FiOs, Time Capsule, Solid Yellow Light, Ugh

[AnthonyCM]

Yeah, I need help.

The FiOS "technician" came over on Friday, and installed the service. Unfortunately, i wasn't home at the time (Current Wife was).

She said he wasn't able to get my Time Capsule to work w/ the system. No big deal, as I've read there are a lot of problems with this, but it's all easily handled.

Anyway, not so easy.

I get home and notice the TC is solid amber, not blinking. That was Wednesday. It's now Saturday. It's still solid, no matter what I do.

Any help? Did the FiOS tech somehow fry my TC? Any advice at all would be helpful.

Thanks,
-anthony

 

[jenzjen]

How do you have Fios and your TC setup? If coax to your Fios router, you'll need to setup TC in bridge model (google it, lots of instructions).

 

[Euphoria227]

How do you have Fios and your TC setup? If coax to your Fios router, you'll need to setup TC in bridge model (google it, lots of instructions).

That is the easiest way to go. It is possible to use your TC or any other router as the primary router controlling your network instead of the Verizon supplied one. You can head over to dslreports.com and check out this article "What are the tradeoffs between the various router configurations." There are certain limitations to each setup.

 

[AnthonyCM]

Sorry, I should have been more thorough in my original post. I can't get my Mac to see the TC, even connected via Ethernet, so that I can change it to bridge mode.

 

[Weaselboy]

Sorry, I should have been more thorough in my original post. I can't get my Mac to see the TC, even connected via Ethernet, so that I can change it to bridge mode.

You might try a hard reset of the Time Capsule.

 

[AnthonyCM]

Yeah, nothing. I attempted a hard reset, but after a few quick blinking amber lights all it does is return to solid amber.

 

[chrfr]

Yeah, nothing. I attempted a hard reset, but after a few quick blinking amber lights all it does is return to solid amber.

That likely just indicates that it doesn't have an internet connection. Have you disconnected the Time Capsule from the FiOS device? If so, are you getting an IP address from the TC? You see nothing in Airport Utility at all?

 

[AnthonyCM]

Nothing at all. I have the TC disconnected from the FiOS router, and connected via ethernet to my MacBook. Running AP Utility brings up nothing at all.

After my last hard reset attempt, I put my ear up to the TC. It makes some electronic noises (a lot of honking) that you can hear if your ear is up to it. The noises last for a couple of minutes, and then...nothing.

I can't figure out what the FiOS tech did to damage the TC (if he did anything at all to it), but it's an odd coincidence that it was working fine before he installed FiOS and now it's doesn't seem to be working at all.

Just trying to avoid going to the Apple store to discuss w/ a genius, especially considering how busy the stores are this time of year.

 

[Lennyvalentin]

"Honking" (not sure what that entails 😕) suggests some sort of mechanical issue with your device, as electronics typically operates noiselessly.

There's a harddrive, plus a fan in more recent time capsules. Possibly, the bearings in the fan might be shot meaning it has difficulty spinning up; bad fan bearings sometimes make "honking" kind of noises that may be intermittent or steady. That, or foreign debris is clogging it (dust, pet hairs, cigarette smoke gunk and so on.)

The time capsule probably has a fan RPM monitor feature, so if it detects the fan isn't working properly it might not start up to prevent overheating. Thus explaining the steady yellow light and your lack of success contacting it.

The other likely source of noise is the harddrive, but those kind of failures are often more audible than what you describe, and difficult to characterize as "honking"... Maybe the tech dropped or jostled the device roughly while the drive was spinning and caused head/platter or bearing damage, but unless you have a first-gen TC the drive only spins when accessed, so that seems a bit unlikely.

I'd suggest contacting the company that sent the tech to your place to find out who that was, and ask what exactly was done to your device.