Thunderbolt Display turns off randomly

immm, I feel your pain as do others here in this thread..I can tell you that since i started using a separate TB to TB

cable my problems have been eliminated (per Steve G and others above); I've also turned my brightness level

down a couple of notches per some posters as a help..maybe I've just been lucky but for 4 years this TB monitor

of mine has been a real champ (until recently)

Same problem here. Mid 2012 MB Pro Retina 15" attached to TBD with the all in one cable causes the monitor to go black. To fix it, instead of using a separate TB cable, I'm using the TB portion of the all in one cable to drive the monitor and ports and am charging my MB Pro with it's travel charger. So far, so good 🙂

I am just now experiencing this issue. Mac mini 2011 quad core 2.0Ghz i7, which I have a custom version of OSX 10.6.8 running stably for the past 3-4 years with no problem. 8GB RAM (2x4GB 1333 from Crucial). No problems.

This week I installed 16GB (2x8GB) of Crucial DDR3L-1600 1.35V CL11, and while all is stable under no load (basic browser/Word use etc), as soon as I load up a multicore process and push the processor hard, the external Thunderbolt output display intermittently cuts out. This dispay is a Dell 2711 running directly off the Thunderbolt port. I also have a 24 inch display running at the same time off the HDMI port. This display runs fine and does not cut out.

I can solve the display glitch in 3 ways:

1. Unplug the HDMI display, so only the Thunderbolt is being driven.

2. Unplug the Thunderbolt display so only the HDMI is being driven.

3. Revert back to 12 GB RAM (1x4GB, and 1x8GB new RAM), no glitch on either display even though both are being driven.

Given that I am seeing this behaviour on a non-Apple Thunderbolt display, and that it is highly reproducibly caused by the addition of 16Gb RAM and high processor load, I suspect that there may be an unrelated issue afflicting some Apple Thunderbolt displays,but that the route cause is something to do with the shared VRAM on the i7 Chip when two displays are active and a potential incompatibility with either 16GB RAM, or more likely 16Gb of CL11 RAM.

I hope this information is at least useful to anyone still afflicted by the problem.

My Thunderbolt display bought at the Apple Store October 2015 goes black periodically. If I open the MacBook lid it will come back on. This has happened 4 times in the last day of usage. Oddly, when it goes black the keyboard also stops working, if I continue typing while the display is black no words are in the document starting from the time the display went black. I don’t know what is ging on but its pretty aggravating behavior for a $1,000 display.

Just let me complain more about this display. When waking up, it flashes on and off several times as I wait… and wait… for it to stay on. I don’t think this $1000 display and $2000 MacBook Pro are well integrated. Seriously Apple, for this much money you’d think the hardware could figure out what the other one was doing.

I guess it was happening because the display overheated. This is the first warm day of the year, the display is against a steel wall with the morning sun hitting it. I put a thermometer back there and it read 117ºF. I set up a fan since apparently the Thunderbolt Display has no built-in cooling mechanism. Good going, Apple.

Anyway, its been running a few hours without blacking out. I read the specs and it said 90º max ambient temperature. I’ll set up a fan on a digital thermostat to keep the air moving. Maybe I’ll drill a bunch of big ventilation holes in the back case. I suppose that would void my warrantee.

I HAD the same issue with my Macbook Pro and Thunderbolt Display bought together in May 2014.

The turn off randomly start 15 days after the purchase.

During summer 2014 I bring my screen to the Apple store and the found nothing.

It began with the turn off randomly, then I got problem when the machine waked up from sleep mode ( I turned sleep mode to never), then I lost my Eth connection, then one day I lost the camera and all the USB and TB connections from the integrated hub. Only the display was ok but blinking some times

Finally ,end of 2015, I opened a call but I learned the Apple Care for the screen which I got at the same time I bought the computer did not include the on site pick up (this should be clearly notified). I had to go to the store again which I refuse because I consider they are only good to sell , not to fix nor analyze any issue. I finally went to an Apple official repair shop near Paris (FR). The guy told me ... "I see, I think it is the cable"

They changed the Thunderbolt cable on the display and I have now recovered everything !!

The Machine is booting really fast , no long wait for the screen detection, everything is smooth, what a pleasure to use this hardware without problem.

I think Apple should activate a recall program for this problem which is very common.

I hope that will help.

Regards

Guy

After five years with this display, finally got bit by this issue. Late 2011 Macbook Pro running El Capitan 10.11.6, I haven't changed anything recently. Suddenly today the thunderbolt display flickered and then went black. I can bring it back by putting the mac to sleep, and flipping the display open. Doesn't last long though, within a few minutes or so the same thing happens.

Tried removing usb devices plugged into the display, resetting pram/smc, not using integrated power cable from display, but no dice, keeps happening. I guess I'll try a thunderbolt cable and bypassing the display's built-in cable, not sure what else I can do.

Anyone have any more news on this issue?

Same issue. Did you find a solution?

I shut everything down that night and left it. Prior to that I had cleaned the cable contacts and the thunderbolt port on the mac, but it still happened after that. Altogether I'd say it happened at least 20 times that day.

So far is it hasn't happened again for the past two days, but nothing has changed other than what I had already tried, and still using the integrated cable. So really no idea what the deal is at this point.

In my case, the problem turned out to be overheating of the graphics unit in the Mac mini. Noticed that it never happened after the computer had been sleeping, but only after a lot of use. Tried flipping the Mac over to cool it with the desk contact, and it stopped the cutting out, but eventually the desk got warm. Got a fan control program and discovered things were toasty in there and could be cooled by turning up the fan. Presto: problem gone...

Shawn and others --

Mind if I ask where you sourced your replacement cables from?