bazaarone
Level 1 (0 points)

Q: 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

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bazaarone

Q: Major problems with Thunderbolt display & MB Air

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  • by LaraCroft_NYC,

    LaraCroft_NYC LaraCroft_NYC Oct 26, 2011 7:51 AM in response to iconmaster
    Level 1 (24 points)
    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.

  • by azoe,

    azoe azoe Oct 26, 2011 5:41 PM in response to bazaarone
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 26, 2011 5:41 PM in response to bazaarone

    I received a new Macbook Air firmware update today, stability with the thunderbolt display was on the list of improvements. There's also a Macbook Pro update with the same fixes.  Have these helped anyone out? I haven't had any time to test yet.

     

    Direct links to the descriptions, software update should be able to install them automatically:

     

    Macbook Air EFI 2.2:

    http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1448

     

    Macbook Pro EFI 2.3:

    http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1450

  • by newllama,

    newllama newllama Oct 26, 2011 6:39 PM in response to azoe
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 26, 2011 6:39 PM in response to azoe

    Oh sweet thanks for the firmware update notice. I've got it installed and have my fingers crossed. I plugged my keyboard back into the display and so far nothing has exploded yet.. but we've already established rebooting fixes the problem for a while; I won't be convinced until I go a week without any problems.

     

    I'm hopeful this will fix it. If the issues come back after this update I'm returning the display asap for a cinema display.

  • by Steve Garfield,

    Steve Garfield Steve Garfield Oct 27, 2011 3:36 AM in response to azoe
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Oct 27, 2011 3:36 AM in response to azoe

    Thanks for posting news about the update here. I had to run system update twice to get both the Air update, and the Thunderbolt update to install. One reboot for each update.

     

    Hope this works. Is there a place where they fixes are listed out in detail?

  • by LaraCroft_NYC,

    LaraCroft_NYC LaraCroft_NYC Oct 27, 2011 6:31 AM in response to Steve Garfield
    Level 1 (24 points)
    Oct 27, 2011 6:31 AM in response to Steve Garfield

    Mac Mini: At first seemed like it fixed the problems, but now it's worse. System won't even sleep.

  • by Mattheo Lescaht,

    Mattheo Lescaht Mattheo Lescaht Oct 27, 2011 7:22 AM in response to LaraCroft_NYC
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 27, 2011 7:22 AM in response to LaraCroft_NYC

    It didn't change anything for me, not even for a moment.

     

    I still don't have any extension working (FaceTime camera, speakers, USB, FireWire...), juste the display...

    I'm wondering if the Thunderbolt cable is the cause of this.

  • by iconmaster,

    iconmaster iconmaster Oct 27, 2011 7:29 AM in response to bazaarone
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 27, 2011 7:29 AM in response to bazaarone

    Glad for the new firmware update. Just a note -- it might be worth resetting the SMC after you apply the update. Merely applying the update didn't help anything, but after applying it and resetting the SMC things seem okay -- for now. Of course we need to see if it'll last more than a few hours.

  • by LaraCroft_NYC,

    LaraCroft_NYC LaraCroft_NYC Oct 27, 2011 7:30 AM in response to Mattheo Lescaht
    Level 1 (24 points)
    Oct 27, 2011 7:30 AM in response to Mattheo Lescaht

    Not the cable. Thunderbolt is just an abomination. Apple Engineers are supposedly working on it for the last few weeks to no avail. I'm surprised that they put out updates that don't do anything.

  • by Mattheo Lescaht,

    Mattheo Lescaht Mattheo Lescaht Oct 27, 2011 7:43 AM in response to LaraCroft_NYC
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 27, 2011 7:43 AM in response to LaraCroft_NYC

    Yeah, it's worring me too...

     

    Just after the update, I did a SMC/PRAM reset without any success.

     

    I have an appointment with a "Genious" at the Apple Store Opéra next Thursday, I hope I won't cross the whole town for nothing!

  • by LaraCroft_NYC,

    LaraCroft_NYC LaraCroft_NYC Oct 27, 2011 7:47 AM in response to Mattheo Lescaht
    Level 1 (24 points)
    Oct 27, 2011 7:47 AM in response to Mattheo Lescaht

    And as soon as it stops raining, I'm lugging this T/B display back to the Apple Store across town to exchange it for the LED display.

  • by Phips,

    Phips Phips Oct 27, 2011 7:59 AM in response to iconmaster
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Oct 27, 2011 7:59 AM in response to iconmaster

    That'll be because resetting the SMC does seem to help - just the once.

     

    I've applied the update, it did nothing. Did my usual thing to get the attached Drobo to mount - and reset the SMC. It comes back then.

     

    I must admit, I am really, really disappointed in this display. In eight years it's the first proper disappointment with Apple stuff I've had. Sure, .0 OSX releases are riddled with problems, but they fix them pretty quickly usually.

     

    The TB display is something else though. I bought it to use it like a docking station for my 11" Air, and it simply doesn't work. I have to wonder how they ever got out the door of Apple, because it's pretty evident they've not been tested properly.

  • by LaraCroft_NYC,

    LaraCroft_NYC LaraCroft_NYC Oct 27, 2011 8:05 AM in response to Phips
    Level 1 (24 points)
    Oct 27, 2011 8:05 AM in response to Phips

    Phips: You are totally correct!

  • by iconmaster,

    iconmaster iconmaster Oct 27, 2011 11:28 AM in response to Phips
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 27, 2011 11:28 AM in response to Phips

    Yeah, it didn't last. Had to go back to having my wireless Kensington mouse receiver connected to the Air's USB port instead of the display's.

     

    Apple probably considers this a weird third-party edge case.. but the receiver works just great when connected to the Mac directly and worked fine when connected to the USB port in the slightly older Cinema Display.

     

    Something about USB+Thunderbolt is still fundamentally broken.

  • by LaraCroft_NYC,

    LaraCroft_NYC LaraCroft_NYC Oct 27, 2011 11:30 AM in response to iconmaster
    Level 1 (24 points)
    Oct 27, 2011 11:30 AM in response to iconmaster

    Yes!  (Apple knows about it.)

    iconmaster wrote:

     

    Something about USB+Thunderbolt is still fundamentally broken.

  • by Phips,

    Phips Phips Oct 27, 2011 11:33 AM in response to LaraCroft_NYC
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Oct 27, 2011 11:33 AM in response to LaraCroft_NYC

    You heard something from Apple that confirms they know there is an issue?

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