Partial failures due to overheating - Gen 4 3Tb TC - They still haven't fixed this design flaw?? Annoyed Customer.com...

There should be a statutory warranty in the UK for products like the TC.. ie even if the company offers only 1year it is implied to be a device that really should last longer than 12months. People have certainly managed to get apple to fix it (ie replace) when they were prepared to push legal requirements.. but Apple have tended to offer just what is allowed unless pushed!!

Buying AppleCare for your computer is no bad thing.. but you could have purchased an Apple TV.. with applecare and that would also cover the TC.. sell the ATV without even opening it on ebay.. for basically what you purchased it for. That is one of those little loopholes. The TC is not covered by ipad applecare but it is on the ATV.. UK people discovered this one.

I have been repairing TC since Gen1 and the fault in Gen4 is unique. It is not heat. Apple did pretty well overcoming that.. although it is still far too hot for long term use .. that would not kill it in such a short time. The fault is fairly rare. Overall the reliability of the TC is very good since Gen3 (meaning up to 3years as per all domestic equipment now). Earlier ones were not so lucky. And they have solved at least the overheat in the new AC models with a radical redesign of the cooling. There are other issues though.

Push Apple to replace it.. they do not repair.. it is swapped out for a refurbished which should be ok.

I am still waiting for the fault to happen in any Gen4 I can get my hands on.. so far I have had one come in for repair / investigation of the fault. I found nothing wrong.. and when I reassembled it, it worked and has continued to work ever since for several months now. So good in one way and sad in another.. as I have no more idea of the fault than I had in the first place. Gen3 had a clear fault in the capacitors.

https://sites.google.com/site/lapastenague/a-deconstruction-of-routers-and-modem s/apple-time-capsule-repair/new-issue-with-a1355-gen-3-tc

The boards should be identical .. (Gen1&2 and Gen3&4 just changed wireless cards while keeping identical boards). Whoever supplied the dud caps was "fixed". But the fault in the Gen4 is clearly different. That is all I know at this stage. If I could get my hands on a couple more broken down ones.. (Or Chris in the UK).. we could likely figure out the cause.. albeit a solution might still not be viable.

Here is my best guess.. it is a soldering fault. Ever since lead free solder Apple have had several problems with bad soldering. A component loses reliable contact with the board. People have very inventive ways of reflowing the solder on the board, even reballing the board to refit the processor etc.

I think my fix, merely put more pressure on a component that was having poor contact with the board. I have seen it before.. it would account for the unreliable operation in your case but for many it happens and the TC is dead thereafter.. but the hard disk is spinning all the time. It suggests the fault is in the main processor.. which has the tendency for poor connection on the ball type processor soldering. Anyway until I get more in to see and test that is my working hypothesis.

Production faults like this are part and parcel of electronics and have to be accepted that a small percentage of product will break down in operation.. (lead free solder is good for environment but lousy for building electronics). What is not acceptable is Apple not instantly replacing them with apology.

The TC that I fixed by pulling apart has gone faulty again.. this time it doesn't seem to be coming good. So it lasted about 6months with no trouble then just died.

The power consumption on the board is around 5.3W.. the processor is getting hot.. but the ethernet chip is cold.. so it seems to be in that area.. there is no 5v to the USB.. all the power supplies are putting out their standard voltage and I cannot see any issues.

Don't have time to continue the search for errors now but I will try soldering in the serial port and see if the bootloader gives an error message.

Thanks a lot for your informations.

My A1409 just died with the same symptoms yesterday. After around 2 years of purchase.

Good to know, there are more. Now I try my ways with Apple!

My 500GB Timecapsule fan is running continuously and is flashing orange indicator light. Airport utility has alert message that "this device may be overheating". However the unit is not at all hot (barely above ambient room temperature to touch).

Timecapsule was not showing on network but did hard reset and was able to mount. Updated firmware to latest version.

Time Machine back up is running but fan and orange indicator persist.

Is the unit really overheating?

How can I get fan to stop?

A 500GB is really old.. Gen1 or early Gen2.

The power supply might be overheating even if the rest feels ok.

It can be repaired but is it worth it??

See the instructions here to fix the caps in the power supply. Or one of the other repair methods.

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

Thanks for advice. the unit is maybe 4-5 yrs old but hasn't had heavy use. I guess maybe with a band name like Timecapsule I assumed that it would provide a long term storage solution but you have put me straight. I will have to find a more robust replacement.

Recently experienced the same issue with my Time Capsule 4th generation A1409 (with Delta PSU). Read the http://fackrell.me.uk/ website for help - most usefully until I released I had the Delta power unit in my Time Capsule and I could also still hear the hard disk spinning.

Performed the "bake logic board" trick and success - 7.5 minutes later at 190 degrees C. the Time Capsule now works again.

Check the following for detail demonstration of logic board baking -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ztzv2OlQJuU

http://russell.heistuman.com/2010/04/27/cooking-the-books-or-baking-my-macbook-p ro-logic-board/

Photo of my Time capsule logic board prior to baking.

This totally worked for me !!!! Thanks dude you saved me. My 4th Gen Time Capsule 2TB has been going unresponsive once every 2 months or so (HDD spinning, but the LED in the front or the network ports don't turn on). I would disconnect the power supply for a few hours, plug it back in and it would work. Last night there was a power outage because of a storm and once power was restored the TC wouldn't turn back on, so I disconnect the power as usual from it and let it rest overnight and it didn't work in the morning when I plugged it back in.

I followed the instructions in this post and stripped my 4the Gen Time capsule down to the motherboard, put it on a baking tray on foil balls, baked it at 375F for 7.5 minutes, then it let it cool for about 15 minutes. Reassembled the TC and it just worked !!!!! As soon it was visible on my network, I backed up all the files on it to an external drive.

Thank you !!!! 🙂

Photo of the TC mother board before baking it

And another success for the Time Capsule pie 🙂

Had similar symptoms: TC stopped working with LED off and disk still spinning.

Managed to revive it twice by just letting the TC rest for a couple of days/weeks. But third time no matter how long I left it unpowered it would not start again. Thanks to this thread and LaPastenague site, managed to bake my TC back to life. Now let's see how long it will last.