Thunderbolt Display turns off randomly

+1 for recalltbd.com

Mine is for my business as well. No Apple Store here in Ireland rep., only resellers and agreed service providers...

The Crucial modules are identified as "Mac Compatible and labeled as 2-8GB DDR3l-1500 SODIMM MAC NOTEBOOK. The part number might be: CT2C8G3S160BM. I pickjed them up here: http://www.microcenter.com. They sell Apple so they tend to know what works in addition to the Apple branded parts. Hope that helps.

I just avoid thinking about it, my TB Display is still on my desk as an adornment. Before, sometimes it worked, then it started working less until I don't remember the last time it worked.

This is a problem that persists for more than an year now (in my case). I Keep following this topic and beholding its growth, but no solution or even a glue about why this problem really happens. Maybe apple will release a new redesigned super speed port. What I am sure is that this project failed.

Dealing with what I assume is the same (or similar) issue. We have a number of Thunderbolts in the office - all purchased at the same time so I'm assuming identical components. I've got a Macbook Pro Retina and didn't have a single issue until swapping spots with someone else.

He had problems for several weeks and I inherited them. The TB turns flashes to black several times and then simply turns off several times in the morning and seems to run well the rest of the day. There's no fix for getting it back online other than waiting.

Again, I had no problems with the previous TB I was hooked up to so all signs point to an issue with this particular disaply.

Had same problem with my 2012 Mac Mini when I installed OWC Memory. Reinstalled the original 4GB Apple Memory and problem went away. Installed 16GB of Kingston Memory (KTA-MB1600/8G x 2) and now system runs like a dream.

I am facing the same problem with a Mac Mini, TB display, with some extra memory modules in the Mini.

Not really sure, probably Samsung.

My guess is, that some of the memory modules produce too much heat. And the extra heat is causing the problem. This might be the cause, the reason itself could be that some of the circuits which are driving the display inside the machine do not like this much extra heat produced by some lesser memory modules.

I did not have this problem for cc. two years, and then it started. I have used lots of computers (mostly MS Windows) during my life, quite agressively (e.g. lots of VMware, hours, days of agressive high porcessor usage), and my experience had been, that after one year almost all of the machines got quite dirty of dust inside, or the components just dried out, and started to overheat (laptops and desktops alike). I did have lots of hardware problems because of this, burnt motherboards, motherboard changes, fan changes, etc. Well, this was the MS era. It is now over.

So either you change the memory modules to the recommended ones, or use some software to do a more energetic cooling of the machine. More energetic then the one what Apple designed for the machine.

This is my second Mac Mini now, still very agressive usage, also VMware, both Minis are working great (well with just this one glitch with one of them).

My try now is that I started using smcFanControl 2.4 free, and when the temperature gets too high for my taste, I click a higher fan rotation speed. As an extra bonus, I can also constantly monitor the inside temperature.

So far this helps me, and the problem is now rare. But still exists, I just do not like to run the fan speed on high...

I have seen several users having issues with OWC memeory. I used Crucial in my 2012 Mini with the TB display and it works great.

I call my ram supplier and they swap my old sticks with a pair of Elpida chip modules. My dual TDBs stop flicker randomly but they still flicker whenever I put heavy load to them. I can reproduce this flicker by running those ram-testing apps.

I disconnect one TBD and make the test again. Now the TBD is stabled and run normally. I'm convinced that I really need a pair of premium rams to get the system stable and trouble free, so I decide to go with the best available spec ram to avoid these nonsense anoying problems.

Replace my ram with a pair of CL9 modules and both TBDs run smooth and pass all tests. I should have fix this stupid issues long time ago if I do more search and stop waiting for apple's miracle!

This may help some of you who have the same issue but I can not promise the everyone will be fixed with premium ram because your case might be different. Hope this help

i am having the issue with dual thunderbolt displays and a late 2012 mac mini... I installed this ram:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231582

should i replace it with new ram? or can i take one module out for now and fix the issue?

I've tested my CL11 modules with a single stick setup but it doesn't solve the issue. If you can make an exchange your CL10 modules with CL9 modules, I would recommend to do so.

How can I do this if using windows 7 (bootcamped). Is there a "hot corners" feature in windows or just Mac Osx?

I've posted a couple of posts previously about this issue, but here's an update.

Ram doesn't seem to be the issue on my machine. My monitor would flicker, then go black, or just go black. In the end I figured out that if I kept the brighness below half it would stay on, though if the temp in the room got too warm it would shut off anyway. This began 3 weeks after the 12 month warranty expired. I rang the shop I bought it from - Computers Now, an authorised Apple reseller, and they basically said bad luck, you'll have to pay for any repairs. Being short on cash I dealt with it for 3 months before I couldn't take it anymore and took it in for repair. They said it was the LCD and the repair quote was...wait for it...$1,250. As you all know, the monitor only cost $1,199. The shop said 'bad luck, you'll just have to pay for a new one". So I took it home and dealt with it for another 2 months. Then a friend of mine pointed out that consumer laws changed in Australia in 2011 and under those laws if you buy something expensive like a monitor or TV that would be expected to last at very least 2 to 3 years, the company still has to fix it, warranty or no.

I rang the shop, mentioned this and they said, oh of course we know about those laws and we are very sorry, we should have fixed it 5 months ago. I'm willing to bet they are told not to mention these laws to customers, or applecare would be a thing of the past.

Short ending is they are replacing the insides, I get it back Friday and I don't have to pay a cent! I'll probably need glasses after squinting at my monitor for 5 months, but I'm happy anyway.

Will report back on the repair and whether it fixes the problem or not.

Great @graystate! I am very glad for you!

I should have posted an update a month ago, about my situation. I pushed Apple Care over the phone, to a Senior advisor, and I had an interesting chat. No solution, of course, no money back after 2 weeks of purchase, etc... but still I made my points very clear and heard.

So I got to a different Apple Service Provider, with both the MBPro Retina and the Thunderbolt display. They did not reproduce the problem in 2 days, but they applied firmware updates for the MBPro AND the Display. I thought it has been made already by the first Service provider... any way, there was the Mountain Lion update 10.8.3 as well.

Then I cannot say exactly which one made good, but the issue did NOT occurred since the 29th of March '13 !! That is a big relief, I must say. No single issue, and I sometimes let the computer and the screen on for 10 hours without going to sleep.

I will keep in mind to take the Apple care extension (purchase available for the first year after initial product purchase). I am not sure if I will go for the display only for €99, or for the MBP + display for €349... If the issue is more with the Thunderbolt protocol and wiring (maybe to young to be reliable enough, I should have know that with Apple, never buy the first version ;-) than the display itself, how to know on which side the issue is???

Did some of you guys updated as well to 10.8.3?

And did you try the firmware updates (maybe directly from the apple website, not sure if the automatic software update is 100% reliable)

http://support.apple.com/downloads/#thunderbolt

I was having a frustrating problem with my 2012 MacMini. When I had two monitors attached to the computer, randomly over the course of the day, the Thunderbolt display would go black.

2012 MacMini 2.6 GHz i7

16GB OWC RAM

27" Thunderbolt Display

24" Apple Cinema Display via the included HDMI to DVI adapter

Usually once a day, though sometimes twice, the Thunderbolt display would go black. The Cinema Display would stay lit up. I have a LaCie Thunderbolt hard drive hooked up to the Thunderbolt port on the monitor. The hard drive would continue to run. There didn't seem to be any trigger or set time for when it would happen. Sometimes it would go black after an hour. Other times, it would be after 6 or more hours.

Putting the computer to sleep by hitting the power button, waiting a moment and then waking it up by pressing the button again would turn the monitor back on. A full restart worked as well. I quickly learned a very helpful key sequence: Cmd+Fn+F1. (I have my Function Keys set to actual Function Keys so it might just be Cmd+F1 for others.) This toggles the Mirror Displays function that you normal get to in the Displays PrefPane. That would allow me to safely save or shutdown things I was working on since I could now see all windows and the menubar on the Cinema Display. Then I could use the Sleep method or a Restart to turn the Thunderbolt display back on.

This had gone on for several months. I finally unplugged my Cinema Display since it was such as hassel and I never knew when the problem would hit. The recent Thunderbolt Target Disk Mode Firmware update gave me hope that there might be a fix. After updating the firmware, I plugged my Cinema Display back in. Within an hour, the Thunderbolt Display went black again. A Google search lead me to this thread and I finally had hope that I might have a solution.

I saw the posts about people having trouble with OWC RAM that was fixed by installing Crucial or Kingston RAM. I immediately ordered the Crucial 16GB kit from Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008LTBJFW/

I installed the RAM at 3pm yesterday and hooked up both monitors. I worked from 3pm until 7pm without any problems. I started work at 9am today. It's now 6:50pm and I haven't had a single problem. It's very exciting! I'll need to see over the next few days if my Thunderbolt display goes black before I declare it a sucess, but I'm hopeful.

A second day of work has gone by on my computer and I had zero problems. This looks like a very promising fix.

I would like to add one note of clarification on my previous post, the Thunderbolt display worked very well for me with OWC RAM when it was the only monitor attached to the computer. It was only when I had 2 monitors hooked up that the Thunderbolt display would go black one or two times per day.