Time Capsule Powered Off, Won't Power Back On

Billyhunt wrote:

Death in Dublin.

18mth old 1TB. €270

So is it fit for nothing but the recycle bin??

If you don't have AppleCare on any existing Mac computer which will then cover the TC it can be repaired more than likely as the issue tends to be the power supply even on the later models. Just yesterday someone with a 6month old brand new one rang me that it overheated and died. This means the power supply is actually faulty not just worn out, and of course is still in warranty so Apple replaced it. In your case determine if you have the skills to do the job.. if not contact a repairer.. which has to be outside of official Apple repair centres as they are "sealed units" without spare parts.

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

Good thing about Applecare....its GLOBAL!

I just phoned the support guys in Europe & my local Apple Authorised service partner (yes, we still dont have an Apple Store in Belgium), will try to repair it & if they cant, Apple will replace it. They will also recover the data.

Turns out this is a known issue & there is some leeway even if the Time Capsule is out of warranty.

Just got my TC back from repair and modification by Chris (www.fackrell.me.uk). He did a great job and now it's back to working as before (and a bit better due to the mod - runs way cooler). Here are some pics:

The new back with air intake and rubber feet

Fan air intake

Repaired Power Unit

Optimized Fan

Dead caps as a souvenir

I highly recommend the service if you wish to revive your dead TC. Great work and customer service.

Cheers!

chuckiezip wrote:

my tc is probably 2008 vintage, just gave up the ghost tonight. following the google trail, sounds like you & chris are the experts by far. I have downloaded the repair instructions - frankly they look too much for me (although I'm tempted).

question - given the age of the TC is it worth doing the repair? has apple corrected the problme in new TCs?

is it straightforward to remove the HD from the TC & then connect to a mac?

thanks in advance for any info.

The latest TC are less prone to failure in the first 2-3years.. they do run substantially cooler. In fact it does sound like the gen 4 do actually run the fan.. in some controlled way when it gets hot, which the older series refused to do.

There is likely nothing wrong with the TC except the power supply. So repairing it makes it an item of some value. I would say that value closely matches the repair cost. In other words it will cost you as much to repair it as you can sell it for in working condition. But if you repair yourself the cost is not that high. They are worth less than half the repair cost if not working. So you will need to do the sums. The new ones are much better value than in the past.. they dropped the price of the 2TB gen 4 by $200 odd which was about huge reduction. So that can be good.

Removing the HD is easy .. there are plenty of sites about how to upgrade your TC hard disk. The main trick some of the sites leave out is to heat the rubber mat to almost hotter than you can touch .. heat gun or hair dryer on hottest setting.. heat for several minutes until uniformly hot.. then lift up one edge and pull it slowly, still heating from the corner you lift. Undo 10 small philips head screws.. don't lose them.. the hard disk can be removed after removing the plugs and the heat sensor.

Stick the hard disk in a Mac pro.. or connect in a USB to sata drive box. Copy the files off to some other storage,, then erase the drive. Put back in the TC and then you can sell it on ebay.

How do you mean it seems alright.. did you open the covers and look at the capacitors?

Remove the hard disk power connector.. and try powering it again. If it can power up the board then plug in the hard disk.. What you find is the hard disk start current is too great for the power supply in poor condition. and it trips the supply.

Gen 3 have a new issue though. Something goes bad on the board and they will eventually power off.. different symptoms but same results.

A power supply should not make any noise.

Please recognise this has high potential and can hurt you.. !! Do not touch the power end of the power supply at all. Plug and unplug with power off.

I am also reluctant to suggest you start sticking your meter probe into places you have no idea about.. the care you need with this is extremely high.. I blew up a router a few weeks ago by slipping the meter probe.. and I have been doing it for > 40years.

But there is a simple test.

External to the TC..

Setup the power supply and plug the sata power connector into the hard disk.

Plug the power supply into wall socket with the switch off.

Now turn on the wall switch.. the hard disk should spin up. And you should hear the heads hunt for track1.

If nothing happens, then most likely the power supply is faulty.. some hard drives do not start at power on unless signalled to start but most do. I tested an apple disk from a TC and it did start. Your model has a different hard drive though.. If you have another hard drive and the Apple one didn't start you can test on another one.. don't forget to power off the supply at wall before you touch anything.

The dreaded 18 month delay before the TC bites the dust, is, many would say, 'Classic Behaviour'.

Either one of two things will happen and this seems to be something of a lottery as to which it will be...

1. Take it back to Apple and speak in sweet tones, being very nice and extra polite to the lovely people in the store, that the TC you own (showing them same) has stopped doing what it should do. If pressed a little more, the nice people may admit to knowing a little something about the 'unexpected and totally unlikely failure' of the TC. If you have been very good, you might just get a replacement. Ask if they can transfer the very valuable data from your old TC please. etc etc.

2, Take it back to Apple and be told in sweet and very understanding tones by the very nice and knowledable people in the store that Apple will not be able to do anything for you. It's beyond its one year warranty you see? Bit of a blow... soothing tones... but no real help, etc etc.

If 1 occurs, modify the thing so it runs cool - this may involve forgetting about the warranty but what is that worth? As we all know, the TC is made from very high grade materials that do not go wrong - IN FACT the hard drive is 'SERVER GRADE' and there surely is no higher spec than that?... unless we drift in miltary use! Always rememebr the Apple tag line from way back... 'Apple's just work'.

I suppose your TC was having an off day? That would be it. So... all OK there then?

If 2 occurs, get the TC to a repairer (see the list) and get it modified in some way to keep cool. Almost unnecessary I would have thought, with all the SERVER GRADE mularky inside, and Apple's 'just working' but well, it could be the TC is on top of a radiator, or in the sun maybe or just 'unlucky'.

I know mine was 'just unlucky' and the failure was 'just one of those things'... but that apparently is a rare occurence.

For what it is worth, the internal hard drive, unless you have dropped it down a flight of stairs, will still have all your data backed away on its surfaces. The hard drives do not fail - SERVER GRADE and all that...

Also for what it is worth, the TCs seem to run a bit hot. Too hot to hold, although you would not want to hold it sir... it is a high reliability back-up device... not a hand warmer. The fact it will almost give you blisters if you hold it for long may just suggest something is not as it should be...

Remove the heat from the TC and it becomes as reliable as the tag line suggests... 'Apple's just work'

I have two TCs that run very cool indeed and have been doing so for more than two years... and counting.

Join the club.

See Ray's list for repairers:

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

See

http://www.fackrell.me.uk

for methods of making it run cool - like modifying the fan.

Welcome to the Dead TC Club... :-(

Regards,

Chris

YORK, UK

Stacy, I saw your post and then saw it recently removed.

Capt Bill, I called Apple again today with hopes of reaching a different rep. Received the same resopnse as before. Pried and pressured just a little and he talked to his supervisor....was transferred about 6 times during the call up the chain and was finally granted a free replacement. The total call time was about 70 minutes and I managed to stay polite and humorous throughout the conversations.

I'm a satisfied customer.

Kudos to Apple for replacing my TC.

tomfromchicago wrote:

Any fix for this problem yet?

The fix.. for Gen 1 and Gen 2 is to replace the internal power supply.. either a converter or fully external power supply.. these are not readily available, so the method I use is 12v power supply and internal 12v to 5v converter..

Gen 3 and Gen 4 are too young mostly for the internal power supply to die.. yet!! So only the occasional blown supply.. so the ones that present are dead boards or dead hard drives.. those WD greens are not up to quality of the earlier disks Apple used. Many people will still have applecare covering their TC.. so that is the first port of call. Only if that is run out, then it is time to dig deeper.

Check my website for how to replace the supply.. and check the board.

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.