around inside the plastic case cover of the PSU! Very nasty indeed. Another has been a bridge rectifier that was a total short circuit and one recently has had a dry joint and cracked PCB track. These failures are probably heat related, but are seemingly so random from so few samples it is hard to tell.

The good old Flextronics PSU repairs quite well because the fault is well defined. Capacitors that have overheated. Once the PSU is cooled however, that particular weak link in the chain is gone and the faults, if some ever return, will be far more without pattern.

Apple STILL have yet to redesign the problem away, not merely build bigger and bigger bolsters to hold up the weak walls. (There is some dodgy analogy used here but I'm lost as to what it is).

Enough already, - 6x more repairs and modifications to do! Hi-ho Silver... away!....

Regards,
Chris Fackrell
YORK,
UK.

I got a whole 27 months out of my 1TB TC before it suddenly stopped working with no
warning ,which seems slightly better than most people commenting here. Come on Apple , start installing better quality PSU into these devices. Just replacing these units makes no since as everyone will have valuable data on them the are about to throw in the WEEE bin. There needs to be a PSU replacement option !

Hello Gicker,

Welcome to the land of smouldering Time Capsules. Yours indeed has survived longer than others; perhaps you run it in a cooler room than most? That would do it.

Asking Apple to 'come on' seemingly has NO EFFECT at all. <Deity of your choice> only knows, I've tried!! Lots!!

Someone somewhere reads these posts, as a bout of foul-mouthed insanity, got me a 'yellow-card' warning from the moderator. Don't do it - be nice.

However, your comment is eminently sensible, a swap-out facility does exist but in the form of 'refurbished' units from Apple. These are awarded against some S/N jiggery-pokery and world-wide lottery. Some people seem to be very lucky and have had new TCs, allowed to keep the old TC, or at least prise it open and get the old hard drive out.

The whole unit is swapped out. Which is INSANITY. All the personal precious data is trapped on a perfectly good hard drive (95%+ probability) and this is scrapped by Apple. The TC case is scrapped, The baseboard is scrapped along with the errant PSU. Not green in any way shape or form.

The TC has a design flaw, which manifests itself as overheating and bits of things dying of heatstroke.

Look at my website here: www.fackrell.me.uk

and wander to look at the Techie page in there, it will show WHY a fan mod is needed. Infra Red pictures on Just FYI, will show the effects of a fan mod.

Personally I'm exhausted. I posted back 7x TCs today and now I'm working on 6x more to repair and modify. Doing this seems to make existing TCs have a new lease of life; back from the dead and all that.

Rant over.

Enjoy life.

Regards,
Chris Fackrell
YORK
UK.

Well, well, well... Did not think this notice would ever come out. Had expected it sooner but then there it is, the first public acknowledgement that there is a problem. It is good to know Apple does stand by its products and they do take care of their customers.

Meherally wrote:
Well, well, well... Did not think this notice would ever come out. Had expected it sooner but then there it is, the first public acknowledgement that there is a problem. It is good to know Apple does stand by its products and they do take care of their customers.

That's certainly a positive way of looking at it. Of course, I see it as Apple admitting a problem long after most of those affected have already bought a new TC. Let's not spin this one as "Apple is good," please. They dropped the ball on this. Completely.

Hello Xian Rinpoche,

_A modest proposal_

With the advent of this positive, open and whole-hearted approach to all the TC problems that have beset poor Apple and their loyal loving customers. Their total acceptance of all responsibility for the lack of back-up files being accessible on the 'server grade' premium priced 'Time Capsule', it is now surely incumbent upon us to help them in what will be 'a difficult time'?

It has been a really big (and lets be honest) unexpected, turn up for the books for Apple to own up to there being such a problem. I think it deserves a round of applause and a little extra something...

Those of us who love this product and in turn the glorious Apple who make it so, will surely be willing to sell all their Earthly possessions (and possibly some body parts), to help them in their struggle for a healthier balance sheet?

With having to accept the possibly 'black mark' that owning-up sometimes can bring. The possible 'dip' in the share price that such an honest and open stance might engender. We must support Apple. We must buy Time Capsules, that are after all server grade, and that can never fail. Apple have fixed all the known problems! Hooray!!

This is a great day! From this day forth no TC shall run hot! No TC shall have premature heat-related failure! Past mistakes have been admitted and forgiveness in in our hands.

Mortgage your homes, sell your OTHER possessions until it hurts, buy Apple products now while this state of openness and euphoria is upon them.

I will start tomorrow and trust all of you will follow.

Yours, in a state of dizzy bewilderment...

Chris from York.

Whew! I'd better put my "wellies" on, getting kind of deep here.

With thanks to Jonathan Swift: "A Modest Proposal".

My loose parody of his masterful essay. Probably wasted...

CF

XX807XXXXXX - XX814XXXXXX

I do not keep records of all the ones I repair but I don't glue the rubber matt back on either so some I have kept.. and some I give to people who manage to rip theirs and then discover that apple denied them a repair even if they have applecare..

But more than half have higher serial numbers than those.. and mostly are 1TB version.. Also the flextronics supply was really used for the whole of series 1 which goes a lot further than Feb -June 08.. what will Apple now do for those claiming repair if they are outside that sequence..
Sorry but I have a bad feeling this is to stop a lot more people.. after all, very few Feb-Jun 08 TC's are going to be working today.. most will have been junked.. replaced in those consumer meccas you have over there.. or repaired by the strange and assorted motley crew.. for 3 posts up.

So I will be interested to hear what happens when you present with TC outside that very limited sequence.

This might be a ridiculously stupid question, and I admit my google fu is good but lazy. Clearly I haven't read all 50 odd pages of this thread but from what I've read I understand there is an inherent design flaw in the TC but from this last page of posts it seems to have been...fixed? Acknowledged? I'm not sure. Really what I'm asking is, I want to buy a TC but if it's going to commit a slow but sure suicide, taking all my data with it, I'd rather just buy some other external hard-drive. So has Apple taken steps to fix this problem? If I buy a TC is it going to die because of this issue/I'll have to have it modified, or is it all being worked out? I'm just curious. Like I said, I'm in the market to buy one and I don't want to drop the sizeable chunk of money on something that just isn't going to last. Thanks. 🙂