Audio Problem with 2012 MacBook Air and Thunderbolt Display

On 10.8.2. MBPro 17-inch, Late 2011, Thunderbolt Display...

Getting the mega-static on the TBD. Happens with Skype, Facetime and Messages while screen sharing.

So it's not fixed and it does affect MBPs.

I've had this problem with both Lion and Mountain Lion (which introduces new troubles, like kernel tasks that grab 100% of a core forever). The problem is this: if I am doing disk I/O at any appreciatable rate (including SSD IO) then audio through the Thunderbolt display crackles and withers away to nothing in a couple of minutes. As a computer scientist, it seem to me like a buffering problem. It is as though audio packets coming over the USB on the Thunderbolt detector are lost in favor of disk/SSD IO. But it's 10Gb/s connection! The traffic to the disk does not have to be heavy, perhaps 10Mb/s is enough.

This has happened on my old MBP, and on my fancy new retina MBP. It is 100% reproducible. At one time I thought it was my Promise RAID array, but no: it happens even when there is zero activity to that array. It is happening now as I back up over the Thunderbolt Ethernet to a new Time Capsule.

I have had this same problem. First I replaced the Display with a new one. Same problem. Then I replaced my new MBA 13" i5 8GB with a new 11"i7 8GB. Same problem. I have now updated to 10.8.2, same dang problem, though now I can get up to 30 minutes of music/skype before I am overwhlemed with Static/fried sounds from the display speakers.

As other have noted, any resetting of audio outputs through the cotrol panel resets the clock, but the static returns.

The other problem that I have been having with the MBA and TBD is the MBA freezing and requiring a forced restart about 75% of the time when it is connected to the display.

The MBA is working fine. I will close it, and connect it to the displays' TB cable/mag2. The display will not come on, and when I disconnect to try and use the MBA alone, it is frozen dark screen and unresponsive, though getting hot as the battery is still running. It requires a hard reset to come back.

This is maddening that apple has not fixed or ackowledged this!

Ha anbody else had this freezing problem or just he static audio problem? Again, this problem has persisted across 2 displays and 2 different MBA/processor combos...

Currently:

Model Name: MacBook Air

Model Identifier: MacBookAir5,1

Processor Name: Intel Core i7

Processor Speed: 2 GHz

L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB

L3 Cache: 4 MB

Memory: 8 GB

Boot ROM Version: MBA51.00EF.B01

SMC Version (system): 2.4f17

Thunderbolt Display:

Vendor ID: 0x1

Device ID: 0x8002

Device Revision: 0x1

Firmware Version: 22.2

Help me Apppppple!

I have a 15" Retina running 10.8.2 — same problem. It is like the USB is competing with the Thunderbolt (disk, Ethernet) for buffer space.

There are claims that Apple has released a patch, but I haven't seen it. I am up to date on all patches.

I'm having the same issue of degrading audio to static on my new 27'' thunderbolt display using my 2011 Macbook Pro 17''

MacBook Pro

17-inch, Early 2011

Processor 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7

Memory 16 GB 1333 MHz DDR3

Graphics AMD Radeon HD 6750M 1024 MB

Software Mac OS X Lion 10.7.5 (11G63)

Apple Thunderbolt Display

2560 x 1440

Same issue. Just purchased brand new 27" thunderbolt display and Mac Mini w/ Mac OS X 10.8.2. Sounds like it doesn't matter what computer you attach to this monitor. Unplugging all the USB stuff from monitor didn't fix until I unplugged thunderbolt cable and plugged back in. Now sound doesn't have static. I'm going to try just using Mac Mini USB and leave the monitor's USB ports empty.

Should I try exchanging monitor? I'm still within my 14 days.

Here is a video demostrating the problem by playing 2 different tone signals using iTunes. The lower tone is used at first which really shows how bad the problem is...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQQ4qDP33AE

Same here. I did try booting up my MacBook Pro 15-inch, Late 2011 running OS X 10.8.2 with only the Thunderbolt and power attached and that seemed to cure the issue, for last night at least. FW drives and USB hub were attached directly to the respective ports on the MBP. I will report back with an update later in the week.

Macbook Pro Retina here with the same issue to 27 in thunderbold display. Thinking it was the display I hauled it in 3 times to get the speakers fixed and finally they replaced it only to find out it appears to be the macbook or connection issue. Swapping the output to internal and then back to the thunderbolt display temporarily fixes it but the issue always comes back.

I have been having this issue for almost a year. I had gotten so used to not using audio/video to prevent it, I forgot about it until recently trying to use skype video chat.

I am on 10.8.3 and it hasn't fixed it. I am on a 2012 MBA and TBD, both new that were replaced when the issue was first discovered by me, but even having an all new system didn't change anything.

It is very troubling to hear that it's happening with a macbook pro retina now. I was hoping that when I upgraded that it would be solved.

Apple clearly DOES NOT CARE. It has been a problem for a long time, and they're not doing anything about it. Just like the font smudging issue on Retina displays. They know about it, but they're not doing anything about it.

The thing is, as a computer scientist, I can see what must be the cause of the problem. But I don't have source code, so I cannot prove it (or fix it). The issue is competition for buffer space, and the USB loses.

Apple USB and Bluetooth support for the Mac has always been bad. Considering the large number of devices, you'd think that they'd make that a priority.

I had not included USB into my testing. From what I could tell, it had to do with video stress and audio, since I first discovered it by playing Diablo 3 when it was new. Since then, any game or movie/video that runs lots of cpu brings on the problem.

I do have my mouse and keyboard plugged in to the USB of the monitor. But when troubleshooting this before, an electrical engineer said this:

"Sean, thanks for posting that followup. My suspicion was correct, i.e., there is an interaction between the PICE bus running at 2.5Ghz and WiFi in the 2.4Ghz band. I was a systems engineer in the PC industry when PCIE first came out, and we had to use excessive shielding in laptops to reduce the interference. I always thought this would be the Achilles heel of Thunderbolt. It would be interesting if you could operate WiFi at 5Ghz only and see if you have the same problem.

Note: PCIe bus: 100Mhz x 25 = 2.5Ghz (PCIe 1.1 spec)."

here's the thread: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1402118

I had never bothered trying wrapping the thunderbolt cable in tinfoil or copper shielding, but maybe it is time to try.

But, how would I test this with the interaction of USB as well?

Issue persists as of July 2013. Running Air, OS X 10.8.4 and Thunderbolt display with connected peripherals (keyboard, mouse, printer). Steps to replicate reliably:

1. Start Skype > Preferences > Audio/Video to see the camera. Start a music source (Spotify in my case). Drag the preference pane to Tunderbolt to see the video. Leave on.

2. Admire yourself in the camera. Pretend to type and listen to the music for 3-5 minutes.

Symptoms: Audio slowly degrades with static, disappearing alltogether. The usb keyboard disconnects.

100% replication rate on my system

You're on a Mid 2012 correct? What size?