Connecting A1407 Thunderbolt Apple display

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Guy1950 Author

Level 1

16 points

Connecting A1407 Thunderbolt Apple display

My old and loyal iMac 27" mid-2011 screen flash (sometimes) a lot of random color pixels – idem on my external Apple display. I use 10.13.6 HighSierra. I found nothing to correct and I will probably buy a new iMac 27".

Ports are so different now. And I'm wondering if there is a way to connect my old Thunderbolt display.

Same thing for my external HDs that use USB 2 & Firewire 800 ports.

Thanks for your advices & sorry for my bad english,

Guy

APPLE THUNDERBOLT DISPLAY

Posted on Jun 6, 2020 2:23 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

samtenor

Level 4

1,828 points

Jun 6, 2020 5:38 PM in response to Guy1950

You will need to Thunderbolt 3 -- Thunderbolt 2 adapter, for 2017 and later iMac -- in order to connect the Apple's Thunderbolt Display. See the picture below as my set up. I have tried on 2015 (Thunderbolt 2) and 2017 (Thunderbolt 3 with adapter); and the Thunderbolt display would work - however, the resolution is NOT 5K, unlike my 2015/2017 iMac. I did get extra work space as secondary extended display.
These days, iMac has 4 USB-3 ports, those are backward compatible with USB 2.0 - in the mean time, Thunderbolt Display also has 3 more USB 2.0 ports when it was connected to iMac.
Regarding Firewire 800 devices -- you probably will be better to connect to the Thunderbolt Display's Firewire port. It will need Thunderbolt 3 - Thunderbolt 2 adapter + Thunderbolt 2 - FW800 adapter as additional cost, if you want to connect to the new iMac.