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[Help] F4-210 starts up then shuts down and dead.
Posted: 14 Dec 2025, 02:34
by ps2g45
When I plug in the power, the NAS starts up but after a bunch of drive activity, it turns off and can't be turned on again. I have to unplug power then plug back in. Regardless it will not stay on, always goes through the same routine shutting off. The routine:
drive activity
2 beeps
drive activity
1 beep
drive activity
1 beep
brief drive activity
shuts off, all lights off, complete power off
It will not restart with front button, must disconnect/reconnect power to get any activity, but it always follows the above routine and shuts down completely.
Any idea how I can get it to stay on?
Re: [Help] F4-210 starts up then shuts down and dead.
Posted: 14 Dec 2025, 18:43
by TMbuddy
Hello! Based on our inference, we suspect that the issue may be caused by an inward depression of the power button. Please try removing all the hard drives and observe whether the automatic shutdown phenomenon still occurs when the device is powered on with no drives installed.
Re: [Help] F4-210 starts up then shuts down and dead.
Posted: 08 Jan 2026, 01:16
by ps2g45
Sorry for the late response, I didn't have notifications on. I removed the drives and it stays powered on now, attempting to connect gives me an error message: No hard drive detected! Please install hard drive(s) and try again!
Progress - but now how do I fix the device so I can reinstall the drives?
Re: [Help] F4-210 starts up then shuts down and dead.
Posted: 08 Jan 2026, 09:15
by ps2g45
I decided to reinstall the drives and restart the NAS. It worked, I have it up and running. the Raid array is full so I'm deleting old/unnecessary files to try to clear up some storage but other than that, it seems to be working fine.
Re: [Help] F4-210 starts up then shuts down and dead.
Posted: 08 Jan 2026, 17:44
by Gremlin
I have an old dead F2-221on my spares shelf, which basically has a very similar (I would like to say 'same') front panel based on my various searches of Ebay The power switch will rear up and bite you when you least expect it

Re: [Help] F4-210 starts up then shuts down and dead.
Posted: 09 Jan 2026, 03:09
by ps2g45
Thanks for your note. I don't think it was the power switch, it worked once I removed all the drives, then continued to work once I put them back in. I think it had something to do with my raid volume being virtually full. I've been deleting files from it and it's still running 2 days later.
Re: [Help] F4-210 starts up then shuts down and dead.
Posted: 09 Jan 2026, 06:14
by Gremlin
I thought that as well. Until the little plastic "hinge" that actually makes the pressure pad for the electronic switch on the circuit board parted company with the case. For a short while I was able to apply pressure to the switch itself, then that stopped working as well at which point I called it a day and waited for a similar antique to show up on ebay at a reasonable price

Re: [Help] F4-210 starts up then shuts down and dead.
Posted: 11 Jan 2026, 01:47
by ps2g45
This is not solved anymore - now it shuts off completely after a few hours. The only way to get it to start up is to unplug and replug the power plug. No apparent error messages showing up, it'll just be completely dead when I go back to my laptop after a few hours doing other things. This has happened 3 times now.
The 2 things I changed:
1. I enabled AFP file service
2. I added a 2TB USB drive to backup files from the raid storage to clear up space.
So I disabled AFP and will wait to see if it still dies.
Re: [Help] F4-210 starts up then shuts down and dead.
Posted: 11 Jan 2026, 04:46
by crisisacting
This might be a case of a failing power adapter, if your logs don't show any failures.
Re: [Help] F4-210 starts up then shuts down and dead.
Posted: 12 Jan 2026, 01:34
by ps2g45
Gremlin wrote: ↑09 Jan 2026, 06:14
I thought that as well. Until the little plastic "hinge" that actually makes the pressure pad for the electronic switch on the circuit board parted company with the case. For a short while I was able to apply pressure to the switch itself, then that stopped working as well at which point I called it a day and waited for a similar antique to show up on ebay at a reasonable price
I’m thinking you may be on the right track. One dumb question - does your front power switch have a light in it? Mine doesn’t and I was thinking that it used to have a green light when powered on.