Thunderbolt Display static sound problem coming from the speakers

[nickmilitello]

ssd didn't fix it

As to be assumed, SSD didn't fix it. Also bought another 17" with the 2.5 quad core. loaded just after effects on it. same issue. Come on Apple.... What is happening here????

 

[drakoff]

Excellent detective work! I am experiencing the same problem

I have a newly bought Thunderbolt Display 27" and 2012 new macbook air 13" with 8GB and 128GBSDD, ordered directly from B&H online. Fromright out of the box, the built in display speakers have had a humming buzz static "FRY" that comes out of them about 2-5 minutes after IU begin playing music or placing a skype call. If I unplug the thunderbolt connection from MBA to display, and reconnect it immediately, I can "reset" the problem. But it recurs within minutes. There is no lingering white noise.
Not sure my firmwares, but I have the latest OSX Mountain Lion updates installed through auto update. The monitor, I suspect is new but "old stock" as it did not include the needed (now included) magpower1 to magpower 2 adaptor, so as to be able to link to the MBA 2012.

debating the best move... I have Apple care for both devices, and have had them about 10 days now.

Since my return from vacations, I bought a third Display as new Firmwares and Sofware updates where released.



I regret to inform that the same problem is persisting, but I did further test to narrow the problem :

• Anytime a media is playing, there is white noise in the background
• Anytime a media has spot playing, white noise can be hear for 30 seconds until it stops
• Initializing a FaceTime call has for effect of hearing the white noise even if no sound are exchange and both microphones are on mute.
• Unplugging any USB wires or Ethernet from the Display (leaving only the Thunderbolt wire to the MBA) has no effect.
• Plugging the Display to another power outlet has no effect
• Unplugging the power wire to the MacBook Air (and leaving the MBA on battery) has no effect
• Plugging the MBA on its own power source has no effect
• Plugging external USB speakers to the Display (and selecting as the Output source) = no white noise can be hear from the USB speakers or from the ones of the Display (meaning that I doubt the white noise is transferred from the Thunderbolt port to the Display)
• Selecting the Input source "USB Display" while Output source is "External USB Speakers" and not the "USB Display" has for effect of initializing the white noise from the speakers. It stops 30 seconds later. It's the only way I did find to start the noise without playing any media.
• Only way of not having any white noise is to have the Output to "Other USB Speakers" and Input to "Internal Microphone" from the MBA. So essentially cutting out any input and ouput sound sources from the Display.

I wish to know if any other person is experiencing this particular problem?


BTW: All EFI Firmware (2.2) and Thunderbolt Software Update 1.1 and Thunderbolt Display Firmware Update 1.0 have been installed. I did exchange the Thunderbolt Display 3 times, I have the exact same issue with three of them. So the problem is with ALL the Display OR with my Thunderbolt port of the MBA or the MBA in general.

 

[Lance-AR]

I have this issue on a mid 2011 mini with dual TBDs and a R6. Everything is powered from a Smart-UPS 1500. The last two 10.8.1 builds have not seemed to help.

 

[DW58]

I've never experienced this problem with my 27" TBD.

 

[Chaos123x]

Anyone ever figure this out? My audio still takes a dump every time the Pegasus drive starts to be used.

 

[nautilus_3]

I had a similar issue where the audio was stuttering and choppy no matter what was playing back on my Thunderbolt Display. After some searching, I found that it was related to USB on the display. I only had a simple USB hub connected to it with nothing connected to the hub. Basically, I have a Mac Pro and wanted something easy to reach if I had to connect something. So, long story short, I removed that hub from the back of the TBD and boom, the sound was perfect. Wish I though of that a few years ago .. Now it need to test out and see if any other ports will work or if I need a different HUB, like a powered hub.. Anyway, hope this helps someone.

 

[lauriinc]

In case someone is still having the same issues:

I'm using the older (displayport version) of the Cinema Display with my PC and when I changed my GPU to a newer one, my cinema display would make this static noise, which I did not have with the older GPU.

I figured that it had to be because the newer card supported audio over display so I tried disabling the outputs from the windows sound manager. But that did not do the trick. Then I disabled the nvidia display audio from device manager, rebooted and BOOM the static sound was gone.

I connect my macbook pro every now and then to my cinema display and that has the same problem, but as I use it so rarely I've never looked into fixing it.

But in my case, it was the audio over display that enabled the speakers on the cinema display and thus the static noise.