Q: 24 inch LED cinema Display momentarily goes black

I had the intermittent on - off thing. Now I just have the off thing!

This is my second 24" display. The first went pop (literally) and was replaced. Now I'm 14 months down the road with the replacement and it's broken too. Very poor considering the initial cost of these displays. There's definitely a problem with these monitors, be it design or QC. When they work they are glorious but I couldn't recommend them. Irritatingly, because of the cost of these things I feel that I'm going to have to try to get it repaired. Goodness knows how much that will cost??

I have had the same issue with my 24 LCD Cinema Display.

It is plugged into my brand new MacBook Pro 2.4Ghz Intel i5. It blacks out for under a second intermittently and completely unpredictably. Sometimes fine for a day or two, then blinks off three times in a row. I took it in to the Apple store on Regent Street, London to be fixed under warranty and waited a month to get it back. They replaced the logic board and the power supply and said they had tested on a MacBook Air for an hour.

I got home and plugged it in and hey presto, same bloody problem. Nothing fixed. Called up and they said they could book me an appointment at the Genius Bar. They also said that the listed problem was in fact with the video cable and not the power supply or logic board. Pity the Regent Street store geniuses did not know that as they left the old video cable on there (must have been a lot harder to change logic and power instead of one cable).

Having taken half a day twice to take it there I do not fancy trekking over there again. Not happy at all and I have little confidence in this product any more. If I lose it for another month in repair and they have not fixed the problem I am not going to be a happy bunny.

Hi LittleladsDad,

I noticed your mention of your Apple Cinema Display going 'pop' some time ago. One of my 24" screens went pop earlier. I thought it might have been a plug fuse but unfortunately it's not. It's only 8months old. I wonder could you tell me what happened to yours? Was it working intermittently before it broke? or did it just stop working? How were Apple about it?

Many Thanks
Dylan

I have encountered a similar problem after having switched displays between two MacPro's. After the switch the Apple Cinema display refused to work consistently with an early 2008 MacPro with the ATI card. I tried several things with no success. It was suggested that I boot the troublesome MacPro with extensions off- hold down shift key during the early boot process. The computer seemed to take a longer than usual time starting up with a great deal of disk activity and when it finally came up the displayed worked fine. 24 hours so far with no blinks or other strange behaviors. Not sure exactly what happened during the process but it seemed like some old parameters may have been reset.

Same problem - my monitor has been plugged into my machine for only 2 days - brand new from the box. Apple gave me a Gefen converter to patch this monitor in to my older mac pro's DVI port.

I rebooted with extensions off, and that seems to have worked - 24 hours so far with no blackout. Thanks for the tip!

Well I have just gotten my monitor back after three weeks without it AGAIN. This time they picked it up as I said they had wasted enough of my time already. The kindly picked up and dropped off. Guess what... I still have exactly the same problem.

The letter that came with the repair told me that they had replaced the logic board AGAIN. This is despite the fact that the Apple care guy told me that the issue is with these 24 inch displays doing this blackout thing is with the cable and NOT the logic board. Are these guys even talking with each other? They have now replaced my logic board twice, at god knows what cost to them.

I caught a video of it this time using my iPhone (oh the irony), which you can see here. My brand new 15 inch MacBook pro plugged directly into my 24 inch Apple Cinema display - watch about ten seconds in. Its boring as ****, unless you have this issue:

http://www.mojogroup.com/AppleDisplay/Apple_24_DisplayBlackout.MOV

I pretty much give up now (it has blacked out twice more whilst I have been writing this post). Have no confidence in this product and can see why they have just mothballed them as the 27 inch displays come out. I am going to demand a refund. Being a complete sucker and hoping that the new 27 won't have these issues I will probably go for one of them.

Same issue. Will call AppleCare.

re. It was suggested that I boot the troublesome MacPro with extensions off- hold down shift key during the early boot process.
===
and then you restart the MacBook in the usual way???
Do you know what is actually 'reset' in the monitor? Thanks.

30 mins on hold with apple customer care and still no luck .. guess now 24 inch is discontinued so will be its apple support ?

UPDATE ... well, Apple took in my monitor and with a 3 day turnaround replaced the Logic board. The monitor has been fine for the past 48 hrs

Mine has just stippd workingtwo days ago. Soemtimes it starts up for a a minute then goes black again. Im ****** after having paid a **** of a lot of mooney for this dispaly and it is only 2 years old!!!

Has anyone found a fix for this?

cheers

I experienced this issue with a previous customer.

It is due to the All-in-One Cable interference.
It Doesn't matter what machine it is hooked up to its a problem across the board.

I was advised by AppleCare to replace the All-in-one and this fixed the issue.

I have a 24 display that, like the others here note, occasionally blinks off to "black." The problem, as noted by others may be the all-in-one cable, which is not easily replaced by the end user. One thing I am going to try is to wrap the cable with some CABLE SHIELDING to prevent interference. Will this work as a solution? I have no idea but it seems worth a try as I am sure the existing cable is unshielded because it's so tiny in diameter. Why do you shield a cable? See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shielded_cable

There are a variety of products out there to shield cables, stuff like this:

http://www.zippertubing.com/EMI-Shielding-Solutions.aspx

http://www.chomerics.com/products/documents/emicat/pg190shieldwrap.pdf

I am going to give it a try, see what happens. Not the most beautiful & elegant solution, but I think most of use just want this to stop blinking, right? If anybody else tries this I would be interested to know if it makes a difference.

I am so ****** at Apple after i start using their displays and accessories. I have never seen such, and sorry my word, cheapsh!t quality. Especially the powersupplies for the displays. I have thrown out about 20 of these the last 2years due to faulty electronics. And guess what? Apple doesnt give a rats ***. These arbitary problems have occuring for quite a few years now.

I recommend that EVERYBODY who has ANY problem with the displays start sending a feedback through the site or even email Steve Jobs directly.

What has happend to the Apple quality?!