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Thunderbolt Display - Just Plain Dead

To my surprise, my 14-month old Thunderbolt Display died this weekend. On Friday, I left work as I normally do, didn't shut down as I normally don't, and went home.


I came into work on Saturday to get some work done, walked into my office, tapped the space bar to wake my machine, and nothing. Nothing at all. Just plain dead.


A few bits of info for you....


My machine - a two-month old Mac Mini i5 2.5GHz with 500GB and 16TB of RAM. I checked its status by using a nother machine to share the screen. My computer was working just fine. It was clear that only my Thunderbolt Display had died. Interestingly, the screen sharing showed that my Mini was still displaying the Thunderbolt Display's native 2560 x 1440 resolution. This proved the Display died while connected to the Mini and the Mini had not restarted.


I remotely restarted the Mini, but it rebooted in a much lower resolution 1280x1024 because of its inability to locate the display.


So I left on Satuday with both the Thunderbolt and the power cables unplugged as to allow for the display to reset itself. My intentions were to come in today, Monday, and attept to connect my MacBook Pro 15" and try the MagSafe cable to see if it was juiced or not.


So today, I got here, hooked up the MBP 15" and no luck. Again, the Thunderbolt Display remained dead. I was and am very discouraged about this. Here I am, just about 8 weeks past the 1-year warranty, only to find myself with a $1000 paperweight.


I immediately hopped online and made an appointment at the Apple Store. My hopes are for a little sympathy from whomever at the Genius Bar I work with. Maybe a simple replacement, maybe a free repair, maybe some genius advice that fixes this mysterious condition..... no such luck....


I stand on line for my 3:15pm appointment, they call my name, and within just a few minutes the guy is telling me it's out of warranty and it needs a new power supply. No breaks, no exceptions, no time for anything. Bing, bam, boom. Would I like to have the service done??? Would you? Would you? Would you?


So, of course, I'm at their mercy. I need my display. I love that display. I'm annoyed it broke in barely over a year! No surges, no problem, nothing except for a monitor that seemed like it had a timer set to die just weeks after it's 1 year birthday. Come on!


All in all, the repair is going to take 2-3 days and costs only about $107.00. But that's 107.00 more than I should have to spend. When I purcahsed this particuar Thunderbolt Display I also bought an 11" MacBook Air. My intention was to buy AppleCare just before the 1 year warranty was expired. I always get an e-mail from Apple telling me the time is near. Of course, I did not get one this time. I would have bought it, but now I'm out of luck.


So be aware people. The Thunderbolt Display is a kilelr piece of equipment. I love the ports, I love the ease of use, I love the picture quality and the resolution, but I'm appaled at the fact that it died that fast. That shouldn't happen.


My company has spent about $30,000.00 - $40,000.00 on Apple products in the last ten years. Maybe more. I have referred so many users to switch over from PCs to Macs. I'm loyal.


This product shouldn't break like this. It just shouldn't. There is way less going on in a display than most Apple products. This should last as long as the 5 LCD TVs I have in my house. My TVs don't break after a year. Neither should this.


My rant is done.

MacBook Pro (15-inch Early 2011), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Feb 18, 2013 4:02 PM

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Posted on Feb 4, 2017 3:08 PM

Here is the bill I expect from my year-old 27" Thunderbolt. I am livid and I will be more careful the next time I go shopping for hardware.


661-6048Power Supply, 250W$ 67.05$ 67.05
661-6489Board, Logic$ 146.59$ 146.59
922-9941Cable, All-In-One$ 67.05$ 67.05
S1490LL/AHardware Repair Labor$ 79.00$ 79.00
Total (Tax not included)$ 359.69$ 359.69
16 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Feb 4, 2017 3:08 PM in response to Marc Leftoff

Here is the bill I expect from my year-old 27" Thunderbolt. I am livid and I will be more careful the next time I go shopping for hardware.


661-6048Power Supply, 250W$ 67.05$ 67.05
661-6489Board, Logic$ 146.59$ 146.59
922-9941Cable, All-In-One$ 67.05$ 67.05
S1490LL/AHardware Repair Labor$ 79.00$ 79.00
Total (Tax not included)$ 359.69$ 359.69

Feb 23, 2013 10:46 PM in response to Marc Leftoff

Glad you were able to get it repaired - I usually think of the expected lifetime of any computer equipment to be three years: HD and SSD manufacturers usually have three year warranties, and with Apple products you can extend the warranty for three years. Memory lasts a lifetime, of course, but by the time you're ready to replace RAM you find that yours now has little value.


Good luck to you in the future!


Clinton

Mar 8, 2013 7:18 PM in response to Marc Leftoff

You are covered by a 2 year warranty under EU law.


Use your rights and demand a refund from the store. Here is documentation from the apple site that you can print off and take with you.


Especially the URL.


http://www.apple.com/uk/legal/statutory-warranty/



This is why you should buy direct from the manufacturer. It's easier for the consumer. It states defects arising after you take delivery. A power supply in a static object should not go faulty so it was obviously an inherent fault. It's also not fit for purpose if it was only a few days out of warranty. You should have recieved better service IMO.

Mar 8, 2013 10:13 PM in response to Marc Leftoff

The UK/EU consumer protection laws are much better than the US counterparts. They actually do have a two-year warranty scheme. Unfortunately, not so in the US.


I, too, am in the US and I went ahead and bought the AppleCare Protection Plan wlong with my Apple Thunderbolt Display. If you're out of warranty and there have been no recalls on the display (and there haven't) you're just out of luck, I'm afraid to say.


You really did get by cheap at $107 - next time, just remember to purchase AppleCare for any high-ticket Apple product!


Clinton

Feb 24, 2014 8:39 PM in response to Marc Leftoff

for those who have nothing to loose - no warranty - no Apple care etc.

I had a dead display before yesterday no warranty and 900 km to the closest Apple Store.

So I decided to call a friend - now my display is working again.


The problem was the power supply in my case - it got stuck in protection mode after one of the capacitors died.

So, we took the thing out and works without it. Apparently is enough to have a working one.


All back to normal for now. Happy to get this fixed. It cost me 20 bucks plus beer.


See the attachement for details.

Be carefull when you open the monitor - the power supply might be charged long before unppluged.

Use patience, and propper tools.

User uploaded file

Mar 17, 2014 10:20 AM in response to vrun

Awesome, I'm really glad I found your response. I do have a couple questions for you though.

  • What was the status of your display when you undertook the repair? (i.e. like mine, was everything minus the backlight functional?)
  • What's the best way to do this? Wear protective gloves and just try shorting out one cap then the other while the display is operational?
  • How did you figure out which one was bad?

Thanks for the help 🙂

Mar 17, 2014 3:47 PM in response to BenHilborn

Hi Ben,

As I wrote in the previous comment, the display was dead - actually in protection mode, no power in USB, ethernet, etc.

We took out the parts and measure them.. the one who failed was left out.

The display is working well without the second capacitor (if that is the correct name for it).

I would never advice to open and work on a device while is plugged in...

Take care, make sure you use the propper tools 🙂 and always check twice or three times before do anything.

Keep in mind that are many different ways a device goes wrong...


All this electronic devices are functioning with smoke, once the smoke is getting out, your device is not going to work anymore 🙂

good luck!

Jul 21, 2014 11:39 AM in response to clintonfrombirmingham

To be fair, a warranty is supposed to be an indicator of the manufacturer's confidence in their product and its expected lifetime. To offer only one year on such an expensive product does not speak well to that - it suggests that Apple only reasonably expects its products to last about a year. If a product is well built, and failures are statistically insignificant, it costs the manufacturer next to nothing to guarantee a product for longer than a year. The only reason not to is it if would be cost prohibitive without a further subsidy (AppleCare). This effectively means a 1 year warranty is an advertisement that Apple expects enough of them to fail in the second year that it would be too expensive to support/repair them (not very confidence inspiring).


I've given Apple quite a bit of brand loyalty, and most of their products are great, but it's important to understand what they are telling us with policies like this.

Oct 19, 2014 11:41 AM in response to Marc Leftoff

Turned on my laptop connected to my 27" Thunderbolt display just the other day, smoke from bottom speaker grills and found the power supply fried inside. Just glad it didn't burn down the house when I was gone. Called apple tech support no help since a few months out of warranty. Bad Apple. Also have two 24" ACD's that I'm replacing the logic boards in because the LED drivers have failed "I HOPE".

User uploaded file

Jun 8, 2016 9:43 PM in response to vrun

In reply to Vrun (and 2 years later). Your post helped me back in late 2014 as my Thunderbolt display exhibited the same fault. Different capacitor, but on the same rail. I did as you did and just popped it off.


2 years later it went again. That rail has 4 MLCC caps on it in 2 pairs and in my case another one had developed a low resistance.

They appear to be 1206 1uF caps and are usually at about 25-26V (so use 50V replacements). In my case I didn't have any handy so used 4 leaded 1uF 50V MLCC caps in their place. It's ugly, but they fit under the display assembly and are not as prone to solder damage as the SMD originals.


Hope this helps someone else.

Sep 1, 2016 10:36 PM in response to BradCampbell

wow.. I've been searching for this information for around 3 hours.. Thanks ! Sorry but im adding some Meta descriptions for future searches


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Sep 11, 2016 6:05 AM in response to Marc Leftoff

There is another scenario that will produce similar symptoms. The Thunderbolt element of the combination power/data cord has a high failure rate at the point just behind the Thunderbolt connector. The symptoms are an Intermittant failure of the display to work while the maglock power connector remains live, as do the ports on the back of the monitor. Replacing the cable is no easy task, and requires patience, good vision, a good light and the right tools. The tools are a couple of medium sized suction cups for removing the front glass, and both a T-10 and a T-6 screw driver or bit. The connecting plugs are difficult to remove and require a great deal of patience and reasonably strong fingernails. I recommend against using tools on the connectors as they are fragile. They, however, are quite well seated. This device would have been much better with a plug on the back of the device for attaching the cable.

Thunderbolt Display - Just Plain Dead

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