Just like the experience of many others round the internet (see here), my 500GB Time Capsule expired yesterday. Lights out. The failure is usually due to some capacitors in the power supply overheating and expiring as a result.I took it to pieces with instructions from iFixit,found the blown capacitors and replaced them with ones near the same spec—I used 1000uF instead of 1500uF. Watch out though... I got a nasty shock from one of the other capacitors on the board—follow the instructions in red at the following link if you want to avoid the same!
Now it's all back up and running fine again; pleasant surprise to see the green light—I half expected it to be a complete dud. I decided to leave the rubber base panel off so the base could breathe and am using it upside down to its normal orientation. At least now there is some chance that it will run somewhat cooler.
As it runs 24 hours a day, I'm adding a simple plug-in timer to shut it off at night when it's not needed, which should extend its life considerably.
If your TimeCapsule fails, you'll likely find that Apple's repair extension program won't apply (not very generous in this instance), but your data should be safe. If you are in the UK, you could contact me on 01255 672701 for help...
No comments:
Post a Comment