Time Capsule Powered Off, Won't Power Back On

I got my 1TB TC in Oct 2009, lasted almost 3 years with no problem but it has finally given up and died today. RIP

Got a bit annoyed when the genius guy said it would cost £200 to get it fixed, it cost £250 for a new one with double the memory!!

Luckily I moved everything over to a external hard drive a few months ago.

Not sure if I will get a new one now, might just get a airport extreme or wait till they release a newer version. Can I connect a external HD to a airport extreme? Is it worth trying to replace the internal power parts to try and fix it?

Hello houying83,

In my opinion the TC is worth getting fixed. This is by far the least expensive solution to getting a networked backup and printer port. It looks neat too.

The design flaw is well documented in this forum (probably by me - I do go on) or certainly by Ray Haverfield.

I have no idea where in the world you are (probably UK, as you mention £200) but Ray's list of repairers will give you a start.

See it here.

I'm on that list, so I can only really say that out of more than 340x TC repairs (All Generations) that I have worked on, NONE have failed afterwards because of overheating, which is the primary reason for yours failing. I have also had NO hard drives that have failed.

This leads me to believe that the PSU cooking in its own heat, makes TCs die.

There are two schools of thought on the way to avoid this heat.

1. Modify the case so the internal fan blows through the (repaired) PSU.

2. Move the PSU to outside the case.

I have tried both and came down in favour of the modified TC case. Lots of others favour the external PSU.

Both are effective and both work well.

I guarantee what I do for one whole year. Only one unit has failed but that was because of a lightning strike which blew up the PSU! Even then I repaired at no cost to the owner. A 'Fix and Modify' is £95.

Probably all the people on Ray's list, do this to help fellow Apple users from the awful vacuum left when Apple deem a perfectly good product to be 'beyond repair'.

A repair is a very sensible way to make what was a hot, potential white door-stop, into a functioning and (if cooled) reliable TC.

An Airport Extreme will take an external drive and you can use one in a similr way to a TC, you just have more wires and plugs trailing around.

Kind regards,

Chris Fackrell (freddietheone), YORK, UK

Same problem with 1TB Time Capsule - suddenly dead, power supply overheated. I have been a loyal Apple customer since my 1st computer - an Apple IIe. I have bought many Apple products since, Macintosh, iMac, Macbooks, Macbook Pros, iPods, iPads, iPhones etc, but have never felt so let down from Apple as now, after just having returned from the Apple store and being told that they can replace the time capsule for over £200! A new 2TB is £240 and I was poliely nudged in that direction. It really isn't good enough from Apple at the price paid for the back up machine. Has anyone had sucess with the Sale of Goods Act? And if so how did you go about it?

Apple lost a lot of loyalty today.

Regards

Gareth

For likely less that half the cost of a new Time Capsule, you can have your current device repaired.....and your data will be safe.

Even if Apple gave you a new Time Capsule (they won't), you still lose all of the data on your old Time Capsule.

Check under Time Capsule Repairers in the link below to make your Time Capsule better than new:

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

LaPastenague

...and the saga continues. Tonight my Gen 2 TC xx924 series signalled me that the oven has been turned off, and my turkey is cooked....right on time too.. 18 mos 12 days.

i went to the Apple store in Mississauga Ontario, and bought and AP xtreme.

This w/e I will source an external PS and and return the 'temp' unit when i've resurrected the old.

your vid is probably one of the very best described vid's on any kind of repair.

Well done and Thanks a Heap for your contributions

John

Oakville, Canada

Glad to help people get the best out of their considerable investment..

For sake of $2 worth of capacitors.. to throw away a $500 box (price at the time) seems criminal.

As exactly what White_Elephant said: "Apply lost a lot of loyalty today!"

I bought TC three years ago. The cost was definitely a lot more than your usual WiFi and backup disc set up. I decided at the time to pay more for Apple's seamless integration and reliability. However that "reliability" just got blown out the window 4 days ago when the power supply failed just like everyone mentioned here. My Western Digital external drive was bought even before the TC and it is still working absolutely fine.

So the "Time Capsule" failed. I can live with the fact that electronic equipment won't last forever (should be more than 3 yrs though, if you name it Time Capsule.) But what really disappointed me was the fact that when I took it to the Genius bar, they made zero attempt to help recovering the data knowing the hard drive inside were not affected in vast majority of the cases. If you are in a backup disc business, I think it is your business to help people with data recovery when fail, instead of saying: "Hopefully you have everything on somewhere else as this is gone."

I bought a new TC during the same visit to Apple as I can't afford to have WiFi outage. Then I found this Discussion and subsequently found Ockham51's $15 repair kit in eBay. I got the capacitors yesterday and soldered a couple capacitors to replace the failed ones in the power supply of the broken TC. Now it's running perfectly fine. Thanks Ockham51 for putting the kit together and shipping it so quickly.

I will be returning the new TC today to Apple. You know what, I would have keep it if they had helped me transfer my data from my old TC to the new one. If they had done that, I would have paid the extra money knowing I can rely on Apple when things fail. Since they don't do that, I will keep my old one running as long as I can and move on to a different set up.

Mine died this morning too. This is so wierd, but I don't see any solutions😕!!

Airport ID# 001F5898C32.

Please help us Apple.

Hello Cader233,

There are a whole group of 'background-TC-repair-ninjas' out here you know? Each offers 'a solution'...

The well known and trumpetted phase of 'Apples just work' is somewhat lacking with the poor old TC.

It is VERY WELL BUILT... (said with emphasis). The opposite of this, is usually what victims believe is the reason their TC has died. Nothing shoddy is used inside the TC, other than an appalling design flaw (or three), which is (are) allowed to continue...

I've said it before, but I'm quite happy to say it again...

1. There is no AIR INLET HOLE for the in-built fan,

2. The fan is POINTING THE WRONG WAY by 90°,

3. The fan is NOT TURNED ON. Latest version have corrected this a bit.

Correct these and it runs cool.

Cool electronics are happy electronics.

The biggest cause of electronics failure is excess heat (debatable - let's begin...)

My 'modified' TCs (I have two) have been fixed and modified and have been running continuously for over 3 years. They have not failed and are running even now, cool and reliable...

Regards,

Chris Fackrell, YORK, UK.

www.fackrell.me.uk

Save us Obi Wan Freddi.. you're our only hope!!

Ray, I said ninja not jedi...

Waves hand in half-circle... "These are not the TCs you are interested in..."

:-)

OK, just out of curiosity, why do many care if your Time Capsule dies with your backup data on the internal drive, aside from security issues?

Perhaps it's just me, but unless your machine crashes while you have a dead TC, you purchase a new TC and you're protected again after the first backup.

Are people trying to use the TC has a hierarchical storage system of some type (not wise as files not on the hard drive can and do "just disappear" if Time Machine needs the space) or is there some other reason?

The main reason was because for many people it cost $500 (Gen1 when they first came out) and people expected better from something that cost half the price of a computer.

Also lots of people have copied files to their TC especially nowadays when SSD laptops particularly the Air comes with very small drives.. so even Apple recommend for people to use the TC as a way of extending their storage.. hence TC dies and you lose 250GB of iTunes files.. does make people cry alot. Yes, they are supposed to back up.. what to.. a TC?? Apple designed it so it cannot back itself up.

Thanks for the explanation; it was quite helpful.

As far as backing up goes, you should back up to the TC along with one or more external drives, preferably to be kept somewhere off-site like work or a safe deposit box.

Personally, I have my iTunes files duplicated across four different external hard drives as well as a NAS.

As far as backing up goes, you should back up to the TC along with one or more external drives, preferably to be kept somewhere off-site like work or a safe deposit box.

Personally, I have my iTunes files duplicated across four different external hard drives as well as a NAS.

You got bit once .. i am guessing and have now reached the point of understanding that digital files on magnetic media.. are one big failure from total annihilation.. I agree wholeheartedly.. there is not one hard drive that is 100% reliable.. even if there was you can accidentally delete it. Layer after layer of backup is the only way.. but Apple at least did a good thing in making an easy backup .. set and forget.. although lately it is less than 100%... Still more and more stuff which is irreplaceable is in the form of electronic files only.. that is scary.. all those photos of weddings and kids and important events.. all gone with a tiny fault.. 2 capacitors in a power supply.