cinema display recognized, but black with non-working power button

I am embarrassed to say that after working fine for five-ish days, I woke my machine up from sleep this morning and I am having the same problem again.

This time I swapped the power supply/cord/module from one 23" to the other 23" and tried repeating the problem with the newer display. Sure enough, now the new display is having the same issue. So I am thinking it is power supply/cord/module like some of you have said.

That is pretty sad considering the cord gets no abuse sitting under my desk. It should last forever. I have an appt. at the Apple Store for Friday. I will report back.

I am having the same problems as most of these people. Power on, Black screen, can't turn off unless i just unplug, sometimes it works other times it doesn't. I brought it into a macstore and it worked fine. Then I brought it home and it worked for a day, then shut down. I do think there is some truth to the recent downloads affecting the operations of the Cinema Display 23" ( maybe the itunes or the recent quicktime upgrade) i installed both just before the problem arised. The question is: is it the power block for the display? is it the display itself? or is it a software problem with the G5 and the Display working together? I need to know cause my warranty plan is almost up! any help would be appreciated!

From the other posts it seems to be affecting not just G5, but Intel, and G4 as well.

For those of you who have the problem and have a second display can you pull up the display options. For the Cinema Display do you get three or four tabs? When it's not working I only get three tabs. When it works, I get a fourth tab which has the options. From this it's almost acting as if the computer is not properly detecting the display. Once the computer has been running a while and getting hotter the display starts to work and the 4th tab appears.

Is it possible that somehow the software update did something to the power adapter boxes and maybe thats why those people who have gotten new ones have no more troubles?

I will be asking about this on Friday when I go to the Apple Store. I guess it is possible. There could be a chip in the power supply that requires a firmware update.

Good question.

Well I did an experiment and yesterday I unplugged the wires for the Firewire ports and USB hub in the display. I haven't had a problem with the display. I am going to plug them back in and see if the problem comes back, if it comes back I guessing the power adapter is bad. I will report back.

Well I performed my new experiment with some very interesting results. As I mentioned earlier I unplugged the USB hub and Firewire Ports cables and the problem went away. I then plugged both cables back in and the black screen on boot and out of sleep came back. I then unplugged the monitors Firewire cable and the problem went away again. So I figured it had to be the power adapter running right on the edge. I called Apple and spoke to a technician and he said to bring both units in and they would troubleshoot it for free. After hanging up I contemplated taking the units in but had one more experiment to try. See I have an acomdata Mini-Pal external hard drive that has USB and Firewire hubs in it, and I wasn’t about to drag it along as well, so I disconnected the drive from the Mini and Plugged the monitor USB and Firewire cable into the Mini and fired it up and….. all was well; yes the Mini turned on fine and came out of sleep with out a hitch. It seems that one of these Firewire devices is drawing more current than they should or the power adapter is not supplying what it should. I can plug in the external drive or the Fire wire ports on my monitor but NOT both. My bet is on the power adapter. Apple will only sell you one if they have done the troubleshooting for you, but they can be found on the web

I did the same test -- swapped the power block with that of a friend and it's definitely the block. With his power supply the monitor came up instantly and behaves normally.

the big question -- why did all our power blocks fail simultaneously???

i figured my problem out it was the power supply "brick" that connects the display to the G5. i had to buy a new one which costs 66$ when you trade your old one in. Otherwise it is around ninety$

chief567 where did you buy a power brick for $66 with a trade in?

I am having the exact same problem. Seems to have been going on all summer. At first I didn't realize it was a monitor issue...

Will try the itunes updates and see what happens... 🙂

I have a PowerBook G4 and 23" cinema display and have never had a problem until I downloaded the recent iTunes update. The cinema display is recognized, but black with non-working power button. I read all the comments and found what works. If I unplug the power adapter from the displays cord (not the power supply that plugs into the wall, but the cord that connect the display to the power adapter) and plug it back in at least two times, the display magically comes to life again. It doesn't happen on the first try, but definitely by the third try...I am not sure if speed between unpluggings and pluggings is a factor, but it seems to make me feel better! Hope this helps! Don't return your display! It is not a display issue...it's an iTunes issue...I am sure of it...

I'm really thinking its a software or firmware issue too. For awhile I did start thinking it was a power adapter issue after seeing people getting new ones and not having a problem anymore. But, I also do the unplugging/plugging in thing and it gets my display to turn on, so if the display turns on. If it was a power adapter issue, I'm pretty sure the display would never turn on regardless of what you do. So I'm thinking that the new power adapters were made after the updates, and are unaffected. For all the people that can get their displays to turn on, I'd say wait it out a little while before buying a new power adapter, wait for new updates or the new OS coming out to see if it will eventually solve itself. And if it doesn't, then I guess we'll all have to fork out the $66 for a new power adapter. Dunno about the rest of you, but I can deal with the annoyance of this problem if it will eventually be solved rather than forking out the cash for a new adapter.

Again, how is it a firmware issue when it's happening to the 23" aluminum model that is connected to my wifes Gateway? And how could an iTunes update on PC have the same effect as the Mac version? Now granted there could be two different problems causing the behavior, but I think we need to rule out what is in common before we head down two separate paths here. And I haven't seen the commonalities ruled out yet.

Has anyone looked at heat? It seems to me that if unplugging the monitor for a period of time is a fix that something in the unpowered/rest state might be a clue.
- Does the power adapter get too hot?
- Does the power converter(s) within the monitor get too hot?
- What about the LEDs? Are there other systems within the monitor that could be effected by heat?

Remember that even in it's "dead"/non-responsive state the monitor is still recognized by the system indicating at least enough power in use to generate a signal the system can "see"

I think I'll go look for some type of thermometer and stick to the power adapter to see if there is any difference over time.

You misundertood when I said unplugging and plugging back in, its not unplug it for a few minutes then plug it back in, its unplug and plug back in repeatedley, quickly for that matter. And my display won't turn on after being off all night, so I don't see it being a heat problem, nor is my adapter hot at any point. As hard as it is to believe, this whole problem started after the July 18th update, and that's too much of a coincidence that all these people have had the same problem around the same time. Now I don't know if these updates caused the power adapter to malfunction making us need to get a new one or not, hence why I'm saying to wait it out a little bit. As for your problem, with it being hooked to a PC, thats odd, I doubt Apple is making updates for Microsoft, its all a different monster. But if you're having the same problem we're all having, who knows. Is there a timer in all the power adapters that Apple hooked up so all the adapters would malfunction at the same time? haha.