Time Capsule issues

[Killerbob]

Hi,

My TC has been working flawlessly for some 2 years now, but last night it was all too much. It is completely shut down, and unplugging the power and reconnecting doesn't make a difference. There is no orange or green light, and no sound from the unit

Luckily enough I purchased it at the same time as I picked up my MacBook Air, to which I did buy the AppleCare package, and my questions are:

• What can/should I try regrading my TC?
• Is my TC covered by the AppleCare agreement for my MBA?

Thanks in advance for any help, and too all - Happy New Year!

KB

 

[dmm219]

Do a search on this forum, the TC problem you are describing is well documented. Your TC is dead. It should be covered under your AC and even if it isn't, Apple has been pretty good about replacing the TC's free of charge...

 

[craig1410]

Yeah mine died this morning and I am taking it to my local Apple store tomorrow to get it replaced. Not been able to speak to anyone from Applecare due to the holiday but I am confident it will be replaced.

Anyone know if I am likely to get a newer model or if they will replace it with a repaired model of the same type? Mine is a 500GB original model with single band Wifi.

Good luck getting yours replaced, I'm sure it will be fine.

ps. Mine is in the refrigerator just now. I am hoping the thermal change might make it work for a minute or two so that I can erase the disk. I don't need to recover any data just would like to erase the disk and maybe write down some settings to save time when setting up the new unit. Worth a try...

 

[sommls]

Mine is in the refrigerator just now. I am hoping the thermal change might make it work for a minute or two so that I can erase the disk.

Some of the photos of failed power supply components suggest it may be a cold day in h... before this will work, but let us know.

 

[iSee]

The same thing happened to me last week. Searching around, I found this is very common and the power supply (internal) is probably dead.

...

• What can/should I try regrading my TC?
• Is my TC covered by the AppleCare agreement for my MBA?

Thanks in advance for any help, and too all - Happy New Year!

KB

1. Happy New Year!
2. As far as I can tell there's not much you can do. The Apple Time Capsule Memorial Register: http://timecapsuledead.org/ has some repair options listed, but you will almost surely want to just get it replaced.
3. My TC was covered under the AppleCare agreement of the computer I used it with (also a MBA). So, even though it was over a year old, I got it replaced for free with no fuss.

...Anyone know if I am likely to get a newer model or if they will replace it with a repaired model of the same type? Mine is a 500GB original model with single band Wifi.
...

The replacement was the same as the original (Also 500GB single-band). I meant to ask for an upgrade (hey you never know!) but I forgot.

I did the replacement over the phone and through the mail. They sent me the new one in two days and I will send back the old one in the same box (which has a prepaid shipping label under the one it was sent with).

The only pain for me is that the old TC contained backups of my wife's law office documents. She says we can't send the TC back with those on there. Though the guy on the phone said the Apple store would be able to erase the hard drive for me, that turned out not to be true according to the "genius" I met with today. So I had to open it up (a bit of a pain because you need to remove the rubber bottom with the help of a hair-dryer to soften the glue), connected the hard drive to a convenient machine and wiped it. I was able to leave the drive mostly in the TC by snaking the SATA cables into the opened up TC. That's helpful because that way I did not have to remove the temp sensor glued to the drive. I'll put it back together and send it back one the erasure is done. Hopefully this will not cause Apple to charge me anything -- I'm not sure whether or not they'll know I opened it up or really care if they can.

 

[craig1410]

Some of the photos of failed power supply components suggest it may be a cold day in h... before this will work, but let us know.

Yeah no joy so far on that one...not surprised to be honest but it was something worth trying as I have heard from a number of people who's TC's started to fail and then came back to life once they had cooled down, for a while at least.

Another thing I wondered about is whether a capacitor connected across the 5 volt USB power output might help to get the PSU going. I'm not sure if the failed internal capacitors have gone open circuit or short circuit but if it is the latter, and assuming the USB output is connected directly to the 5 volt bus then it might work. Again I am not optimistic because I expect the USB output will not come directly from the 5volt bus but this could be a very handy way to get TC's going again if only to recover data or erase data.

Anyone tried this before I head up into my attic looking for 1000uF 6.3v electrolytics?
[Edit: Just gave this a try but no joy. I metered the output from the USB port on the TC and the +5V line was giving a little pulse just a second or so after power up so I was initially optimistic but after connecting a 2200uF 16V cap it didn't suddenly allow the TC to come to life. Worth a shot even if it was a long shot]