Just bought a 24" Display and every now and then I hear a "tick" noise around the speakers. I turned out the sound to check and the noise still occurs.
-When the display is at full brightness - continuous buzzing.
-When brightness is decreased it turns into a "tick".
-Was not occurring out of the box. Started approximately 3 weeks after purchase.
- No USB items connected.
- Connected to MB Pro.
There's obviously a quality issue occurring here...
I encountered this problem for the first time today when I setup my computer gear in a new room:
-When the display is at full brightness - continuous buzzing.
-When brightness is decreased it turns into a "tick".
-It was not occurring out of the box.
-No USB items connected.
-Connected to my MB Pro.
In the room to which I moved the display, we have "dimmable room lights". When I turn these lights off the noise immediately stops. Problem fixed....
Try turning off other powered devices including the lights in your room/house and see if this also helps you.
I bought this display last Wednesday and I noticed this noise from the second day.
I returned it to the Apple Store yesterday and I had my money back.
After having read this discussion, I thought it was the only way to solve this issue.
I hope that a new version of Cinema Display (maybe 27") is coming in June
just thought i'd post this, wondering if this is unique. i've been running the 24" Cinema Display for 4 months. For the first 3-4 weeks, the display would tick for about 30 minutes, but once warmed up, the tick would go away. After the 3-4 weeks, no ticking noise, haven't heard it tick in the last 3 months.
i'm assuming it was just the display warming up, but after enough use, the display component assembly "settles in", like a new house with creakiness. the new house needs to settle on its foundation. absolutely no excuse for expensive electronic equipment, however.
The continual clicking of this monitor is very distracting. Every thirty seconds or so, either singly or in clusters of two or three light clicks. Every half-hour or thereabouts there's a louder click.
This is a replacement monitor, one week old. The previous (returned) one was exactly the same.
I have successfully remedied this problem by using external power supply to power my macbook pro instead of using the internal one built into the display.
My problem is not a ticking but a buzzing. I have ruled out everything mentioned so far:
- changed out power cord for monitor
- turned off all "dimming" lights or other electronic devices within close proximity
- removed all usb plugs from monitor
- unplugged "magsafe" connector from MBP
- tried different electrical outlet
The only thing that makes the buzzing stop is unplugging the whole **** monitor. If I decrease the brightness, it just slows the buzzing down to intermittent buzzing. Turn it up, and it's a constant buzzing.
Funny thing, it's just load enough to make me want to punch my fist through the monitor, but not enough to push me to take it in to Apple.
The monitor is about 5 month old 24 inch, and it started doing this a couple of days ago.
I experienced the same thing here in Canada. My monitor is 2 days old only.
I'm currently using Windows 7 along with my 13-inch MacBook Pro (2009). I didn't test in Snow Leopard yet.
By default, the monitor is set to full brightness. It seems that when you have a MacBook connected using the monitor's MagSafe Connector AND the display set to full brightness (default), the internal power supply does not like it.
It is especially true during hot days, because it puts even more pressure on the unit.
A friend of mine is an Authorized Apple Technician. He confirmed that the issue comes from the power supply condensators. Not to add any concerns, but my Time Capsule (which is now under some sort of recall since this week) made the same exact sound before passing away. Condensators again.
Well, I can describe at best the issue as follows:
- At near or full brightness, the monitor makes a hissing, electrical and continuous sound;
- At around mid to zero brightness, the sound is ticking, like if a butterfly was stuck in the machine.
However, and this did the trick for me, after a few minutes at 75-80% brightness (this is way enough, at 100% the screen is too bright), the noise faded away and did not return.
Maybe you should try the same. Changing brightness is not enough; a little bit of wait is required afterwards, to let the chance to the power supply to cool down. The screen overall temperature will also decrease.
Same problem here, 24" screen is about 6 weeks old...
I'd been using the screen with my new MacBook Pro 13" 2.4 continuously for about a month, never unplugging from the mains (big project!), then just the other day, the charge dropped to about 90%, the orange light was on the power adapter, and the charge didn't increase.
Then I noticed the ticking noise as described on this thread. I at first thought it was from the MBP so I closed all docs, shut it down and ran it through 2 full battery discharge cycles. It charged fine to 100% on its standard power supply.
Then plugged it back into the screen... and the ticking returned... and I realised it was coming from the screen itself. The noise is brightness-related: intermittent ticking up to about 60%, then constant electrical buzzing above this. I couldn't find a correlation to whether the USB was connected or not.
(Thankfully, the screen charged the MBP back up to 100%... though I think the issue is definitely a power-management glitch in the screen itself after the way the issue originally presented.)
After reading these posts, I changed the brightness, upping it to where the noise became constant (and less irritating, distracting - easier to zone out from)... and after a couple of hours at this brightness, reducing the brightness back down made the noise disappear completely.
Now, the screen is silent again at lower brightness, though increasing the brightness triggers the constant electrical hum.
Just glad that the distracting - and unnerving - tick tick tick has stopped (at least for now).
Hope this isn't another 23" pink screen issue. Been there, done that!
Upshot - try upping the brightness until the noise becomes constant... leaving it at this setting for a few hours... and then reducing the brightness.
Interestingly, 15 hours of usage later (another long day), and the ticking has started again. Just upped the brightness a couple of notches until the electrical buzzing goes constant and will leave it there for a few hours before resetting to the lower level. Hopefully, then, it'll be silent again; but for how long?
I am also experiencing the same ticking/buzzing issue with the 24" display. Bought it about two weeks before it was discontinued. The moment I plugged it in I heard the high pitch buzzing sound. I was sure it was a power supply problem, so I sent it back and got a replacement (the 24" was still available). The new one also had the exact issue. By the time I wanted to replace this one too, it got discontinued so I asked for a power supply replacement hoping that will fix the issue. After replacing the power supply I bought a power filter and isolator thinking that maybe the problem is with some noise in the power signal itself (some users reported that room lights and other electronic equipment may cause this behavior), but guess what..the buzzing is still here. And btw..both screens had one or two dead pixels. As an Apple customer for years, I expected more from this product. Just sent another complaining email to my store and waiting for some kind of response...
The new 27" monitor that I mentioned above has a problem that apple engineers are working on. The sounds seems to occasionally fail and I have to cycle the power for it to work. It appears to be a driver problem from what I can tell. I will end by saying that Apple pushes technology beyond its competitors so I expect a few bumps along the way. They've treated me well since my apple][ days, so I'm willing to continue giving them the benefit of the doubt.
