Q: Apple Cinema Display 23" - Blank Screen, "short-long-short" LED code

jakobean pin blocking suggestion absolutely works. it was beautiful. merry xmas.

Another successful jakobean paper fix.

Black screen monitor after a move to a new office. Swapped Mac desktops, swapped 90w power bricks. All useless until I read this thread and tried the paper trick.

Many thanks jakobean and to all who participated in this thread.

Apple need to look into this issue.

I have the same problem with a 23". Basically just powered everything down, disconnected every thing, reconnected it, and turned it on. Black screen, short, long, short. Genius bar no help and eventually concluded they did not have what would be needed to analyze further and only offered depot repair for $400.

I agree with the theory that the power supply test is only done at power on, so whatever goes wrong may happen at any time and does not get noticed until a full power down followed by a power up that runs the test. So, it was likely not the shut down or anything done at that point. It might actually be anything from a failure of some component inside the monitor to a problem induced by an otherwise unnoticed power fluctuation. No way to tell as this point.

I got a replacement 90W supply on eBay and it did not help. Next step is to try to figure out the bit-of-paper-on-the-middle-pin solution. Before I could not envision what people were saying but just now I did see the YouTube video that makes it a little clearer. Better pictures would be very beneficial for lots of people.

It appears these Cinema displays sense which power supply model is connected and that is where the problem comes from. My guess is that the information is based on that center pin. The 150W (130?) model does one thing and the 90W does another. The 90W with the insulation over the middle pin looks similar to the 150W to the display's testing function Obviously the 90W with the insulation presents an open circuit with no voltage and no conductivity. The normal 90W supplies something else - a logic level or a path to ground or some such. Apparently the 150W presents something that looks enough like the 90W with the insulation so it too satisfies the test the damaged/defective display is trying to do. Something goes wrong in the display so it is not satisfied with what the 90W gives it on that pin, but it is still happy with what it gets from the 150W or the 90W with the insulation.

All this, with lots of people complaining of unfixable problems with a particular Apple product is very much reminiscent of the situation I discovered when my Time Capsule failed a few months ago. It turned out the problem was failing power supplies and there had been a big user driven web campaign to document the problem and that there was a range of serial numbers with it, and to pressure Apple about it. Just about the time I caught up with it reports started to surface that Apple had just, very quietly, started to fix (actually replace) units and I was fortunate enough to be able to take advantage of it rather than going with my plan A which had been to open it up and find a way to hack a fix as a few had reported doing to one degree or another.

I also find highly irritating that the Mighty Mouse fails (generally the ball stops working correctly) and it too is effectively unrepairable, Apple takes no responsibility for their engineering deficiencies that lead to the problem, and offers no help. (Even replacing it with a new model is not satisfactory - they are different and I really don't like them, not to mention too high a price)

No big surprise - the iPhone 4 has the now famous major antenna problems that are another engineering failure.

What really disturbes me is that traditionally Apple has been the premium product with a high reputation (and a price to match), but repeatedly now I see poor product engineering resulting in things like failed power supplies, physical designs that do not allow repair, and often Apple denying the problem or simply not responding at all rather than looking into it. Or at least requiring extraordinary customer action to force them to look, see a problem, and make it right for their customers.

That drops them down to no better than the competition, maybe worse, and can not justify their premium prices, not to mention that now you have to also buy the excessively expensive "protection" plan on top of the premium base price.

Well, off to see if I can cobble together the famous bit of paper...

Update - it worked for me too! Thanks all!

A bit tricky to get it right, but worth it.

Maybe someone should manufacture something to make it easier. You could sell about five cents worth of material for $10 or $20

I wonder, after it worked for them, has anyone tried taking the insulation out to see if maybe the display would continue to work - e.g. getting some sort of a "reset" sort of action.

A couple of thoughts on prior comments:

1) A few say it did not work, but you have to be very sure you have the middle pin completely covered before you conclude that. If it does not seem to work it is hard to be certain you do have the whole pin, both sides, totally covered. As you plug it together it is REAL easy to have the paper slip.

2) To a report of noticing heat - I suspect both outside pins work together on one side of the power circuit, as well as the second pins in for the other side of the circuit. If one of the second pins is covered then that side of the circuit only has half as much metal area to carry the current and that might cause it to get warm. Maybe more so if the display is set to bright (I suspect it draws more power the brighter it is).

Had the same issues as everyone else here and thankfully was able to get a fix going with the paper on the middle pins.

The question I have for those here who have also been successful using this solution is this; does your Cinema Display go blank from time to time and you have to replace the paper? I have a 20" Apple CD and a 23" Apple CD (the one with the power issue) connected to my MacPro. What I find is that when I restart sometimes, or boot into Bootcamp that the 23" goes dead. Sometimes the following gets it to turn on without replacing the paper:
- Unplugging the DVI on the graphic card for the 23" and replugging it quickly
- Typing a bit on the wireless keyboard
- Replugging the connector with the paper init (Trying not to get it out of alignment)
- Chanting The One Infinite Loop Mantra
- Or of course replacing the paper and trying it again. This works eventually but not always the first time.

I've tried various types of paper. Everything from a snippet of receipt to a dollar bill (which worked really well due to its durability.)

Any feedback on whether others are having to do this as well would be great, as reading the posts so far leads me to believe that those who use the paper solution only have to do it once.

Just ask for a claim form (the official one from the Generalitat, not any kind of internal customer satisfaction form). They are responsible for fixing what they sell for five years. And according to the Spanish customer law, the responsible for fixing it (or replacing, if it's not fixable) is the seller.

Why does Apple not open their eyes on this problem? Its totally ridiculous.

It works! The piece of paper/plastic trick works a treat. Mac Pro crashed last night so I had to unplug it - when I turned it all back on Cinema display was showing short-long-short LED code. Having read through this post I cut a small piece of a sticky plastic post-it book mark over the middle pin. Worked first time.

Thank you so much for this discussion - saved me a great deal of money/heartache.

MY GOD!, Jakobeon .. I love you for that post. The $.0001 piece of paper fixed it. I haven't had that monitor working in 6 months. I owe you a beer1

Same problem. Occurred after a power outage, monitor was plugged into a surge protector. I called Apple and they said it was likely the Inverter. Tried a new inverter and no help. Tried a 150W power adaptor and it worked. Then I found the paper trick and since we had the monitor open already, we cut the wire that the middle pin is connected to, just behind the clip that plugs into a circuit board. There are five pins, five wires. Two black, two red, and one gray. Cut the gray one (determined using a Voltage meter, the continuity function) and put some electrical tape around both ends.

Granted, this is a more complex solution because it involves opening the monitor (non-trivial), but it is a cleaner, more elegant solution than using a piece of paper that, potentially, has resulted in overheating and melting of the wires in one unfortunate case listed above.

To offer some technical advice, you must try all you have already done. However there is a known manufacturing fault with this piece of equipment. Apple are trying to deny all knowledge. There has been a UK court case to this effect.

Tried J's paper trick and after 20-30 mins of swearing at how fat my fingers were it worked for me too.

Adding to all the advice already given in the forum what worked for me was cutting off a double-width piece of paper and then folding it in half so that it was double thickness when I inserted it into the jack. Before then the paper would always tear when I put the jack into the power brick.,

Thanks to everyone who provided advice ... saved me a ton of money!!!

Yes! For me jakobeon's paper trick works. I used a little piece of a sturdy garbage bag btw.
Only thing is, it doesn't 'flush' the inverter or anything -- when I remove the piece the screen goes back to 'short-long-short'. So it does mean I may be taking a risk here... I bet the ground pin has other intended functions than to annoy people

all as already documented... but just to add more fuel to the fire...

after several and sequential weather related "rolling blackouts" (power up and down over ~ 5 hrs) in Dallas, one (of two) 23" cinemas "died" (giving short-long-short error)... i'll note both monitors were behind the same TWO UPS/surge protectors... running s/n on apple.com shows the "dead" cinema manufactured in "early 2007".

swapping video card position and power supply (also 90W) with 2nd (working) cinema made NO difference. took "bad" cinema to local Apple Genius Bar... techs (?) clueless - but after i suggested trying the 150W 30" power supply (knowledge gleamed from forums) we found the monitor worked fine... techs noted that cinema power supplies are NO longer available for "retail" sales... although they (apple store) can still order replacements for "repair" - but IF and only if they have a correct s/n to use on order (i.e., a 23" s/n for a 23" power supply, or a 30" s/n for a 23" power supply)... so even they they found the cinema 23" would work with a cinema 30" power supply they could not (would not) order one. they did offer to "repair" the monitor (at some $400 +)...

certainly aggravating that Apple - WITH CLEAR DOCUMENTED KNOWLEDGE OF AN INHERENT DESIGN ISSUE - is not only unwilling to repair (or help with repair) or replace the power supply, but is unwilling to even sell the part (i.e., power supply) that will "fix" the issue. with the $$$ of these monitors, it would seem reasonable to - at least - make replacement power supplies available - if not at a free or reduced price - at least at the original "retail" price

I just wanted to add that the paper trick worked for me. I took a thicker piece of paper from the tear off edge from a check envelope. Cut with scissors to about 1/16" wide, 1.5" long. Folded it in half and pushed the "v" shaped paper in and covered the center pin socket. Then I made sure it was stiff enough as it sat in there and clipped off the extra length, minus a short stub that I folded back over the top and bottom of the connector to form a "w".

Brilliant, utterly brilliant fix!