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Thunderbolt display won't turn on. Black screen but has power.

It will be working fine one week, then the next week it suddenly won't turn on even after unplugging and replugging it into my Early 2011 MBP, unplugging from power, PRAM resets etc. I know that there is power to it as the MagSafe on the octopus cable charges my laptop fine. I need my display to be reliable as I am a graphic designer and 27" is much better than 15"!


Any ideas? Cheers.

Thunderbolt Display (27-inch), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Feb 25, 2013 2:26 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Oct 8, 2017 3:39 PM

I was having the same problem, my Thunderbolt display would black out randomly and it gradually got worse, to the point where it wouldn't light up at all. I realised that it was still powering up and the sound was still working, so eventually figured out that the screen's brightness sensor had failed. I turned off 'automatically adjust brightness' in system settings and my display has been working fine ever since.

17 replies

Thunderbolt display won't turn on. Black screen but has power.

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