Cinema display won't turn on

This problem just cropped up for me.

Early 2008 Mac Pro Quad Core

10 Gb RAM

Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT 512 mb

OS X 10.8.1

Cinema HD Display 30

After either putting the Mac to sleep, or letting it go to sleep itself, the primary display does not re-awaken and stays black. The light in the lower right of the monitor sometimes turns on and off. The secondary display turns on and shows what should be there.

I followed some advice found in this forum and unplugged the mouse and keyboard usb plugs from the back of the monitor. The monitor came to life. I plugged the mouse and keyboard into usb ports connected to a usb hub connected to the front of the Mac Pro desktop enclosure.

While able to use the primary monitor I followed the suggestion to go to System Preferences, Energy Saver and change Computer sleep to Never. I changed Display sleep to 3 hrs because I did not want to change it to Never.

This results in the monitor now showing normal, but it randomly blanks out and then returns. Sometimes for 1 second and sometimes for 5-10 secs.

I then replaced the apple mouse with a Kensington mouse. For the time being, this seems to have solved the problem. It is not a final solution until I can test the computer in different scenarios.

If this does prove to solve the problem, I would appreciate hearing from an Apple Rep telling us why an apparent faulty Apple mouse causes the monitor to blank out both permanently or randomly.

It is easy enough to buy a new mouse but it is important to understand why this happened.

Having the exact same problem. My 14 month old 27" Cinema Display started flickering randomly on update to 10.8 then completely stopped working on 10.8.1. If I unplug and replug the monitor multiple times it works. Tried it with another computer with 10.8 and its the same.

Out of frustration I tried switching back to my old vga monitor and noticed that it too has stopped working normally, now it only works if booted into windows, when I try booting into osx it just locks up with a blue screen.

Fun stuff.

I would be curious to know if you tried replacing the mouse. Of course, that depends if you ever get it to boot again. In my experience, sometimes a certain symptom is the same but the resolution can be a variety of different things. Still, if you ever get the opportunity.......

Jake,

I either use the trackpad or the wireless apple mouse. It's a 2011 macbook pro 13".

It's pretty strange, at first I was convinced it was a hardware problem on the monitor side however now I have the feeling that its related to 10.8 somehow as both the cinema display and my vga montiors are suddenly refusing to work on both my computers running osx 10.8.

Aha, being a desktop guy I didn't think about laptop w/monitor connected. The one thing in common between yours and mine is OSX 10.8.1.

I was a long time windows user (from 1982) and only converted to Apple in 2007. Apple has a certain reputation for coming to the rescue of us poor users, or that is my impression. I wonder why an Apple tech rep has not weighed in on this. Of course, we don't know just how many users are having monitor-10.8 problems.

You can only get so much help from fellow users, you need tech support from time to time.

I agree, so far apple support has been good to me (while living in the usa). The only problem at the moment is that I am currently in a country without any official apple stores. The closest equivlent here has no idea what it could be and wants to charge me a hefty fee just to look at it.

I recently got a new MacBook Pro and now I can't get my old Cinema Display to turn on either, even though I have the $99 adaptor. I'm really surprised to see that so many other people have the same problem. What is going on?

I am having this issue as well - Mac 27" LED Cinema display.

I have read elsewhere that this is a power supply issue (the one inside the monitor) ...or sometimes a logic board issue. But several people who have switched out the power supply with a newer part design have had good results.

I really don't believe this has anything to do with the mouse, cord, plug, socket, software etc. I believe it's an issue with hardware inside the monitor itself.

You can buy a new power supply for $130 online, and you'll need a couple tools to get it open like suction cups to get the glass off and a Spudger to get it open, plus some star (Screw) drivers. While checking out the step-by-step tear down of the thunderbolt display on iFix-It I found they sell these tools and ordered them from the site. I'll let everyone know how it goes when I replace the PS. I hope that's it, I really don't want to have to replace the logic board too. 😟

I've never once had this problem in 4 years of owning my 23" ACD. However, this morning I came into my office and the Macbook Pro was closed and the screen was frozen on the ACD. I opened the MBP and hit a few keys on the keyboard to try to wake it from sleep, but nothing happened. It had crashed. So I held down the power button for a few seconds and restarted. The ACD did not turn on. I restarted and reset the PRAM. Still did not turn on. Disconnected and reconnected the mini-display cable a few times. Still did not turn on. Tried disconnecting the power supply. Still did not turn on.

Has anyone figured out a solution to this, or do I just need to suck it up and buy a new monitor?

I don't think so, see my comment above. I'm still looking for an easy fix... I haven't swaped out the PS yet, I figured I would try soldering in some new capacitors before I bought the new $120 power supply. It may sound daunting but it is not that hard. I'm going to do a video on it and if it works I will post it on youtube. If not I'll order the new PS. Some people report that by hooking the ACD up to a UPS (Uninteruptable Power Supply, for power outages) this solves thier problem.

$10 in capcitors or...

$120 PS or...

$1000 Monitor.

It's worth a shot.

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My second ACD has been misbehaving for about a year - if the mini display port was disconnected, it would often take several repeated reconnections to get the ACD to display anything. It would usually wake up from sleep though with no issue. Last week that changed and computer had restarted at night due to some unknown issue. The ACD would never come on after that.

I took the ACD into the local Apple Store (under AppleCare) and they said it was a power supply issue. I expect to get it back later this week - shall advise if they did finally determine that it was a PS problem.

I got my ACD back from Apple Service today. It's a darned good thing that I decided to purchase the AppleCare for it, because the repair bill was $1060! (A brand new ACD on the Apple (Canada) store is $999).

They were originally only going to replace the Power Supply - but they ended up replacing the Power Supply, the SVC All in one cable and the 27" LED panel.

I was told that after the power supply was replaced, there were issues with some wiring on the LED panel and they needed to replace the entire panel in order to fix it. Not sure why they needed to replace the wiring cable (the harness that connects from the display to the computer - but that is new too.

So far - so good - the ACD now works like new. I suppose that makes sense, since apart from the enclosure it is all new.

Same issue here with model # A1316. I've been following this post, any updates from Kevin808, or anyone else? I'm leaning towards it being a PS issue, but would love to hear about results if anyone swapped out their PS.

Cheers.

Haven't had a chance to repair it yet, sorry. The monitor actually hasn't acted up lately, so I have been avoiding either trying to replace capacitors, or replacing the power supply itself. Oddly enough the problem stopped happening when I went from 2 LCD Cinema Displays to 1. (I had to return one back to work). I'll definitly post results when I can here about what I end up doing and how successful it is. This is a bit off-topic, but I also noticed a repetitive discoloring pattern at the bottom of the LCD screen. That is what I get for buying the cheapest one I can find off ebay. /:(

Also, I had to use a Kanex adapter because I'm running it off an unsupported card that does not have mini DV (same problem with supported cards), and in the kanex reviews people are complaining that the adapter is malfunctioning... but now I think they might be falsely blaming the adapter. Just a thought.

I for one have also had intermittent problems with the Cinema display but each time, based on inferences I draw from other posts here, I find a way to settle things down, but I don't think the problem is solved because something else happens. None of the things I find here are the precise solution, but taking them into consideration and tinkering with my setup, I get the problem to go away for the time being.

I have no idea why the things I try work but they do - typical trial and error methodology. I view myself as an advanced amateur so that makes it more difficult for me to understand or even explain.

Bottom line, it looks like this remains mysterious. It seems to me I hang on to this monitor for as long as I can correct problems and when it finally dies move on to a new one. Given the investment it it, not a happy result.