Time Capsule Powered Off, Won't Power Back On

I have a refurbished gen one time capsule... and I have zero problems... and i am using the latest firmware and os and airport utility.

Carlo, your TC is probably dead. In Gen 1 Time Capsules the power supply often fails. If you call Apple Customer Relations they might replace it. I had the same problem as you and Apple has replaced mine even though the replacement program ended in Aug 2011.

oh mine did fail a long time ago... and it was exchanged (at a discount price) for a refirbished generation one 1 TB timecapsule (because it was not in warranty anymore)... and so far it has been working... but when that goes... I am going to get the 2 TB time capsule.

Carlo, if you have more than one computer being backed up, get the biggest TC you can afford. In our house we have 3 computers using the same TC.

Also, we do not use the TC as a regular storage drive. We use it as a backup place only. This is best.

Overheating is the cause of power supply failure, so do not put books, papers or anything on top of the TC. Do not put it on top of anything that makes heat, such as another hard drive or Mac-Mini. Make sure it is has room to radiate heat.

Well I've joined the Dead TC Club. 1st gen, TC 500gb died today. It almost made it to 4 years, which is I guess better than other, but I don't think I'll be buying another.

My 1st Gen 500GB TC just died on Feb 17. Powers on with a high pitched sound for about 10 seconds, then shuts itself off. I'm not very happy...

Another one bites the dust, 500GB. Couldn't be more than 2 years old because it claims to work with Loepard. Network lights on the rear for one second, solid yellow up front for 20 seconds then no lights, nothing..

Hello smanders,

You describe the death throes of a PSU. It has been too hot for too long. The TC is repairable and it is more than 99% certain the hard drive and all your data will be perfectly OK and intact.

Apple have opted to not repair the TC, they may offer to sell a refurbished unit at a high % of the new price.

The amateur support community, on the other hand, have a whole seemingly worldwide network of repairers.

Ray Haverfield from Australia lists a group that can be seen here...

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

Hope this helps? Sorry you're not happy... :-(

Cheers,

Chris Fackrell,

YORK, UK.

Hello JohnFierro,

You too describe 'classic' symptoms, which sadly is the lot of the TC owner. These symptoms would indicate like 100x of TCs before yours, that the PSU has cooked in its own heat. The internal capacitors have dried out and the PSU effectively goes into shutdown.

As mentioned above, it is also more than just highly likely that the hard drive will be undamaged and still containing all the valuable data. Statistics are a wonderful thing and more than 99% of the damaged TCs seen by me, so far, have been repairable. With modification they also never run hot again and so far (again) have been utterly reliable more than two years down the line.

Ray Haverfield's list is a very good starting point for finding a member of from the keen amateur support groups that have sprung up to fill the vacuum left by Apple's desire to not support the TC beyond its first year or so.

See that list here...

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

Cheers,

Chris Fackrell,

YORK, UK.

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

So an update, my replacement 500GB 1st gen Time Capsule just died on Wed Mar 21, 2012 around 9am without any warning. I wasn't having networking issues or anything, though I had stopped using it as my Time Machine backup since moving to a DroboPro a year ago.

Took it into the Genius Bar just to make sure it wasn't the power cord and nothing.

I opted to replace it with a AEBS 5th gen so I get dual band, guest network, etc.

I got a little over 2 years out of the replacement, so better than the original life span, but still not great.

I guess I am also one of the lucky ones, my TC just died. No warning, was doing some work online and all the sudden I lost connection, looked over and no lights on the TC, thought a reboot would be in order. Unplugged and plugged back in, yellow light came on, figured all was well and it would take a second to turn green. Grab laptop and sit down again, look back over, no lights again 😟

By the sounds of it, this is a common problem. Luckily I had a new Airport extreme still in the box sitting here, still ***** that my TC died. Not a very reliable product, won't be replacing.

.5 TB Time Capsule just died, SN 6F914S1R2UJ. I am seriously disappointed. With research this appears to be a manufacturers defect. When I put my TC in place it has not moved, temperature and humidity completely controlled. I just can't believe it. Apple needs to man up here.

CPTApple wrote:

.5 TB Time Capsule just died, SN 6F914S1R2UJ. I am seriously disappointed. With research this appears to be a manufacturers defect. When I put my TC in place it has not moved, temperature and humidity completely controlled. I just can't believe it. Apple needs to man up here.

Since they have produced 4 generations of the product and still haven't done the most basic alteration to the cooling.. ie turn the fan on, they clearly don't believe lifespan is bad enough to warrant a major redesign.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4577/airport-extreme-5th-gen-and-time-capsule-4th- gen-review-faster-wifi-/4

This review of the Gen4 TC proved to have one major mistake. The stuff about the fan turning on is completely untrue. The fan spins up during power on for 10sec and never turns on again. Without fan on and some temperature control the TC exceeds the manufacturers recommended max running temperature for the power supply.

A 500GB TC is at least 3 years old though.. basically all soho computer equipment seems to be built for that sort of lifespan.. either replace it or modify it.. the TC is reasonably easy to fix.. the design just needs more cooling.. or an external power supply.

If you have basic handiman skills you can easily use an external power supply.

I have given several methods here.

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

Apple have seriously messed up here and its very frustrating that apple have produced a produced using cheap key components. This happened to mine and I was not prepared to fork out more £££'s on a new capsule, which has every potential to die in the same way. I repaired mine following the guide posted earlier in this thread. Cost about £1.50 for the components and an hour or so of time to do it. Did the fan mod too, and I have been up and running now for the past 7 months without any issues. Even took the opportunity to upgrade the drive to 1tb.