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bazaarone Author

Level 1

0 points

Major problems with Thunderbolt display & MB Air

Since I received my Thunderbolt display yesterday and hooked it up to my 2011 MB Air, I've had nothing but problems.

Software update is fully up to date, including the TB Display firmware.

I'm experiencing three major issues:

1. About half the time when I connect the display, my connected USB devices are non-functional. Unplugging and reconnecting the devices does not fix it.

2. Also, about half the time when I disconnect the display, the MB Air does not reconfigure the monitor layout. Putting it to sleep and/or disconnecting / reconnecting monitors does not fix this. I have to hard restart my laptop.

3. When connected through the TB Display, my Mac will infrequently not recognize key up events from my USB keyboard, causing keys to repeat until I hit them again. For an idea of frequency, it has happened 4 times so far thus far while writing this post.

Also a couple of minor niggles:

1. The default color calibration is WAY different from the MB Air's screen. It's most obvious with yellows which have a severe green tint on the TB display. For example, note windows in Mail appear very slightly orange on my MB Air (as expected given the color value), while on the TB display it is florescent yellow with a slight greenish tint.

2. The sound is a lot poorer than I had hoped. I wasn't expecting anything really amazing, but with the "built in subwoofer" I expected noticeably better bass than my MB Air's built in speakers provide.

The minor issues can either be minimized (with color calibration and equalizer) or ignored, but the major issues make this display completely unusable for me. Is this just a defective unit, or are these widespread issues?

Thanks in advance for any help.

PS. Total instances of keys getting stuck while writing this post: ~9. Seems to only be space and delete that get stuck so far.

MacBook Air, Mac OS X (10.7.1)

Posted on Sep 21, 2011 8:19 PM

438 replies

Phips

Level 1

5 points

Oct 13, 2011 1:16 AM in response to bazaarone

WRT losing/not seeing attached USB and FW devices, I'm beginning to wonder if it's not the MBA's fault rather than the display.

After doing an SMC reset a couple of days ago everything worked fine. Plugged laptop back in this morning, attached [to display] drives spun up, then dropped, with Lion giving the usual error about unplugging drives without ejecting.

So I powered the Air down and reset the SMC again. Brought it back up, connected TB display - everything works fine.

Oct 13, 2011 2:00 AM in response to DavidMoss

Update: after installing the Thunderbolt Display firmware upgrade the USB connection on wake is now working fine. I also switched to always plugging/unplugging with the MacBook switched on, i.e. when I get to the office in the morning I wake the MacBook first and then plug in the display, previously I was doing it the other way around. Not sure if it's that practice or the firmware upgrade that solved the issue, but whatever, it's solved.

bazaarone Author

Level 1

0 points

Oct 13, 2011 4:49 PM in response to bazaarone

I'm back to losing keystrokes on the replacement display. So it's better than my first one (colors are more accurate, I haven't completely lost USB yet, it'll charge my iPad), but it's still pretty heavily flawed.

It's looking more and more like this is just a systemic issue with the display in general. I'll talk to Apple support one more time to see if they have any more ideas, and maybe give it a week in the hopes of a software fix, then I'm going to return it.

newllama

Level 1

0 points

Oct 13, 2011 4:59 PM in response to bazaarone

Can we all agree that rebooting reliably solves the problems for some time? Why is everyone posting "hey I got a new display and it's been working for the past 4 minutes just fine!" or "I reset SMC and now it's great" and then 20 minutes later they have to redact.

Don't get your hopes up until you've been running a full day or two with no issues.

Side note: Now that I'm using the gigabit display ethernet to move big fiiles I'm getting more frequent issues. Also my screen started turning black completely with the added load of ethernet. Twice so far in a couple days, first time it's happened. Also my Air completely locked up while doing some file transfers as well.

Oct 14, 2011 8:26 AM in response to bazaarone

^^ That's a great point, and it's probably why Apple is taking so long to track the issue down. You can't reproduce it every time, but once you do... it drives you crazy.

I just hope it's not a hardware problem, or some fatal flaw in rolling USB into the Thunderbolt interface.

Oct 14, 2011 11:29 AM in response to iconmaster

I've had similar problems to everyone in this thread. Brand-new MBA 11" and TB display. Everything worked great for the first few days (gigabit ethernet, firewire, USB, etc.), but now my MBA will not recognize anything when I plug it into the display. I've tried restarting, updating to the latest version of Lion, updating to the latest firmware for the TB display, etc., without any changes. I cannot get access to any devices through the display, even temporarily, no matter how many times I reboot. I'll try the SMC clear and then return this.

ivan87

Level 1

0 points

Oct 15, 2011 12:21 AM in response to bazaarone

Ok guys please help, you all have new MBAs i have 2010 MBA and TB display, do any of You know how to connect this two to work ? MDP to hdmi -> hdmi to firewire or hdmi to thunderbolt -> than this thunderbolt to TB display. I dont have any more ideas, please help guys ??

Thanks

Ivan

Oct 15, 2011 4:20 AM in response to ivan87

Hi Ivan87,

I don't think there's any way to do it. According to the Apple Store the system requirements for the Thunderbolt display are: "Thunderbolt-enabled Mac computer, including MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and iMac".

Smudge

Level 1

131 points

Oct 15, 2011 3:39 PM in response to ivan87

Ivan,

David is correct. The 2010 MBA won't support the Thunderbolt Display as it doesn't have a TB port but instead uses Mini-Display Port. So you have 2 options.

1. Return the TB display and exchange it for the Cinema Display. It is exactly the same display but just different connectors and internals. It is the same price so it should be quick and easy to return/replace it.

2. Sell your '10 MBA and buy a new '11 MBA that has Thunderbolt port.

Oct 15, 2011 5:35 PM in response to bazaarone

I am having problems as well with the new MBA 13" 256ssd and new Thunderbolt display - I've applied all updates and display speakers and microphone are not recognized - so no Facetime or listening to the display speakers. Thoughts on that?

bazaarone Author

Level 1

0 points

Oct 16, 2011 2:23 PM in response to bazaarone

To keep others in the loop:

Just got off the phone with Apple support again. This time they escalated the call. They want me to exchange the display one more time, this time with a "capture" number (so the display goes to engineering to look at). If this exchange also fails to fix the problem, they will likely refund the purchase.

Oct 17, 2011 6:23 AM in response to bazaarone

I have two brand new Thunderbolt display both dropping USB keyboard keystrokes from an Apple USB keyboard.

My problems all started with 10.7.2, because we did not see this with 10.7.1. It would appear not to matter which display we use, they both are identical.

Has anybody else started seeing issues when connecting the display while the notebook is asleep in 10.7.2? Prior to the update my MacBook would switch to the external display as the primary display if it was attached while the top is closed. Now it seems to turn on the internal display about 75% of the time and use the external display as a secondary display.

Oct 17, 2011 6:42 AM in response to bazaarone

My Thunderbolt display was dropping characters too. It's connected to a new MBA with a USB keyboard.

I think it might have something to do with a slow internet connection.

I had a call with Apple Support on Thursday, which was escalated to a higher level of support. Apple offered to take back my display and monitor so technicians could do further testing. Another option was to run a Capture Data program to look at what was hapening on my system.

I decided to run Capture Data first.

At the same time, I realize that the Thunderbolt display has a high speed Ethernet port on it. I had been using the MBA wirelessly, then more recently I was using the USB - ETHERNET adapter.

With the wireless connection I was experiencing dropped key strokes. Now that I think back on it, it might have only been online.

I swithched to the Thunderbolt wired connection and have not had any dropped keystrokes since.

My new speeds are:

Ping = 8ms

Download Speed = 34.60 Mbps

Upload Speed = 5.03 Mbps

I'll continue to watch this closely.

Oct 17, 2011 6:52 AM in response to Jason Schwarz

This morning I tried the experiment of plugging in the Thunderbolt Display first and then waking. It wouldn't wake at all by hitting keys on the external USB keyboard with the MacBook Pro closed, but when I opened the MBP everything worked fine. Then I could close the MBP again and it stayed awake. I've never seen dropped keystrokes.

So my display continues to work perfectly since I installed the firmware upgrade, which fixed the dead USB problem I'd been having before. I notice that a lot of people reporting problems here are MBA users - is this a general thing that the Thunderbolt Display works ok with MBP but not with MBA?

Oct 17, 2011 9:00 AM in response to bazaarone

I thougth I'd chime in here, as I am having similar problems as everyone else in this thread. I'm an Apple Certified Hardware Tech and run an Apple Authorized Service Center as way of background.

I have a Thunderbolt display connected to a new MacBook Air 11" i7 1.8 256 SSD. I have the following connected to the display: a Drobo over FireWire, a gig ethernet connection, and a SuperDrive. I use an Apple Bluetooth keyboard and Magic Mouse with this system. I normally run the MacBook Air with the lid closed when I am using the Thunderbolt display. Both the display and the MacBook Air are running the latest firmware versions.

These are the problems I have noticed:

Audio and camera do not work on the display. Rebooting the system or unplugging and plugging back in the Thunderbolt connection fixes this problem. Interestingly, I have also noticed this problem with my 24" Apple displayport display. To fix that, I need to unplug and plug back in the USB cable. Perhaps the Air is not detecting some of the hardware properly? The problem only occurs immediatly after the display is connected to the sleeping MacBook Air, and after I unplug/plug cables it will not return again until the Air is disconnected. This problem does not occur every time I connect the Air, but it occurs enough to annoy me.

Computer will wake from sleep, but display will never get video. Things like the Time Machine backup will start (Drobo starts chugging away), and the Caps Lock key on the Bluetooth keyboard will work, indicating to me that the computer is working, but there is no video. I opened the display on the Air when this most recently happened, and after several seconds the sleep/screensaver password window appeared, only to be replaced by a blue screen and then the password window and then a blue screen. The built in keyboard and touchpad were unresponsive. It took a hard power cycle to fix this issue.

Depending on the app, different speakers are used. For example, when I have the display connected music plays fine thorugh the display speakers, and adusting the system volume using the keyboard keys makes the "blat" sound emerge from the display speakers. However, sounds from Mail.app (new mail and mail sent) come from the speakers built into the MacBook Air. Also, perhaps unrelated, when I first plugged in the Thunderbolt display, the fader in System Preferences was set full right. I thought my hearing had finally gone out 🙂

The Bluetooth keyboard and/or mouse do not consistantly wake the Air from sleep. Sometimes a system reboot is required, or power cycling the bluetooth keyboard/mouse.

Finally, I seemed to have some issues with not being able to use Bluetooth and AirPort at the same time. The system would notify me that "none of my networks could be found", and when I manually clicked on the network I wished to connect toy, "a timeout error occured". This could be consistantly fixed by turning the Bluetooth radio off. This issue did not happen with all wireless networks all the time. 10.7.2 seems to have mostly resolved this isuse, but it did return yesterday in the form of giving me the "none of my networks..." error. However, manually selecting the network worked fine.

I've tried PRAM and SMC resets (I'm starting to feel the pain of all the users/customers I've told to reset their PRAM or SMC), and that seems to fix the issues for a while. However, rebooting the system can also fix the issues for a while.

Overall I really like the display and the Air. I'm very happy with being able to do spreadsheets on a huge display and also only have to carry ~2 lbs of laptop with me when I'm away from my desk. I'm confident that Apple will resolve these issues, and I hope that all of our reports and troubleshooting will assist in this process.

-Ryan

Major problems with Thunderbolt display & MB Air