Time Capsule Repair

Some are claiming that Apple's Time Capsule router/NAS devices are dying after eighteen months of usage. The culprit seems to be the power supply. Apple has even decided to replace some that were beyond their warranty, but that's only in the US. Sucks to live somewhere else. No matter where you live if you have a Time Capsule who's LED flickers at power and then goes out then this article is for you.


The irony of something so short lived called a Time Capsule not withstanding , this is a major pain in the ass for consumers. This inconvenience can be compounded when your Apple authorized reseller doesn't know what's wrong and simply suggests you buy another one. Whether they do this out of ignorance or greed is not certain. One major source of frustration is that Apple has not built the devices to be repaired. Once the device has been opened a replacement power supply could easily be installed in minutes.

So what do you do if you have one of these busted little babies? Use an external power supply like the ones used to power external hard drives and a do a little moding to revive your Time Capsule.

1) Peel off the bottom rubber and disassemble the time capsule making sure to remove the hard drive. Get more instructions on this here.

2) Remove the power supply. And desolder the cables shown here.


3) The cables are twisted into three groups.
The single cable is the 12v connector.
The five cables group is the ground
And the four cables is the 5v connector

4) These can be connected to an power supply such as would be used for powering and external power supply.

5) I got the idea to use a molex connector from this site ( as well as all the pinout information)

6) If you want to mount a female molex connector into your time capsule you'll have to enlarge the existing whole.