Thunderbolt Display turns off randomly

When I first purchased the display, it would not work then randomly detected and was fine for sometime. I used it within both osx and windows 7 via bootcamp without issue. I went away for a few weeks and when i returned it would randomly detect within mac then shutoff after a minute or so, rinse and repeat. When i tired in bootcamp it would sometimes detect at boot then shutoff after a minute or so. I gave up after a nights trouble shooting and when i tried again in the morning the display would not detect at all.

I've tried disabling auto adjust brightness, altered the power settings to disable the shutdown of hdd and displays, reseting the pram and vram numerous times, resetting the smc, installing and trying the different modes using gfx card status, updating firmware and all software, reinstalling osx.

I am very frustated at this point and any assistance would be appreciated.

Hi, I have the same issue : thunderbolt display screen switches off (but netwotk, usb still work). I see that the screen is very hot : is there any sensor that would switch off the display if temperature is too high ?

Well since I tried the "do not enable the powersave on the monitor" "Fix", it hasn't done it again. I still have the infrequent "go blank and come back", but I can live with that, annoying as it may be.

I wish I could set the power settings independently for each monitor, then I could "save" my MBP screen and let the TBM one "rot".

Yes, I have the latest updates etc. installed.

Hi everybody.

For some reason the display wakes up again when detaching all the cables apart from The Thunderbolt. First detached USB cables, no waking up display. Then detached ethernet cable and hey after restart the display turns on again...

Macbook pro, Thunderbolt display 27"

I am so dissappointed with Apple for the first time. I purchased a 21" iMac 2 days ago, along with a 27" thunderbolt display. Everything worked flawlessly until today, I turn the iMac on, and the thunderbolt display won't turn on. Spoke with someone at Apple, did the unplug routine a few times (which I already did even before i called) and it was not fixed.

I don't get why all of a sudden the thunderbolt display stopped working, and after 2 **** days. I was using it the night before doing work and everything was fine, I did not do anything to it. So now, I had to book an appt with the genius bar, lug the display to the store in a cab since I don't have a car, and it would probably be a good idea to bring the iMac too just to make sure it's not the thunderbolt port on the iMac, so that's 2 huge boxes that I now have to lug around with me.

This, after spending close to $3000 2 days ago purchasing these products. I understand that sometimes things happen, but to have a defective product only 2 days after purchase is ridiculous.

I'm getting this problem with my Thunderbolt display and Macbook Pro (13", early 2011 model) ... So far, the Apple Store has replaced the lcd panel within the display itself which didn't work. They then replaced the logic board in my Macbook Pro and that didn't solve the issue so I'm going back in to see what's next. (My guess is the logic board in the Display itself...) Anyone else get this resolved 100%?

Was able to get this resolved 100%. Steps taken:

1) Post here

2) Create a ticket to go to the apple store.

3) Go to the apple store and they took it in for testing

3) Waited 2 days

4) They gave me a NEW display

5) Still had the same issues

5.b) Minor breakdown

6) Created another ticket to go to the apple store

7) I tested a used cinema display at the apple store. It worked!

8) Exchanged for a Cinema Display <-- The Fix

The reason I knew the cinema display resolved it for me is because I also run windows on my Mac, Windows was only able to recognize the thunderbolt display with a full reboot. Cinema recognized without a full reboot. I'm a little sad I don't have thunderbolt and Ethernet on the display, but i'll take a working monitor any day! Good luck!!!

Late 2011 13" MB Pro, 8GB Ram, SSD

Yeah, for me it got resolved by AppleCare Support in January. They swapped my old display with a new one. Since then I have had ZERO problems with it. My guess is the first batch of control boards of the TBD had some kind of problem that made them less than reliable.

The problem I faced was my Apple dealer didn't do anything about it, although they are obliged to do so by Dutch law. They claimed they have no backup by Apple in this respect and while I do sympathise with them I think they didn't do enough. It was quite a bad experience actually and maybe Apple needs to support these dealers a bit more, but I'm not really able to determine if that really is the case.

In the end it was AppleCare Support that contacted me themselves because they did read my posting(s) on this forum. After explaining the problem on the phone and some deliberation they swapped the display for a new one. I guess they rubbed me the right way and I'm pleased with the result. 🙂

Well, I just brought it in for the 5-6th time this afternoon. They are now going to swap out the logic board on the actual display. Crossing my fingers on this. The display is beautiful when it is not switching off randomly!

I love the thunderbolt features ... ethernet port, USB ports... 😟 Hopefully it doesn't come to this for me. Still holding out hope that the logic board on the displa swap out will work.

Just got my Thunderbolt display back from Apple after they replaced the logic board...Still turning off. So after the lcd panel, logic board in display were replaced and the logic board in my MacBook Pro were replaced, still no resolution. 😟

Exchang for a Cinema Display. It would be nice if it had thunderbolt and eithernet, but i'll take a working monitor over those features anyday.

I have a 2012 MBP and a TBD. I elected to not get the Retina Display so I could instead opt for the TBD. Initally I was quite pleased with this setup!! It replaced both my Sony Vaio and my 2009 iMac. Mobility and a big screen all in one easy solution!

Then the "oddness" started happening... The TBD would go black at random times. It never appeared to be tied to something I was doing to cause it. Like the other posters have said it was driving me utterly bonkers!! It would lock up my MBP, sometimes even crashing it!! My MBP would go to sleep and lock up. A hard reset being the only way out....

I called Apple Care and they had me do the same resets others have done. I took my MBP to the local Apple Store and they ran diagnotics and it came back all green and happy.

The Genius suggested a wipe and reload... This didn't make me happy at all! I just got it built out to the way I like it!! Rebuilding it would be a major PITA!!!

So instead I started searching the web and found several threads here in the Apple Forums talking about this same problem. Dang I should have done this sooner!!

I have deleted the com.apple.windowserver.plist file from the /Library/Preferences folder and rebooted.

I changed the auto brightness setting to constant on BOTH screens. I had laready done this on the TBD. Then rebooted.

So far this morning it's running fine. No issues at all. Of course time will be the best measure but this is the best it's run in several weeks!

One other thing I noticed in some other threads on this TBD issue lots of folks are having trouble with Logitech's Universal Reciever plugged into a USB port on the TBD. My Performance MX Mouse was super jittery when running from the TBD. I moved it to the MBP and removed the mouse from the Logitech mgmt tool in System Preferences and added it back in and rebooted. That cleared that up nicely.

Turns out I was fighting 2 seperate issues! Google Chrome has been my go to browser for some time now. But, there is a bug in OS X that is allowing Chrome to cause a Kernel Panic! This should NEVER happen. OS X was designed to never allow any application's misdeeds to affect the kernel.

After some digging and live watching in Console I started noticing that Chrome was always the root cause of the kernel panics I was seeing. Kernel Panics cause a Mac to lock up. Not fun!! Here is a link to C-Net that covers this issue: http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-57463603-263/google-yes-chrome-is-crashing- macbooks/?tag=mncol;5n

To have both this and the TBD issue at once was um driving me NUTS!! I've switched to Safari which is now quite a smooth browser.

The good news is I think I now have a stable MBP and TBD.

**** cool!! Today went perfectly well!! First day in far too many!! No black outs!! No lock ups!! Nuttin but boring normal behavior!!

I am quite impressed with the depth of community support here on the Apple Forums. We the users are our best assets in sharing what works and what doesn't.

Thank you everyone!!