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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

Oct 20, 2011 7:46 AM in response to bazaarone

It's gotten to the point now where my (latest model) wired Apple Keyboard connected to the Thunderbolt Display will just stop working entirely until I reset the SMC.

SkullOne

Level 1

0 points

Oct 20, 2011 7:57 AM in response to iconmaster

What if you connect the wired keyboard to the MBA instead? I have a feeling the problems we are seeing surface if we use the USB-connections on the TD...

Oct 20, 2011 8:01 AM in response to SkullOne

Yeah, I don't have these issues connecting USB peripherals to the Mac itself. That's how I was running things for a while, till I got tired of not being able to use my display's USB ports.

SkullOne

Level 1

0 points

Oct 20, 2011 8:17 AM in response to iconmaster

So my conclusion so far is the problems we see (display disconnects/blacks out or digital garbage on screen - see other forum topics regarding TD problems) are related to using the USB ports on the TD. Likewise there can be problems with USB devices connected to the TD...

Message was edited by: SkullOne - Reason: typo

Oct 20, 2011 8:19 AM in response to iconmaster

Just to compare - the issues I am having have nothing to do with usb - mba with lid closed - mba does not wake up, video camera and speakers in monitor not accessable / used by default - seems somewhat random. When I open my mba up, at times mail hangs and i have trouble shutting it down.

Oct 20, 2011 8:31 AM in response to Ira Ravens Fan

Hi,

I purchased the display a week ago. I am experiencing similar problems with the keyboard connected to the display USB port. I also used xbench to benchmark acess to 2 different usb hard drives, and got about 30% slower performance than using an MBA port.

Firewire seems to be working fine. The display looks great, and if I connect the keyboard to the MBA it awakes without problems (so far).

Best wishes,

Manuel

Oct 20, 2011 8:49 AM in response to Ira Ravens Fan

Just to add to this - I am using Apple's blue tooth keyboard and trackpad - just purchased them

bazaarone Author

Level 1

0 points

Oct 20, 2011 2:21 PM in response to bazaarone

Quick update on my ongoing saga. I'm on my second replacement display (ie. third TB display), and unsurprisingly, the problems persist. A quick recap:

TB Display 1:

- would drop USB key press/release events. Issue appears to get worse the longer the display is used after a restart.

- about 25% of the time when connected, it would completely drop USB. In all of these cases, my MBA would subsequently fail to recognize when the display was disconnected, requiring me to either remote in or force restart the system.

- had a very pronounced green tint (most noticeable with yellow shades)

TB Display 2:

- only issue appeared to be dropping key press / release events. Less problematic than #1 (solved by plugging keyboard into MBA directly), but still unacceptable for a $1k display.

TB Display 3:

- dropped USB completely the first time I plugged it in, but hasn't done so since.

- drops key press / release events

- will often not be recognized by the MBA until I manually detect displays. When this happens, my MBA will also not recognize when it is unplugged. Had to make the MBA screen my main display so I could still access menus after unplugging.

- slight green tint (not as noticeable as on #1)

I find it interesting (though it's likely just coincidence) that the severity of problems I've experienced with these three displays can be correlated to how green of a tint the screen has.

I plan to give it another week in the hopes of a software fix, and will then take it back for a refund. I have to admit I'm a bit shocked that this display made it through Apple QA with such glaring deficencies.

JP@U1

Level 1

0 points

Oct 22, 2011 8:34 AM in response to bazaarone

I am experiencing similar issues. I have a 13" MBA i5 and a TB Display. This setup works fairly well most of the time but my gripes are as follows:

1. Sometimes when MBA sleeps the Display just turns black but not off.

2. Sometimes When awaken from sleep TB Display will not, unplugging and re-connecting the TB Plug fixes this.

3. Everytime I disconnect the MBA from the Display the USB connected HDDs spin up and wont stop, they must be unplugged thereby defeating the one plug "Docking" feature.

4. I PAID $1,000 FOR THIS DISPLAY AND IT DOESN'T FUNCTION PROPERLY (granted it is still beautiful).

SkullOne

Level 1

0 points

Oct 25, 2011 12:42 AM in response to SkullOne

Okay, it's been about 6 working days since I disconnected all USB devices from the TD. I didn't have any issues with the display since. Unfortunatelty this morning it all went pear shaped again. I was composing an e-mail and the TD screen got all digitally garbled up before going black after a few seconds.

I disconnected the thunderbolt cable from my MBA and plugged it in again and it reconnected again without problems. So while having nothing attached to te TD's USB ports seems to help, it's by no means a real fix.

I have to agree with the previous poster. With a display this expensive it should function properly. Especially since they don't have to test with many iterations of hardware. There are only a couple of machines capable of utilising it. So that shouldn't be too hard.

On the other hand it might be a hardware bug, which might be difficult to track down and fix. It might not even possible without a hardware revision...

CGFbl

Level 1

27 points

Oct 25, 2011 2:06 AM in response to bazaarone

Just to corroborate.

I'm experiencing the same problems. I have a MBA 13" i7 1.8 + TB display. Wired Apple Keyboard connected to USB on TB display results in keyboard lag (first press of keys sometimes do not register) and occasionally keys will magically repeat (especially space bar).

The problem goes away when I plug in the keyboard to directly to the MBA.

Oct 25, 2011 12:27 PM in response to CGFbl

I had (some of) the same issues. I am using a Macbook air 11, but I have also tried a friend's 13-inch MBA, and the same thing occurs. I reproduced the problem pretty consistently by plugging in a USB dongle (for a logitech wireless mouse, if that matters) into the back of the Thunderbolt display. I would use the computer with the display closed. If I never disconnect the thunderbolt plug, the computer + display works just fine. But if I disconnect the thunderbolt (say, to take the computer elsewhere), then the display on the macbook air would not wake up, even though the computer itself was awake (caps lock light would turn on/off, fan might turn on, etc.). The only way to fix this is to hold down the power button until it the computer turned off, and then to turn the computer back on. I took it down to the apple store, and was able to reproduce the problem on my display as well as the thunderbolt display they had. The "genius" wanted to replace the logic board on my MBA, but I told him that I was able to also reproduce it on a different MBA-13. Since my MBA is working great otherwise, I didn't want him changing anything and declined this answer. Instead, I returned the Thunderbolt display even though I really wanted to like it and keep it. From reading the message baords, it seems like people with MBP and Mac Minis are also experiencing problems, so part of me wants to think it might be a problem with the MBA's crappier (cheaper) thunderbolt controller, but maybe it's not. The problem seems like it might be fixable via a firmware update, but I didn't want to take the chance that it needed some sort of hardware fix. (Due to people saying the USB ports on the display are much slower than on the MBA itself). Maybe the firmware fix (assuming there is one, which I would think there would be) would've fixed it up good enough, but I know sometimes Apple will make silent hardware changes, so there might be a "better" thunderbolt display, and firmware-fixed ones which aren't quite the same. For this reason, I returned the thunderbolt display and plan to purchase another one when they get this issue fixed up... (I also didn't want my warranty clock running with hardware that wasn't really working 100%)

Oct 26, 2011 1:50 AM in response to bazaarone

On the Mac Mini, the Thunderbolt display is causing the following problems:

• inability to wake

• disconnection from the internet (even while system is running without sleep) (infrequent) This makes it difficult to reliably update software online.

• deletion of the desktop picture on the Thunderbolt display (not the secondary HDMI->DVI display). Desktop goes light gray. (infrequent) (Going to "Login Window" — upper right user-id menu — and typing the password brings back the desktop picture.)

• inability to reboot (have to power down). Apps quit, Finder quits, screen goes gray, and then system hangs. (infrequent)

• disappearance of all drives from the desktop (on reboot) except system drive. (infrequent)

* Of all of the above the inability to wake is the most frequently occurring.

* Unplugging the Thunderbolt display usually fixes waking, internet connection, and rebooting, but not always and then reboot or power-down is necessary.

* None of these things happen using the HDMI-to-DVI port as the sole display.

I discovered that you can plug the 27" LED display into the Thunderbolt port. If you do not need the Thunderbolt display, you should contact Apple for to return/exchange (for the LED display).

Oct 26, 2011 7:48 AM in response to bazaarone

Apparently I can't import photos from my iPhone over USB connected to the Thunderbolt Display either. Have to connect directly to the Mac for that.

I've never had as much trouble with an Apple product as with this display.

Oct 26, 2011 7:51 AM in response to iconmaster

Yes!

iconmaster wrote:

Apparently I can't import photos from my iPhone over USB connected to the Thunderbolt Display either. Have to connect directly to the Mac for that.

I've never had as much trouble with an Apple product as with this display.

Major problems with Thunderbolt display & MB Air