Thunderbolt Display died. Need some advice.

[gowanis]

My setup for about 5 years has been a mid-2012 Retina Macbook Pro (15 inch) and a Thunderbolt Display. Yesterday, out of the blue, the display just went black. Seems like a power problem. I tried two different resets (SMC and PRAM) and no luck.

I am attempting get a friend over here with another macbook to see if I can rule out my macbook as the problem, but if that fails, I'm not really sure what to do. I'm pretty sure I'm out of warranty (I actually bought the display at Best Buy and bought some protection, but I think it was only for 3 years or less).

I would love to just buy a brand new 5K iMac, but that's a lot of dough. I recall reading a while back that the mid-2012 Macbook could not support a 4K display, but now I'm starting to read otherwise. I have some questions:

1) Can this mid-2012 model drive a 4K display? 30hz or 60hz ?
2) If a 4K display does work, what brand/model would you recommend? What cable do I need?
3) If I buy a 4K display and the Macbook cannot support 2160p, could it still support 1440p ?

As a temporary solution, I have a 23 inch 1080p monitor running with HDMI. It sucks! I need to get back to at least 1440p.

Need some advice on what do to do here regarding possible troubleshooting/repair or buying something new. Thanks!

 

[chscag]

It sounds like the backlight may have gone south on your TB display. The instructions on ifixit might be able to help you troubleshoot it. One thing you can try with the lights off is to use a flashlight held up to the display while it's on to see if you can make out shadows or movement. That will tell you if the backlight is the culprit. If not, it may be a bad power supply.

 

[gowanis]

It sounds like the backlight may have gone south on your TB display. The instructions on ifixit might be able to help you troubleshoot it. One thing you can try with the lights off is to use a flashlight held up to the display while it's on to see if you can make out shadows or movement. That will tell you if the backlight is the culprit. If not, it may be a bad power supply.

The monitor is not recognized at all; The laptop screen is the complete boundary. Also, when I go into settings, I do not see the monitor at all.

 

[chscag]

The monitor is not recognized at all; The laptop screen is the complete boundary. Also, when I go into settings, I do not see the monitor at all.

Can you tell if the monitor is powering up? If the power supply died and the monitor is dead, your Mac is not going to see it nor will it be seen when you do an "About this Mac" from your Apple menu. You might get the same symptom with a PS that is weak and barely putting out current.

 

[gowanis]

Can you tell if the monitor is powering up? If the power supply died and the monitor is dead, your Mac is not going to see it nor will it be seen when you do an "About this Mac" from your Apple menu. You might get the same symptom with a PS that is weak and barely putting out current.

There's no evidence at all that there's any power to the monitor. If the power supply is dead, what kind of repair is that? Is it even worth it, or should I consider a new 4K screen? Can the mid-2012 model drive 4K properly? and if not, can I get 1440p from a 4K screen no problem ?

 

[RecentlyConverted]

Why not get an estimate for repair from Apple? If you are too far away from a store, don’t want to post your monitor off, or the Apple price is too high, get a quote from a recommended independent repairer. The price will help you decide your next step.

 

[Fishrrman]

You could see if Apple would repair the TBolt display, but if it's going to be more than $200 or so... not worth it anymore.

I don't think a 2012 MBPro will support 4k (at least, not without hacks).
See this Apple page:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202856

You probably have 1440p support, however.
I can speak only for myself, but I wouldn't want to look at "native" 1440p on less than a 32" display. There are a few available, more coming soon.

 

[chscag]

You can check with Apple to see if they will even look at the TB display, however, depending on when you purchased it they may refuse if it's too old. If you have any kind of trouble shooting skills, you may be able to do the repair yourself by going to www.ifixit.com and lookup the take apart instructions. I believe you can get a new PS from eBay but am not sure if there are any available for sale or how much they cost.

 

[gowanis]

Thanks for the replies. I'm not sure I want to go down the road of trying to figure out how to make the mid-2012 laptop work with a new 4K screen. I also think the cost and effort to repair the Thunderbolt display might not be worth it. This situation may be a good excuse to get a 27 inch 5K iMac. Its a lot of money (probably around $2500 with a medium level config), but if I was about to spend $500 on a 4K screen, maybe I should just bite the bullet on the iMac. Aside from the great 5K screen, I'll be getting a newer machine which should be far more powerful than the 2012 Macbook. Anyone have some general impressions about the new 5K iMacs? Is there any base config minimum I should know about? e.g. do I need at least 16GB ram ?

 

[utgjon]

Thanks for the replies. I'm not sure I want to go down the road of trying to figure out how to make the mid-2012 laptop work with a new 4K screen. I also think the cost and effort to repair the Thunderbolt display might not be worth it. This situation may be a good excuse to get a 27 inch 5K iMac. Its a lot of money (probably around $2500 with a medium level config), but if I was about to spend $500 on a 4K screen, maybe I should just bite the bullet on the iMac. Aside from the great 5K screen, I'll be getting a newer machine which should be far more powerful than the 2012 Macbook. Anyone have some general impressions about the new 5K iMacs? Is there any base config minimum I should know about? e.g. do I need at least 16GB ram ?

As with anything... it depends what power needs you have

I'd say that 8gb would be fine if you're not doing power-hungry tasks. I think the ram on these is user-upgradeable too, so order with 8 and then buy aftermarket ram to upgrade and save some dosh?

The only thing that I would upgrade from the base config without a second-thought is the Fusion Drive to an SSD... Even if that's only the 256GB one and use external storage (Thunderbolt or otherwise) for things you don't access as much.

 

[gowanis]

As with anything... it depends what power needs you have

I'd say that 8gb would be fine if you're not doing power-hungry tasks. I think the ram on these is user-upgradeable too, so order with 8 and then buy aftermarket ram to upgrade and save some dosh?

The only thing that I would upgrade from the base config without a second-thought is the Fusion Drive to an SSD... Even if that's only the 256GB one and use external storage (Thunderbolt or otherwise) for things you don't access as much.

I was curious if 8GB ram was enough to get the best performance out of the 5K screen. I will certainly go for the SSD. My 2012 macbook is 512GB SSD, there's no going back.

Any opinions on the 5K screen itself? Is it as awesome as I would expect? As good or better than the high end 4K screens out there? (I would assume it is).

 

[chscag]

You can always add more memory to the 5K iMac if you need to do so. It's still one of the few Macs that one can upgrade the memory on. If you plan on doing a lot of video editing or number crunching, you may need more memory but since the machine is upgradeable, just order it from Apple with the standard 8GB. Why pay Apple premium prices for a memory upgrade when you can do it yourself for much less.