Time Capsule - Overheating

I received an alert from my Time Capsule that it was overheating. I immediately put a fan on it and it seemed to cool down rather quickly. My TC is placed on a desk with no obstructions of airflow...
As any one else experienced this? When I received the alert, the TC was extremely, extremely hot to the touch...
very concerning...

I know this might seem very obvious and I do not want to sound condescending, but when Apple ship new products they are very good at covering all the ventilation ports up with plastic. When the MacBook came out many MacBooks overheated because the plastic over the vert ports was not obvious and in many cases did not get removed. It might be worth checking to make sure there is not plastic still installed over the vert ports.
Keith.

Similar Messages

  • Time capsule overheated

    I think my time capsule died overnight.  I think it over heated.  The light was not on and I tried to restart it and got the yellow light for a second then nothing.  Is there a way to get the information out of it and on to a new time capsule?

    What model TC.. A1xxx from the bottom label please??
    If it is 3 years or more.. then the power supply has been slowly cooking over the lifespan of the TC but getting worse and worse as components deterioriate.
    Pull out the hard disk.. stick it in a holder, USB to SATA type and plug into the computer.
    See http://www.ifixit.com/Device/Apple_Time_Capsule
    If you want .. since you are opening the TC.. get a new power supply via ebay.. apple do not sell spares but they are available in small numbers.. just search "time capsule power supply" they will pop up, and check international for cheaper ones from china.

  • Time capsule hot/overheated

    I am wondering if it is normal but my time capsule seems to be all the time very hot/overheated. Is this normal or should I be worried?

    the TC tends to get warm. its case acts as a heat sink.
    see the post by Bob Timmons in this discussion.

  • Return 1st gen time capsule?

    I have a first generation time capsule that despite my best efforts, refuses to work. I read on the site timecapsuledead.org that its because it over heats. It also states that you can make Apple replace it by calling them. However, the site was updated last in 2010, so I guess the information is incorrect. Just to possibly save me some money, can I still return it?
    in the meantime, I am stuck on this annoying iPad.

    No, all warranty expires after 3years.. in 2010 you still had a year left for the first Gen that was released in 2008.
    You can repair it.. the power supply is dead.. due to the overheating you can buy a new power supply from ebay.. or repair it.. lots of sites.. including one of mine.
    https://sites.google.com/site/lapastenague/a-deconstruction-of-routers-and-modem s/apple-time-capsule-repair
    But it is already well behind the times.. and is it worth wasting money on the repair??
    It is small hard disk, now old and much slower wireless, single band. Slower disk access.

  • 1st generation time capsule 'ambers out' with increasing frequency...

    Basically the title, but it seems that after several hours, my Time Capsule (1st gen) will just amber out. I can still do things locally and I'll get a 'double NAT' warning. That's all fixed once I unplug and replug in the TC, for a while that is.Then eventually, it'll 'get tired' and just amber out with the same warning. Basically, it's fast becoming very difficult to keep a working rythym since it's constantly going down (when green, throughput is great - 5MB in from the WAN and full(ish) gigabit ethernet locally). It's on a plant ledge with plenty of air flow and it doesn't ever seem TOO hot (just warm) so I doubt it's an overheating issue, but who knows.
    Anyway, who knows?
    Thanks!

    The Time Capsule is telling you that you do not have it configured correctly to work most effectively on your network.
    Double NAT is usually an indication that you another router "upstream" from the Time Capsule....(you might call this device your "modem", but it is likely a router). This can cause network slow downs and IP address conflicts.
    Both your "modem" and the Time Capsule are trying to perform routing duties. You only want one device on a network to handle the routing chores.
    If you want to pursue this further, what is the make and model number of your "modem"?

  • Time Capsule hard drive failure

    Hello, all
    I have a 500 GB Time Capsule that is about four years old. I use it to back up my MacBook Air and I also use it for file storage. Recently the HD has become erratic, in that it appears on Finder under Shared sometimes but not always. The wireless router part is still working fine. I can usually get the HD to reappear but it disappears again eventually. I can get it back by unplugging and replugging the TC, but I tried a hard reset and that didn't bring it back. I have backed up all the files I had stored on there as advised by the Apple Store Genius (see next paragraph).
    I took it to the Apple Store and the Genius said that he thinks it is failing. He was not able to see the TC/HD wirelessly but was able to access it by plugging in a cable. He expressed surprise that my TC has lasted four years!!! He said I should replace it.
    I then went to the online Apple Store and read the TC reviews, which contained quite a few reviews that report HD failure (mostly power failure, if I'm not mistaken) after 18 months or so! Some suggested that a good solution would be to get an Airport Extreme plus a USB hard drive of some other brand, not Apple. Many of these report power failure, which is not my problem. I still have power; apparently hard drive failure.
    This sounded like a good idea, so today I went to London Drugs in Vancouver (an Apple retailer) and the salesman there (should be fairly unbiased) thought I should get a new TC rather than the two-piece solution just because it was simpler. He also said that in fact there about three HD manufacturers who produce all hard drives and that any one would have about the same frequency of failure, Apple include because they don't manufacture their own.
    So I'm ready to replace my old TC with the new one I bought, but I'd like to get any suggestions the community might have. I can see the advantage of the TC because it's an all-in-one. I haven't opened it yet, so I'll await your well-informed input.
    Thanks so much!

    I think the TC is a much better buy.. If only for this reason.. the USB hard disk on the AEBS is dog slow.. whereas the TC internal drive is at least same as standard single disk NAS.. overall for what you get the price of a 2TB TC vs the 2TB USB disk plus AEBS is about right.. the 3TB TC is much poorer value.
    Read the review.
    http://www.anandtech.com/show/4577/airport-extreme-5th-gen-and-time-capsule-4th- gen-review-faster-wifi-/4
    It is fairly well done, but not everything is correct.. the stuff about the fan turning on is wrong.. it has the same issue as the old one. That is overheating, no ventilation and the fan does not turn on, has no outside vent anyway.
    But look at the internal vs usb speed of hdd.. that should convince you of the value of the TC.. if you are using anything but wireless.
    BTW the issue with the Gen 1 is still more likely to be the power supply.. The original 500GB hard disk was a Seagate Server ES drive.. the only server standard drive in the whole TC series although it was always promoted as having server standard drives..
    IMHO a repair of the power supply would get it up and running again. Very extermely unlikely that drive will die in such a manner.. even if it was to go bad they  tend to stay bad.. not come on again when you power cycle.. but power supplies sure do.
    I have repaired dozens of them.. haven't ever come across a dead 500GB drive yet.. seen a few 1TB, both WD and noisy hitachi.. but even so not that many..
    Lots and zillions of dead power supplies though.
    https://sites.google.com/site/lapastenague/a-deconstruction-of-routers-and-modem s/apple-time-capsule-repair
    At least you can pull open the TC and remove the hard disk and wipe it.
    Interesting the Apple guys are surprised at the 4year life span.. obviously intended for you to buy a new one much sooner than that.

  • Time Capsule as a hard drive missing data

    I've had a time capsule for a few years now, and have been using it both through Time Machine to back up my computer, and as an external hard drive to store photos and videos. The hard drive on my computer had been reaching capacity, so I sought to move my pictures onto the time capsule (as you would on a hard drive) and then proceed to delete the files from the hard drive on my laptop. I was doing this again last night and went to double check some photos I had stored a few months ago, only to find that I can no longer access them! The strange thing is, the file names of my lost photos are still visible, but I am unable to access them.
    Can anyone help solve this? I don't want to continue to move photos onto my time capsule if it will continue to be unreliable for storing data. I may just resort to purchasing a separate hard drive for my file storage, and simply using my time capsule for time machine.
    I am using a 2008 macbook and running snow leopard (OSX 10.6.8). I purchased my 1TB time capsule in 2010.

    Can anyone help solve this? I don't want to continue to move photos onto my time capsule if it will continue to be unreliable for storing data. I may just resort to purchasing a separate hard drive for my file storage, and simply using my time capsule for time machine.
    Conceptually I think there’s a tendency to view the Time Capsule as a kind of fail-safe storehouse for computer data, almost as if it were a traditional time capsule preserving physical objects for future generations, decades or even centuries later. In reality Apple’s Time Capsule relies on a hard disk drive that is pretty much the same as, and likely no better at preserving data than, the disk in your MacBook. Thus if you copy files to the TC and delete them from your MacBook, you're simply moving stuff around. You still only have a single copy of the files, and they’re still stored on a prone-to-failure hard disk drive. And in the process the basic backup function of the Time Capsule has been utterly defeated.
    That has never stopped me from doing exactly what you’re doing, but I tend not to store anything on the TC except useless crap that I won’t miss too much when the TC disk fails, corruption or a read/write error occurs when connected to the TC, or the whole thing just burns up due to overheating. I gather you value your images and videos more highly than this, and consequently I think your idea about purchasing an external hard drive is probably sensible. If connected directly to your MacBook, it should provide more reliability and speed, and you can then also use Time Machine to back it up to your TC as well.
    Unfortunately, I think the inaccessible zero KB files shown in your “2009” folder are gone, if they were ever really there. I wonder if when you copied them to the TC back on April 2 there was some kind of connection failure or write error that you didn’t notice, which aborted the process, leaving only these empty ghost entries behind in the disk’s index. In any event, it looks like there’s nothing there now.
    You also seem to be running very low on disk space and might want to think about a new 2 or 3TB TC.

  • Can I Use a 2.5 Laptop Hard Drive in Time Capsule?

    Ok. So the original Hard Drive is Dead. I have a 640 GB 2.5 Laptop Hard Drive lying around.
    My question is, Can I put the 2.5 HD in the Time Capsule instead of a 3.5 HD Repacement?
    Running Mountain Lion on iMac. Thanks in Advance!

    SBeattie2 wrote:
    You could try a 3.5" to 2.5" drive adapter - that would allow you to properly mount the 2.5" drive inside the time capsule.
    Actually the 2.5" still needs to sit right next to the hard drive frame.. as the cables will not stretch very far.. but the 2.5" works fine in the TC.. and it is simple since sata connectors are now common across 2.5" and 3.5" drives.
    The actual disassembly of the TC see here.. you come in from the bottom.
    http://www.ifixit.com/Device/Apple_Time_Capsule
    The temperature gauge is completely useless.. you can actually remove it completely.. Apple measures the temperature via the sensor (a backwards transistor).. and does nothing about it.. the fan never turns on.. not in Gen 1, Gen 2 or Gen 3.. they seem to have relented a bit in Gen 4... perhaps due to the level of complaints about overheating.
    One great thing about running it with 2.5" drive.. you can remove the power supply which will be on its last legs and get a plugpack.. 5v 3A, and run the TC from that.
    See https://sites.google.com/site/lapastenague/a-deconstruction-of-routers-and-modem s/apple-time-capsule-repair
    Repair method 3.

  • EHDs and Time Capsule

    Okay I know this has been dealt with numerous times but....
    I need to get an external hard drive here in Canada where the choices are not huge. I need a reliable 500Gb-1 T which requires no setup and that will work seamlessly with Time Machine and not fry from overheating.
    I am tempted by Time Capsule. It may be overkill for me and possibily slow if used as wireless.
    Also can I store really big jpgs on that EHD and remove them from the iMac without having them overwritten or having to partition the EHD (beyond me)?
    thanks in advance.

    Mazeppa, I can't speak from experience to the heart of your question about Time Capsule, but here's some information about other external HDD options. LaCie Firewire drives are plug and play and are bootable, meaning you boot your Mac from them in addition to booting from your internal HDD. I would recommend getting a tripple interface drive: USB, Firewire 400 and Firewire 800, allowing the greatest compatibility.
    Check [here| for their Tripple interface 1TB drive, a really excellent option. This would need to be reformatted to work with Time Machine, however. This is simple, and I or others could walk you through it using Disk Utility found in applications > utilities. LaCie drives, if (re-) formatted to HFS+ (Mac OS Extended) can be used with Time Machine. See the article [here|http://www.lacie.com/more/?id=10050].
    Some new LaCie drives come formatted this way, such as the [d2 Quadra|http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10894] and it's [faster cousin|http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=11022] which you probably would not need because its improvements are in the speed of eSATA connectivity which your machine likely does not have the capability to utilize.
    Check [here|http://macworld.pricegrabber.com/searchattrib.php/page_id=11/formkeyword=laciebig+disk+extreme/rd=1/st=query] for better prices on drives. The first one listed is the basic LaCie tripple interface.
    I'm curious to hear what others say about using Capsule as a normal external HDD, with or without partitions. Partitioning is within your reach, it takes just a few steps using Disk Utility.
    Hope this helps a bit ~jeremy

  • My time capsule shuts down very frequently. Wondering if it's a software or firmware problem?

    My time capsule is shutting down with great reglularity in the past few weeks. I have the latest software upgrade and I keep unplugging and it reboots, but then usually shuts down within an hour or two again. Wondering what might be causing this or if I have to replace it.

    The Time Capsule may be overheating. Try placing it on a laptop cooler with plenty of free air space all around.

  • Does Time Capsule need to be plugged into anything other than power to work

    Sorry if this is a real newbie question. I don't own a Time Capsule yet, but am thinking of buying one. What I am wondering is, can I just hide the Time Capsule somewhere in the house (away from burglars) and just have it plugged into a power outlet - i.e. no ethernet/DSL modem - and still have my Mac talk to it? (I already own an Airport Extreme and that's connected to my DSL modem.) I am not sure about this because the online manual talks about plugging it into a DSL modem as well.
    Thanks in advance.
    Phil

    Welcome to the discussions!
    One of the configuration options for the Time Capsule is to set it up to "join a wireless network". In this type of configuration, backups occur only over wireless.
    As long as the Time Capsule is located where it can receive a good wireless signal, backups will occur correctly. A cabinet may not be a very good location for the Time Capsule for several reasons...one, the Time Capsule needs plenty of free airspace to run without overheating and two, the wireless signal may not be strong enough to be reliable in the cabinet location, especially if this happens to be a metal cabinet.
    Backups will occur much faster if you can connect the Time Capsule to the AirPort Extreme using an ethernet cable. Or, if it's not possible to run an ethernet cable to the desired location of the Time Capsule, you might want to take a look a a pair of ethernet powerline adapters to accomplish the same goal by using the AC wiring in your home to transmit the ethernet signal.

  • Dead Time Capsule

    My Time Capsule (1TB) lasted a few more months than expected. Bought it in 3/2008. Got a message that it was overheating and 20 minutes later it died. I called Apple support. They were willing to replace it with another 1TB drive, but would not let me open it to remove the hard drive. I talked to some supervisor and explained the fact that I needed to get my data off the TC before turning it in, but was told that if it was opened I would be charged for new TC. They wanted to get my credit card info before proceding. As I had already read about the failured of early TCs, I had already taken out the hard drive and put it in an Acomdata encolsure to get my data off of it... The supervisor I spoke to acknowleged that there was an issue with my batch of TCs and was willing to replace it even though it was out of warrantee (bought it in 3/2008), but would not let me take it apart to retrieve my information. Even after a long discussion my choice was to send back an intact TC with my data, or be screwed out of the $500 I originally paid if I removed the hard drive. Since I already removed the HD, I'm screwed. Was hoping for some better resolution from Apple since this is a known problem, but couldn't convince him. Will try with again with another rep later...

    Same problem here...I guess we're joining the club!
    I was using the Time Capsule as an external HD, so there's data on it that exists nowhere else. Apple already sent me a replacement, but won't let me get the data off of the original myself as it will void the warranty. They said I can use a company called "Drivesavers" who will rescue it and not void the warranty, but I need to see the cost of it first.
    It's hard to decided what your data is worth, and it's frustrating that Apple is forcing us to decide! Especially when I'm capable of removing the drive and recasing it myself.

  • The new Time Capsule is amazing

    I just got my new Time Capsule with 2TB storage. It replaced the previous generation Time Capsule, again with 2TB of storage.
    In my network I have a Retina Macbook Pro (early 2013 model) and a 11" Macbook Air (mid 2013). My internet connection is 150Mbit/sec download and 5Mbit/Upload.
    With the previous Time Capsule my rMBP would achieve a maximum of 15MB/sec download and my MBA 16,5/sec.
    Now, with the new Time Capsule, my rMBP achieved a whopping 17MB/sec!!! I still haven't tested the MBA, but I am confident it can achieve up to 18MB/sec (my maximum download speed).
    I can only say that I am amazed how good the new Time Capsule is. Kudos to Apple!

    The Gen1 hard disk was a noisy beast although you would have to be up close to hear it still. Modern slow green drives are much better and run cooler.
    The new TC runs the standard WD green drive.
    See the review here which has a tear down included.
    http://www.anandtech.com/show/4577/airport-extreme-5th-gen-and-time-capsule-4th- gen-review-faster-wifi-/4
    The problem in Gen1 was a philosophy and a take over by the Interior Decorators at Apple rather than the Engineers. The excellent fan control built into the unit was dismissed as Overheated Engineer Imagination.. OEI for short. The fact that they stuffed a hard disk and power supply into a box slightly bigger than the Extreme.. had nothing to do with subsequent problems.. gollum.. gollum.. according to the Interior Decorator department. Engineers did actually calculate the reactor melt down temperature and turned on the fan to prevent said event.. they turned it on at 100% speed and 100% noise. Because it was seconds away from disaster..
    Gen4 the design finally used the fan properly and offers some proportional control.. but you cannot expect no noise out of a plastic box dissipating 30W when it is doing the full job, backups, routing, wireless, gigabit. It still fails in having no fresh air inlet. So stand it on feet to stop the heat build up underneath.
    During normal duties though and in normal weather.. you will hardly ever hear it.

  • Is Time Capsule a product that works?

    I moved from Windows to MAC since I was tired from debugging and troubleshooting.
    Time Capsule is reminding me of the old days; maybe because it is a time machine!
    Since I bought it in March 2008, I had so many issues from initial backup interrupted and so on. Now and since a months it is not backing up and it takes more than one hour preparing for backup until an error message that comes at the end saying either time capsule is read only or a problem was found that could not be fixed.
    I want to know how do I format this think and start fresh? or am I wasting my time since it will work for one week and then stops again? Pls. not all firmwares are up to date.
    Thanks,
    Imad

    (Originally posted Mar'08 - by yours truly)
    Here's what an Apple Tech did with me today. #1) In Airport Utility make sure that all names for our TC and Net have only 8 characters or less, with no spaces, apostrophe's or underscores. #2) Make sure in Finder Prefs you check the box that says "show connected servers on desktop". #3) If you've never gone into your System Prefs "Sharing" folder and put something in the Computer Name Box (such as what you call your HD), TC/TM will not know what it is they're supposed to be making a 'disk image' for; that's the main reason for that error. Hope it helps!
    (PS, there seems to be an issue with 'overheating' of TC, I've taken the advice of many of the faithful and am now using a USB flatfan underneath my TC; and have propped my TC up an inch with short stacks at the 4corners) good luck!

  • After 7.5.1 Time Capsule firmware update -- bad news

    Has anyone else had a new 2TB 5GHz Time Capsule, with factory firmware 7.5 with a fan that always runs AND after updating to the recent 7.5.1 update, the fan stops running -- but then AirPort Admin reports it is overheating?
    AppleCare seems to have never heard about this issue...

    So here's the good news and the not-so-good news...
    The good news is that the genius was able to reproduce my issue and replaced the unit.
    The not-so-good news is that the new unit's fan -- so far -- has never turned on. It gets warm to the touch in normal operation. So far, no overheat alerts. Will see how long it lasts...
    Net-net: if your fan doesn't turn off, and the firmware update doesn't agree with it, your local Apple Store or the Apple Experts by phone are your best avenue to resolution.

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