27" thunderbolt display power issue

[Rico Muerte]

Hi guys,

About 6 months ago I acquired a 27" thunderbolt display that was being thrown out to e-waste from a advertising/graphic design company - it was marked as "not working".
I took it home, plugged it into my 2012 MBP & it worked perfectly for 2-3 months.
After that time, I noticed it would occasionally cut out/lose power. Initially I had the through power connected to my laptop to charge it as well, but after it started cutting out I disconnected the magsafe power to the laptop from the screen.
Now it only works for a few hours at a time, or a day or so if Im lucky.
The only "quick-fix" Ive noticed is, when it cuts out, I disconnect the screen power plug to the outlet & slowly plug it back in. This creates a small electrical arc which seems to revive the PSU in the screen & then it works again...for a few hours or a maybe a day.
Talking to my father who has experience with power & electronics, he seems to think there is some sort of dry solder somewhere as the unplug/plug back in arc revives it.

Has anyone had a similar issue? Or experience with something similar?

At this point, the next step would be to open it up & inspect the solder points on the PSU.
If that doesnt work, then a replacement PSU...?

Thanks in advance

 

[tko1013]

Hi,

I have several Thunderbolt displays and have noticed that a lot of the displays have a power supply issue. I would recommend turning off your computer, wait 10-15 seconds and restart (with the display connected). Once you’re booted, turn the display brightness down to about 50%. I have not had a single monitor cut out since I have throttled the brightness (several of the monitors I have, were acquired because they weren’t working and kept cutting out). **make sure to restart your computer, if you just unplug and re-plug it usually won’t turn back on the monitor if cuts out**

Good luck,
Kyle

 

[Rico Muerte]

Hi,

I have several Thunderbolt displays and have noticed that a lot of the displays have a power supply issue. I would recommend turning off your computer, wait 10-15 seconds and restart (with the display connected). Once you’re booted, turn the display brightness down to about 50%. I have not had a single monitor cut out since I have throttled the brightness (several of the monitors I have, were acquired because they weren’t working and kept cutting out). **make sure to restart your computer, if you just unplug and re-plug it usually won’t turn back on the monitor if cuts out**

Good luck,
Kyle

Thanks for the response Kyle - trying this out as I write this...

Hoping for a more permanent solution though as 50% screen brightness is a little low for my liking...but if it works then it would have to do for now.

 

[Sikh]

This is definitely a PSU issue. You can fix it yourself by either getting a new one or finding the cap and/or solder thats bad/broken.

I dont know if this is a common issue but from my experience, I dont have this issue. I also don't ever keep my displays(any of them, not just apple) at 100% but I have 3 TB displays, 2 from launch day and 1 bought a few years after. All of them work perfectly fine for 8+ hours a day without issues.

However, I use to work for a SMB and we had about 50 TB displays and I would say easily 2/3 of them went in to get their PSU's replaced 2 times under warranty. These were tied to computers that were never turned off (mac mini's running batch processing / overnight processing workload) and some were connected to manager laptops and they didnt believe in sleeping their computers.

Now I'm not saying this should kill the displays, but it was obvious to me that those PSU's were built with a "break" in mind. Meaning they most likely didnt test them being on 24/7 while also being hooked up to a TB device which also extends the power.

I have witnessed many displays of other brands also have power issues when they dont get a break but those were on 24/7 for at least a full year or more before their PSU's started whining, turning off randomly and needing a full unplug/replug from the surge protector or just not turning on again. We had over 300 displays from various manufacturers and most have issues.

I have 2 10yr old monitors that are non apple that have issues. One will go into sleep and never leave it unless i unplug/replug. This one also has ghosting and other issues. The other one has a whine that goes away after an hour of being on and once turned off will not turn on until I give it a break of roughly 30 minutes. No matter how much i unplug and replug it acts like it overheated (probably true) and will not turn on until the back of the monitor is room temp / cool.

TL;DR: This isnt only a Apple thing its just "more common" with the TB display because its a high performance display that also has to provide power and data to other devices.