Dead Time Capsules congregate at an online cemetery
The average lifespan of these Time Capsules is currently 17 months and 18 days, corroborating with several forum reports and blog sites that target the Time Capsule's death around 18 months.
The general consensus in the forums is that the power units in the Time Capsules seem to be failing. Apple has not, to this point, officially recognized this issue, though users with the problem can experience some relief if they have AppleCare on one of their Macs at home. AppleCare covers peripheral devices made by Apple, such as the Time Capsule, AirPort Extreme Base Station, AirPort Express, Apple Keyboards, and the Mighty Mouse.
For users that do not have AppleCare, the situation gets more frustrating. Your option is to pay for a service replacement on the device--in which case Apple will take your old Time Capsule, including its hard drive and all the data (which they will destroy). Your other option is to keep your old Time Capsule and attempt to fix the hardware yourself. It appears that the capacitors are the main culprit of the failures--a part which many electronics repair shops should be able to fix.
Several sites have cropped up which offer instructions for repairing your Time Capsule. Of course, use caution when attempting any of these solutions as they are not official repair techniques.
We will certainly keep an eye on this story and let you know if/when Apple makes an official comment regarding the Time Capsule failures. Experiencing issues, have questions, want to let us know about an issue we should report on? Email Us!
With that said, for products that Apple truly believes in, they are usually pretty good and sniffing out and ultimately solving design issues.
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by LaPastenague
October 14, 2009 2:15 PM PDT
- I have repaired 3 and acquired a dead one as a sample to test various repair methods. All have suffered exactly the same problem,, dead capacitors in the 5v section of the supply. Everything is well made!! It didn't fail due to shoddy components... it failed due to a fundamental design flaw... which Apple seems to be making very often now. There is insufficient cooling... go back and read the original cnet review... "We should note that while the Time Capsule is basically silent, the top gets hot" Well under the thick plastic top and several layers down wrapped in insulation and metal foil, the power supply cooks. The fan built into the box never turns on except in extreme heat (Apple defines that as flame temperature), it has no access to outside air anyway, so the firmware registers the overheat as a fault and takes the hdd off line.
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(13 Comments)See http://sites.google.com/site/lapastenague/a-deconstruction-of-routers-and-modems for various repair methods. 4000 visitors and 10,000 page views to my repair site... so APPLE: YOU HAVE A PROBLEM.