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Static sound coming from the Thunderbolt Display speakers

I have bought a new Thunderbolt Display and connect it to the 2011 MacBook Air. Both latest Firmware updates has been installed, for the MBA as for the Thunderbolt Display. Each time I play a media with some audio (music or video) and stop, the speakers are emiting a static humming sound for about 30-45 seconds and stop. I can hear the humming sound starting once I star the music or video, but it gets cover by the media playing.


Anyone has this problem?


My display is still under the 14 days period trial, so I would probably just bring it back and take another one, but as no one as discuss this problem, I want to know if I'm alone or not.

MacBook Air, Mac OS X (10.7)

Posted on Oct 4, 2011 5:36 PM

Reply
126 replies

Aug 11, 2014 3:38 PM in response to JiPé

Here' a wrinkle... I have my MBP and TB display on a UPS with a myriad of things plugged into it. It has a voltage regulator as well. Under normal use I don't hear much of anything from the display. However today I was hit 2 power outages that lasted a few minutes and each time it happened the display was making a very noticable buzzing sound, not unsimilar to what was coming from the UPS. As soon as power returned, all was good.


I'm not sure if I should be concerned or not with this. Thoughts?

Apr 9, 2015 3:08 AM in response to JiPé

Hi,


I just wanted to say that I have the exact same problem as described by JiPé earlier in this thread.

I don't have the Thunderbolt Display however, but the 27" LED Cinema Display, it's predecessor basically. As far as I know it's the exact same display, except it has Mini DisplayPort instead of Thunderbolt.


I bought my display used last summer and was worried something was wrong with it. Mine is from 2010 after all, so you never know…

At least I'm happy to read that this is normal and everyone has it. Of course it would be awesome if there was a fix.


And who knows, maybe there is a fix. Because I remember rare occasions (when I was troubleshooting the display for this reason already) where I didn't have this white noise. I don't know what made it not appear, however. I'll investigate further over time.



Cheers

May 5, 2015 11:03 PM in response to JiPé

Hello Folks,


My brand new TBD is facing the same issue. It has been running fine with any problems for 2 month now, and all of a sudden this disturbing static sound is appearing all the time whenever OS X is active. Trying out several things leads me to the conclusion that I'm facing a driver issue. Starting my MBP 13" Retina Mid 2014 in safe mode, Audio is disabled the static noise is gone. Further more running OS X 10.10.3 in "standard mode" and unload some Audio kernel the static noise is disappearing as well, after rebooting this sound is back again. So the question is, what can I do? is there any possibility to reset the audio drivers or renew them? I don't want to install Yosemite once again, so what can I do?


Thank you so much in advance!


Config:

Macbook Pro 13" Retina Mid 2014, Yosemite 10.10.3, Thunderbolt Display 2015

May 9, 2015 1:06 AM in response to e36freak

I'd like to refer to following blow which is in my opinion very helpful, thank you! https://techblog.willshouse.com/2014/01/21/fix-thunderbolt-display-static-noise- on-os-x-mavericks/


This is now working for me, but it is just a workaround, no fix. I think I will try to set up my OS X totally new.


A workaround is to only use the internal speakers on your Macbook. After a little testing I found that I can move this kext to another location:

/System/Library/Extensions/AppleUSBAudio.kext

And then run:

sudo touch /Library/Extensions/

And then reboot and when I log back in there is a hissing sound but I can open Terminal and run:

sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleHDA.kext

And wait 30 seconds until the hissing stops, and then run:

sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleHDA.kext

And the hissing will be gone and the internal speakers and mic on the Mac will be working.

Jun 6, 2015 9:13 PM in response to Anon M

I lived with that horrible buzzing noise problem since i bought my thunderbird display 3 years ago. Ive had already tried all kind of solutions i found but never worked. It comes and go. Sometimes stays forever like this month.

And this month this make me really mad. So mad that I decided to call apple to make then fix it on warranty. I don't care because there so many complains about that same problem.

Before taking me TD to apple service i decide to do just one more attempt....

I ve got a spare monster cable power center that was sitting unused and put it throw a different wall power outlet. Than i got TD display power cable connected to Monster. Voila....Buzzing noise disappeared.

I then try to put the TD power cable back to my original power outlet and is still no buzzing noise for a while. After 5 minutes everything restarted again with that fu@%ˆ&8 buzzing noise.


So What i learn about that.... Apple should recall for free all units because they have really real power input problems with their thunderbolt displays. Thats a design/power problem for sure...

Static sound coming from the Thunderbolt Display speakers

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