Q: Thunderbolt Display - Just Plain Dead

Some things break - that's why I went ahead and ponied up the $100 for an Extended AppleCare warranty when I purchased my Thunderbolt Display. Do the same when I purchase any Apple equipment. Just be glad you got by so cheap! At least it wasn't a logic board on your MacBook Pro!

Happy to read your 'rant'...

Clinton

Glad you were able to get it repaired - I usually think of the expected lifetime of any computer equipment to be three years: HD and SSD manufacturers usually have three year warranties, and with Apple products you can extend the warranty for three years. Memory lasts a lifetime, of course, but by the time you're ready to replace RAM you find that yours now has little value.

Good luck to you in the future!

Clinton

You are covered by a 2 year warranty under EU law.

Use your rights and demand a refund from the store. Here is documentation from the apple site that you can print off and take with you.

Especially the URL.

http://www.apple.com/uk/legal/statutory-warranty/

This is why you should buy direct from the manufacturer. It's easier for the consumer. It states defects arising after you take delivery. A power supply in a static object should not go faulty so it was obviously an inherent fault. It's also not fit for purpose if it was only a few days out of warranty. You should have recieved better service IMO.

The UK/EU consumer protection laws are much better than the US counterparts. They actually do have a two-year warranty scheme. Unfortunately, not so in the US.

I, too, am in the US and I went ahead and bought the AppleCare Protection Plan wlong with my Apple Thunderbolt Display. If you're out of warranty and there have been no recalls on the display (and there haven't) you're just out of luck, I'm afraid to say.

You really did get by cheap at $107 - next time, just remember to purchase AppleCare for any high-ticket Apple product!

Clinton

for those who have nothing to loose - no warranty - no Apple care etc.

I had a dead display before yesterday no warranty and 900 km to the closest Apple Store.

So I decided to call a friend - now my display is working again.

The problem was the power supply in my case - it got stuck in protection mode after one of the capacitors died.

So, we took the thing out and works without it. Apparently is enough to have a working one.

All back to normal for now. Happy to get this fixed. It cost me 20 bucks plus beer.

See the attachement for details.

Be carefull when you open the monitor - the power supply might be charged long before unppluged.

Use patience, and propper tools.

Awesome, I'm really glad I found your response. I do have a couple questions for you though.

• What was the status of your display when you undertook the repair? (i.e. like mine, was everything minus the backlight functional?)
• What's the best way to do this? Wear protective gloves and just try shorting out one cap then the other while the display is operational?
• How did you figure out which one was bad?

Thanks for the help

Hi Ben,

As I wrote in the previous comment, the display was dead - actually in protection mode, no power in USB, ethernet, etc.

We took out the parts and measure them.. the one who failed was left out.

The display is working well without the second capacitor (if that is the correct name for it).

I would never advice to open and work on a device while is plugged in...

Take care, make sure you use the propper tools and always check twice or three times before do anything.

Keep in mind that are many different ways a device goes wrong...

All this electronic devices are functioning with smoke, once the smoke is getting out, your device is not going to work anymore

good luck!

To be fair, a warranty is supposed to be an indicator of the manufacturer's confidence in their product and its expected lifetime. To offer only one year on such an expensive product does not speak well to that - it suggests that Apple only reasonably expects its products to last about a year. If a product is well built, and failures are statistically insignificant, it costs the manufacturer next to nothing to guarantee a product for longer than a year. The only reason not to is it if would be cost prohibitive without a further subsidy (AppleCare). This effectively means a 1 year warranty is an advertisement that Apple expects enough of them to fail in the second year that it would be too expensive to support/repair them (not very confidence inspiring).

I've given Apple quite a bit of brand loyalty, and most of their products are great, but it's important to understand what they are telling us with policies like this.

Turned on my laptop connected to my 27" Thunderbolt display just the other day, smoke from bottom speaker grills and found the power supply fried inside. Just glad it didn't burn down the house when I was gone. Called apple tech support no help since a few months out of warranty. Bad Apple. Also have two 24" ACD's that I'm replacing the logic boards in because the LED drivers have failed "I HOPE".

In reply to Vrun (and 2 years later). Your post helped me back in late 2014 as my Thunderbolt display exhibited the same fault. Different capacitor, but on the same rail. I did as you did and just popped it off.

2 years later it went again. That rail has 4 MLCC caps on it in 2 pairs and in my case another one had developed a low resistance.

They appear to be 1206 1uF caps and are usually at about 25-26V (so use 50V replacements). In my case I didn't have any handy so used 4 leaded 1uF 50V MLCC caps in their place. It's ugly, but they fit under the display assembly and are not as prone to solder damage as the SMD originals.

Hope this helps someone else.

wow.. I've been searching for this information for around 3 hours..  Thanks !  Sorry but im adding some Meta descriptions for future searches

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