Audio Problem with 2012 MacBook Air and Thunderbolt Display

Macbook Air 13" purchased in September 2012 directly from Apple.

I have encountered this sound corruption as wlel with my new TBD. I run a MBP Retnia tied to 2 Promise Pegassus Raid arrays. I took the monitor in for Apple to check and of course they were unable to reproduce the issue. I started nosing aound the net an came upon Anandtechs TBD review.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4832/the-apple-thunderbolt-display-review/10

On that page listed, it seems Anand reveals the source of this issue (at least in my case). It stems from high I/O read and write of the Pegassus drives. In fact the issue most likely is with the Pegassus drives firmware.

I'm going to pick up my TBD from apple and will bring it up to the Apple tech. And I will also call Promise, to see what they know of the issue.

So do any of you also have a Promise Pegassus raid in your setup?

I do not.

I do not.

There's no telling what causes it. The one electrical engineer suggested it is from the TBD cable acting as an antenna from poor shielding, and that is causing some sort of overflow.

I doubt it has anything to do with the raid, unless the cables are also acting as antennas. It's been reproduced so many times on just 1 laptop, 1 display with nothing else connected, I'd say Anandtech is mistaken, or didn't test the other scenario.

I have just discovered the source of my distorted audio issue. It is being created by my Drobo which is interfaced through iSCSI. I can replicate the issue every time when moving files to it. Granted the files are moving from my Pegasus array, so I guess there may still be some questions.

I have been in contact with Apple support, Promise support, and Drobo support. Hopefully a fix will be supplied from someone.

It would be cool to see a fix.

Are you using thunderbolt cables anywhere in that process? From what I've gathered, it's from the thunderbolt cable acting as an antenna due to insufficient shielding. I posted the electrical engineers hypothesis on this a while back. A lot of people literally have nothing connected but the monitor, keyboard and mouse and still get it. I got it on 2 MBA's (I sent one back becase of it) and 2 thundrebolt monitors, which I also sent back.

OK, finally, I gaveup, and no solution on this problem.

One year passed! no solution yet. Apple' stock price trend aligned with their design quality. I stop buying any products from Apple now.

It is amazing to me that Apple really does not care about this issue. It's more than a year for me, no solution, no pretense of a solution.

I called Apple on another issue (bad Thunderbolt port) last week, and they knew about this problem with audio. I asked when it might get fixed and got nothing beyond an acknowledgement of the problem.

For the person thinkng that it might be poorly shielded cables, it clearly is not. It is load dependent and appears to be a buffer management issue (at least to this professor who has been teaching OS classes for 25 years).

Good luck to all of us getting Apple to pay attention.

FYI

The thunderbolt display I used is from apple, and the cable made by apple.

Finally, their retail was able to duplicate this problem on their display and other MBA 13".

To me, it is an excuse. Their retail took responsible to help me change display twice, and refund that display finally, but Apple. I believe Apple's Cook don't know what their team did such "good" product. No truth at front of his table, number and good news instead.

The recent product disappoint me.

It's not a shielding problem and Apple knows it. That's why the exchanges do not work. It's not the cable.

I too have gone through several displays. I've also gone through several MacBooks. The problem persists.

My setup is as follows:

I have two Pegasus 18TB arays, one segate 4TB drive, a Drobo with 32TB (connected via ethernet using the iSCSI protocol) being fed trough a Belkin Thundebolt express dock which has a USB scanner, a Firewire 800 DVCAM VTR, and the Drobo's ethernet cable connected to it. All that being fed to the Thunderbolt display via one Thunderbolt cable. The display itself has a USB Apple keyboard and a Wacom intous5 tablet connected to it. And finally the displays thunderbolt cable going to the Retina Macbook Pro along with power from the display. I will be adding another Thunderbolt connection to my second port on the laptop for a Blackmagic Ultrastudio express SDI digitization box, currently being setup.

I have verified my file transfers to my Drobo via iSCSI are what causes my audio corruption. The audio corruption can be replicated at any time and I have also verified the issue to not be my computer having tested my setup with another (older) Macbook Pro. I have provided all this info and dianostic logs to both Apple and Drobo. And I have even contacted Promise just for good measure. I have been in constant contact with Apple support and their "Engineers" are reviewing my logs.

I'm pretty sure this issue has nothing to due with cable interferance. And quite possible not even (in my case) iSCSI. I believe it may be a buffer issue with the USB protocol over thunderbolt or just the protocol as handled by the display. It would make sense since some others have the same issue but without any of my like equipment. I have yet to however receate the corruption having only the laptop and display connected.

All I can say is keep on Apple. Just talking about it here although great for us doesn't always push it to the top of the list Apple needs to look into.Try to open up a support call to the point of Apple having you supply diagnostic logs to them. The more calls they get pushed to engineers the more priority it calls for.

Hey,

I just bought the mentioned combination (TBD and Macbook Air 2012) a few days ago and I am experiencing the same issue, but with a rather constant noise from the display (I am not experienced with audio issues, but it somehow sounds as if there was something covering the left speaker of the TB). In the meantime, is a fix somewhere to be seen? I already tried the solutions you were offering (disconnecting Wifi etc.), but nothing worked. And now I am guessing whether I should replace the display and/or the macbook, which I clearly rather not want to.

Does anybody know whether this problem will be adressed with Mavericks?

It's a shame Apple still hasn't fixed this issue with the monitor. I returned mine within the 2 week window. I suggest you do the same.

To Apple: Since you can't seem to fix the problem you should just remove the speakers from the monitor and charge less for it. I'd buy it then.

I believe it's worth mentioning that for most of us this issue was fixed (over?) a year a go through various updates. If you're still experiencing this issue after ensuring that you've applied all relevant firmware updates etc. then I suggest you either arrange a genius bar appointment, or call apple support, as it may well be a hardware issue.

I'd suggest that once you've ensured all the latest firmware etc. are installed (run software update with the TBD connected) then do a full reset (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964) and see if the issue still occurs.

I wish you luck in getting it sorted, as for most of us these now work together brilliantly.

This issue ABSOLUTELY WAS NOT fixed. I have even received new machines, completely wiped several different machines, installed every update.

NOT FIXED. I have had the issue for over a year now and it persists.