Q: Cinema display won't turn on

i no longer have apple care on this monitor so my gut says they will not replace it...certainly worth inquiring though.

my apologies regarding inputs: mini-dvi not hdmi.

I have a apple cinema hd 30 with no power. Brick is outputting 24v on both outer pins so it seems good. replaced main board and still nothing. I was wondering if the usb has to be plugged up to get power. I have now returned the main board before trying to plug the usb up 1st. I read somewhere usb has to be plugged up. Can anyone confirm this for me because I may have returned the part that would have fixed the monitor

The display should work with no USB connection.  USB is needed for computer control of brightness, and for the USB ports on the back of the display, but is not needed for the basic display operation.

Thank you for this confirmation my good man. That is what I would have thought.  I read somewhere which had me wondering otherwise. Well...maybe I got a bad main board off ebay. Any ideas ???

thanks again for usb info

Hi All,

  I had the same problem...

27 cinema was working fine last night, this morning....wouldnt turn on, just stayed black.

I felt this sharp and sudden rush of pain&panic, and all i could think of was "Nooooo my beautiful 27" artpiece of a monitor!!!"...

(i love my monitor, as you can tell... logic design(pushing my flops/registers/muxes/fifos around on a glorious screen...so much better than my 2 27" dells at work))...

I immediately went into product debug mode, ok...get my baselines: everything plugged in?(minidv & usb) check...

using the cinema displays mag power plug...check...

(when i had a 24" monitor, without my macbook pro plugged in, the monitor wouldnt turn on...)...

hmmm....i wonder if that has something to do with my current problem...

let me check my macbook's current battery level....ahh ha! its down at 15%....

Maybe, the cinema display OR the macbook has some power management such that if Macbook battery is low, it prevents outside Monitors from being driven, till the battery is at an acceptable level...

OR

Maybe the Cinema display, realizes the Macbook is low, and directs all its juice to the Macbook, until its battery is back to acceptable...

Ok so i looked at my second option, and disconnected the mag power plug(of the cinema display to my macbook)....and used the macbooks separate mag power supply....

VOILA----Cinema ONaaawwesome!!! oh yeah. saweeeeeeeeeet!

Now i can get back to my glorious Waveforms, and tracking down what caused the glitch on clock 17! yeah

Hope this helps anyone?!!!

Interesting theory that was well illustrated,  ( I felt like I was right there with you )  But I think your situation is unique.  A lot of us including myself have our 27's plugged into Mac Pros, so my supplemental power cable off the monitor is not in use and mine is still on the blink. 

I think it has something to do with heat and humidity.  This summer I had a lot of shut-downs but since the cool dry fall air came to pay us a visit it has been fine.  I have wanted to take the power board out and change the capacitors to beefier ones and throw it back in to see if it helps for a while now, but my father in law who is an elecrical engineer said that it's probbably not that but another component (That I forget the name of) so I'm listening to his advice for now.

Some people have replaced the power supply with luck and others have done it and still have an issue.  This one is hard to pin down.

I agree, so far this is the nicest monitor ever.  The only thing that could beat it at this point would be like a 40" cinema retina OLED that is curved.  That is my dream monitor. 

Exactly same problem here.

18 month 27 Cinema Display don't wake up anymore.

WHY APPLE... WHYYYYY????

We pay only USD 2.000.00 for this display here in Brazil.

Same thing going on here.  My display was having issues waking up after sleep.  I took the recent firmware update, I left the monitor sleep overnight and it never woke up.  This is why, I've stopped buying apple products in recent years.  While the product itself is fine, there is about zero quality control on any new software/firmware/hardware releases.  Since Steve Jobs got sick, and has recently passed, the overall product support and quality has diminished greatly, clearly with ALL these people having issues, both on these forums and if you google A1083 power issues, you are BOMBARDED with people having this issue.  I got so frustrated I couldn't even look at the display anymore.  The USB connection works, the Power Brick works, both MacOS X and Windows recognize the display.

Get on your game, and fix this problem.  I've bought my last apple product.  This is ridiculous.

edit:  When I took the firmware update, because I was having the issues, I told it "Never Sleep" but it's permanently sleeping now about one week later.  People have paid between $1500 and sometimes upwards of $3000 for this particular display, the fact that this issue has persisted for this long is cause for serious alarm, the fact that there's a 4 page thread and no fix over the course of a year, or even an acknowledgement of an issue, or even a "We'll look into this" is alarming.  The reason I paid so much in the past for Apple Products was because "They just work".  Most of the recent OS releases have had issues.  Clearly this firmware has an issue.  FIX IT.

Same problem here, my beautiful 27" monitor was working fine until it just died one day!

After a lot of research and reading post, determined it was the power board so bit the bullet and got a new one and put it in. After a bit of fiddling around the monitor came on!! I was seats tic and thought finally so put it all back together.

Started using it but then noticed it was getting really hot so after more investigating worked out the fan wasn't working.

Immediately thought the fan is dead so bought a new fan but it was no good.

So here I am, hoping someone may have a solution without me having to replace the Logic board as it is quite pricey : (

Anyone experience this before or know someone I can send the board to get it checked out?

Very much appreciated

            Another ACD 27" same problem, computer detects the display gets power to the laptop but no display, pull the power on the display 5 to 10 times then the display will power up and usually stay on all day.  Apple repaired the logic board but that didn't fix the problem so now they say it's the LCD so obviously not worth the 800+ dollars.  Oh yeah wait, this display is 2 years, old it's time to replace the display  with another new one from Apple :-)   

oh well...

Here's what I just discovered which worked well for me. I use a Mac Pro (8 core), with 30" and 27" cinema displays. Like a lot of you I've had trouble with the 27" not firing up. I took it in, changed the ports, changed the power supply and nothing worked. Suddenly it started working and has worked for 1 and 1/2 years until this morning.

I called up Mac support and we did the reset of the ports etc.

The problem however is strange. It seems that using the monitor as a hub was the issue. Even though they are apparently different circuits plugging in the USB feed from the 27” monitor into the back of the computer causes the monitor to die. Each time one takes it out the monitor revives, plug it back and it dies. This may not be the answer for everyone, and for me it worked fine with the UBS ports on the back of the monitor activated for a long time, but for right now that has fixed it.

MacBook Pro 13 .. all of the 27 inch LED Cinama Display issues .. bought it without checking this many year old stream of grief that we are all experience.

Updated firmware, etc etc.

Here is my recent experiences.  Bring the MacBook to the office from home with the MacBook asleep.  Without openning the lid I connect the power from the LCD and then connect the minidisplay .. open the lid and so far virtually every time the MBP wakes the screen wakes.  If I have plagged in the USBs prior then it doesn't wake up.  This like other have suggested maybe gives a hint that active USB connections may be an issue.

If at the office to take the MBP to do a presentation and I disconnect it once again not connecting the USBs seems to result in a fast wake up.

If I end up in a LCD won't wake up state that we all despair, minidisplay in and out does not work unless the USBs are disconnected.

The "pits" state of the LCD just won't wake (less often an issue now with these alternatives) means a restart and again USBs disconnected seems to be more likely to result in the screen reactivating.

Sometimes when I think like a buddhist and focus on mindfulness and simply will the LCD to start it just does.

However .. must say that I have a feeling that the firware, the smc resets, USB port resets etc etc have little or nothing to do with what is an issue that seems to have much more to do with the order in which you do things and what things you have plugged in.

My learning is any thing you do that does not involve having the USBs connected is almost guaranteed to see the LCD wake up.

Should add I am from DownUnder so it might be different in the Northern Hemisphere!

For those of you reporting that your display came back on after an SMC reset, firmware update, deleting a plist file or switching your mouse, ect: IT WAS A FLUKE.

Again, your display was going to come back on anyway- it was just chance and the real reason it worked, in a nutshell, is power distribution. You can get similar results by unplugging and replugging back the display. Eventually, your blown capacitors will overload and push just enough power to complete the circuit, thus  powering the display. This will only work so many times and  PSU failure is inevitable  requiring replacement.

Only those with the afronmentioned symptoms outlined should replace their power supply unit. You'll want to unplug and replug your display as many times (some time up to 50) as it takes to recreate the scenario.

Hi Rick,

Thanks for the added info.  I too am a plugger/unplugger.  It had worked for me until yesterday when my monitor finaly visited that great capacitor in the sky, and I writing this on a horrible little dell who's whites look more like my coffee stained teeth.  Do you know for sure if it is the capacitors? I would like to try to try to pull it out and solder in new ones but don't want to bother if it could be multiple issues.  (I did this once with my Onkyo reciever and it has work great for years now).  Figuring maybe you (or someone around here) might be an electrical engineer that could confirm.

Thanks.

K-

RIch (or any knowledgeable person),

My issue with my 24" Cinema Displays sounds similar to what so many others have described.  Specifically for me, when I plug my 13 MacBook Pro to the display and power it up, I do get the white screen with the Apple log on it.  When it gets to the point where the login screen should appear, I get the black screen.  Also, I can tell that the speakers are working just fine.  Long story short, are any of you all getting the white screen first and then the display going black?  My hope was that it was something simple... so hot key functionality that I was missing.  Community please advise.

Message was edited by: Not So Urban Legend