IMac won't start with Thunderbolt Display connected after firmware update

After updating my thunderbolt display firmware to version 1.2 this morning via the App Store, my mid-2014 iMac won't start up with the external display connected. I can get the iMac to start up only by disconnecting the display's thunderbolt connector. After the iMac comes up, I can reconnect the display and everything appears to function normally. I've tried several restarts and the iMac won't start up with the display connected. Anyone else experience this?

Hello rameta,
It may help to reset your Mac's SMC and PRAM.
Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
Reset your computer’s PRAM
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379
Cheers,
Allen

Similar Messages

Won't start with thunderbolt display attached

Almost new 3.5 Ghz Intel Core i7 iMac 2014 SSD only, 32GB disk running 10.9.4. Absolutely will not start up from shutdown state with an additional 27" Thunderbolt display attached. Unplug the display, boots fine. Then plug in the display, all works peachy. Sleep is also broken and hangs on restart, except if you only sleep the displays, not the CPU then it always wakes up fine. This is pathetic, very Windows-like.
Suggestions?

10.9.3 and 10.9.4 have known issues with displays attached via Thunderbolt (for example see here Second display problem with 10.9.4 and 10.9.4 - Thunderbolt display for 6630M (Mini mid-2011) still broken ).
You can try filing a bug with Apple at https://bugreport.apple.com/

ITunes won't start and asks to reinstall after iTunes10 update.

iTunes won't start and asks to reinstall after iTunes10 update. I have tries reinstalling, but it comes up with it again. I have uninstalled every Apple program and reinstalled them but still the same.

What's the precise text of your message, Callum? There's a few different ones I can think of that mention reinstalling iTunes.

IMac 27" with Thunderbolt Display connected, Boot Camp Problem

Hi everyone.
Let me start off by saying that I'm using a late 2012 iMac 27", 3.4 GHz i7, 680MX, 32 GB RAM, 1 TB Fusion, with a Thunderbolt Display connected.
I installed Windows 8 via Boot Camp, and it works just fine. Here comes my problem:
I have dual screens and I play Minecraft. Minecraft's full screen is basically crap, and therefore I disabled the iMac display. I used Windows-button+P to use only the secondary display. This turns the iMac display off entirely, and leaves the Thunderbolt Display on. Note: This is not possible in Mac OS X. Then I played a little Minecraft. When I was done, i wanted the main iMac display to come on again. I then used Windows-button+P again, to turn both displays on. Then bam, totally looked like the iMac display was broken. See the images below, to see how it looks:
1) http://cl.ly/image/1p2e3c1Z1z1C
2) http://cl.ly/image/2g0n1M1Y0t0g
3) http://cl.ly/image/2Q2P1c1J220d
4) http://cl.ly/image/113b3K2O1Z43
5) http://cl.ly/image/1q2v1s1n3w1f
This image-retention-like stuff stays there, even if I reboot into Mac OS X, and then it eventually disappears. I can reproduce this, by doing the same thing again, (windows-button+p) but only in Windows, because that you cannot turn of the main display in Mac OS X. Maybe this is the reason why you can't?
Anyone can tell me what I can do? I guess I could try reinstalling, but it seems more like a hardware issue, than a software issue.
Thank you for your time, and thanks in advance.
Another note: I'll try doing the opposite, and see if it happens on the Thunderbolt Display as well. (Windows-button+P, and then only using the main display)
//ifraaank

Ok, I am marking this as "answered", as I have solved it myself, while I still have no clue what lead to the problem in the first place.
I've been on the phone with Apple Care today, and they were as clueless as I was and had never heard of this before.
After we tried the usual stuff (unplugging all wires, PRAM Reset, SMC Reset), to no avail, I was told it could well be a hardware problem and that I should have the iMac examined at the Genius Bar, so an appointment was made.
I'll cancel that one though, as I was able to cure it by myself for now (and carrying around a 27" iMac in Munich's busy downtown pedestrian zone is not really fun).
This is what I did (and I'm so happy I tried):
In Display Settings, I switched the external display back to landscape mode and selected "mirror displays".
Then I rebooted, and voilà, the problem was gone (Apple logo on white background was showing).
I switched it back to 90 degrees rotation and no mirroring, and it's still all ok.
I booted Windows 7 in Bootcamp, then back to Snow Leopard, and it's all still fine.
I can still only wonder what messed this up in the first place, but for now I'm happy.

24" iMac won't start when iPod is connected

My 24" iMac won't start up/restart if my iPod is already connected to it. If I restart with the iPod connected, I just get a gray screen (with no apple logo) forever. Has anyone else experienced this problem? If so, any solution? I have Windows installed with boot camp, don't know if that's the problem, but I tried reseting the p-ram, but to no avail...
Intel iMac 24", 7600 GT, 500GB, 2GB. Titanium Powerbook 667 MHz G4, loaded. Mac OS X (10.4.7) 30 GB iPod Video

My suggestion would be disconnect the iPod. That's just me though.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93953
I'm guessing Boot Camp is the culprit. Whatever emulated BIOS it's using doesn't like the iPod as a startup disk.

SatelliteU300 Won't start with AC power connected and fully charged battery

I just bought a U300-13U. It works great when battery is charging and AC is connected. However if left to charge up fully it won't start with AC connected. Unpluging the power or removing the battery and running on AC makes it work fine. Is this a 'feature' to stop overcharging or overheating the battery, or just a problem with this machine. I want to run with AC and battery both connected all the time as I have done with all my other laptops.
Any help appreciated.

Hello Andy
Friend of mine has this small U300 and everything work well. I have had it few weeks ago to test WXp installation and it works perfectly.
Please test it again very carefully and if the same happen again I recommend you to contact Authorized service partner in your country. Let them check your notebook. I must be honest and say that described issue sounds strange to me and please do not wait too long. Contact service as soon as possible.
Bye and good luck!

High CPU load after waking with Thunderbolt Display connected

I have a Mid-2013 MacBook Air 13" with Apple Thunderbolt Display connected. I use this setup mostly in a clamshell mode. Recently I've updated to OS X Mavericks. After that I've noticed that one of the cores is occupied by kernel_task to 100% after waking up from sleep. I've managed to isolate that to Apple Thunderbolt Display connected, without display there is a short CPU spike, but it comes down to normal levels in a couple of seconds.
I've tried resetting SMC to no success. MacBook doesn't enter Safe Mode either (progress bar goes up to approx. 30% and it goes to reboot). Probably it's because of the Thunderbolt Display, I'm not really sure.
That's not really a problem as this load doen't seem to impact CPU temp (fans are not spinning faster) and more of a activity monitor display glitch (?).
Does anyone here encounter this?

Hey Max,
I also have one CPU core on my Air'13 to run 100% after a wake-up for about 1 minute (kernel_task).
It is annoyingly like this after I upgraded to Maverics. Notice, I don't have a Thunderbolt monitor, just a laptop, no periphery.

Thunderbolt Display "dead" after firmware upgrade to Version 1.2

Hi,
I just run the Thunderbolt F/W update to 1.2 as offered by the AppStore Update. I have a 2014 MacPro with 2 Displays connected. In good faith I just confirmed to apply the update without much reading the fine print. The F/W update brought the system to a complete standstill. After 2 hours of waiting in the boot screen, I rebooted the system manually (5 secs power button). One of the Thunderbolt displays first just flickered, then decided to completely die. The System report says: unknown device in the Thunderbolt section. The 2nd display hasn't been updated during this procedure.
How can the F/W of the 'dead' display be re-installed? I also tried to connect it to a MacBook pro. Same result. The display is entirely black.
Any help or suggestion is much appreciated. Thanks!

Put me on the list as well.
I've had this TB display for two years and have had no issue with it. Clicked OK on the firmware prompt and now I have a $1000 paperweight/laptop charger.
What I have tried:
Reset SMC and NVRAM on my MBP.
Unplugged the display from power and all peripherals and let it sit for ~24 hours before trying again.
Downloaded the firmware installer from Thunderbolt Display Firmware Update v1.2. It tells me that no thunderbolt display is connected.
So far nothing has produced a result.
System report shows an unknown device on the TB port.
A used logic board for the display is around USD$220 on ebay.
I really wish I had not attempted to install the firmware now.

Won't boot with external display connected

My MacBook Pro (circa 1997) won't boot with the external display connected. I can connect the external display (20in flat planel) after it has started, and it works just fine.
I have tried two different DVI cables (one of which I think is a DVI-A cable) and the DVI-to-VGA cable. The result is the same.
During the boot phase I get the tone, the apple logo and the progress wheel. After 30 seconds to one minute those disappear to be replaced by an empty blue screen.

In case anyone wonders, my "solution" was to change to a WB Elements Desktop 3TB (only USB 2.0 is currently available for this model). I miss the speed of USB 3.0, but it's much nicer to not have to remember to unplug and plug in the hard drive each time I boot.
Still hoping to see a proper solution to this (since I don't have the WB My Book anymore, I can't test adaher's suggestion).

Fan on full speed, with thunderbolt display connected

Hi,
I have a brand new late 2011 15" mb pro. All standard, besides a SSD disk. I also bought a thunderbolt dispay, and it works great. The only thing is that the macbook fan start going on full speed in a few minutes, and will keep doing even if I don't run any programs at all.
Does it really consume so much power to run this thunderbolt display that the macbook needs to be at maximum all the time?
When I disconnect the macbook and run it stand alone, I don't have this problem.

You may likely have some other problem. Do this to start:
Open Activity Monitor in the Utilities folder. Select All Processes from the Processes dropdown menu. Click twice on the CPU% column header to display in descending order. If you find a process using a large amount of CPU time, then select the process and click on the Quit icon in the toolbar. Click on the Force Quit button to kill the process. See if that helps. Be sure to note the name of the runaway process so you can track down the cause of the problem.

X220 won't start up on battery power after BIOS update 1.24/1.25

This is a really strange issue.
I had been using my laptop with the oriiginal 1.10 (or whatever the very first one was) BIOS until yesterday with no problems. I head that there were some important fixes in the newer BIOS versions so I updated to 1.25. Everything seemed to be working fine until I went to work and turned on my laptop. It kept crashing before Windows would load (after the post screen but before any of the windows screens. It just stays black for a long time and then flashes a BSOD and restarts). I tried downgrading to BIOS 1.24 but the problem persisted.
It turns out that it does this whenever I try to start the computer without it plugged into the ac adaptor. When it is plugged in it starts up as normal but when unplugged it won't boot into windows. Once Windows is loaded I can unplug it and nothing happens but I still can't restart it without plugging it back in
Has anyone else encountered this problem? Is this a known issue? Any suggestions for what could be causing this strange behaviour?
If I can't get it figured out right away I will have to try to downgrade to the original BIOS version.

LOL! I just tried updating to 1.28 BIOS and had forgotten about the problem I had last time (when I tried updating to 1.24/1.25). I was just looking up what to do and came across this thread. I took me way too long to realize I was reading my own post from months ago! Boy am I slow.
I don't know if you are still subscribed to this thread Aamir but a hard reset is when you turn off the computer by holding down the power button until it turns off. Are you (were you) having the same issue with the newer BIOS versions as I am?
I think that the x220 is an amazing laptop spec-wise but are there ever a lot of driver/software problems! I keep trying to use the newer BIOS versions but I always have to revert to the original because Windows 7 won't start if I am on battery power (so basically anytime that I am not at home). I just bought a mSATA SSD (which is why I tried to use the newest firmware, I heard that older ones don't support them) and though the BIOS recongizes it, now Windows won't start if the SSD is installed! There is not much use in having a laptop with lots of ports and expansion options if it doesn't work when you use them!

Won't start-up, can't reinstall after latest update

I was running the latest update that included a os x combined update and a firmware update. All was going well, and then the laptop restarted with the firmware update progress screen. The computer restarted abruptly, and never started up correctly since.
Here's where I am now:
The boot process is very slow and takes much longer then usual. Eventually my desktop background loads, along with the desktop icons. The menubar on top loads too. The dock does not load, and I can't open anything through the desktop icons. I can use quick-preview (pressing spacebar), but can't open any application. None of the dropdown lists work on the menu bar. Occasionally, the screen switched to black and blue and back to the usual desktop.
Nothing works, opens, or can be accessed. Even the power button works, I need to shutdown with shift-control-option-power.
I tried to reinstall osx, or at least access disk utilities to make some repairs.
If I press option during the boot with the CD in, nothing happens, and I wind up the same position as described above.
If I press C instead, I get a kernel panic during the boot process.
I tried the CD on a different mac, and it worked fine.
I'm stuck!!! Can't reinstall, can't fix, can't access!!!
Any ideas or experiences with fixing this?

What's the precise text of your message, Callum? There's a few different ones I can think of that mention reinstalling iTunes.

Early 2011 Macbook external display issues after firmware update

I have a 2011 MBPro 15". After performing the firmware update in late April, I have continual issues when I connect my monitor. The screen is blank and I can move the mouse tap the keyboard etc. The display may come up for a scond and then it will close and the machine goes back to sleep. More wiggling and the process starts over.
If I raise the lid it may bing up the external display. Restarting is the only sure fix.
I also was unable to make a presentation today because the projector I was connected to would not show the MBP display.
I tried all the key combinations, detect display etc. and nothing.
Can I somehow go back to the prior firmware? Other solutions?
SMC Version (system): 1.69f1
EFI Driver Version: 01.00.521

I recently did a software update to my MacBook pro and had a similar issue, on restart it gets to the apple logo then just shuts off, after multiple hours on the phone with apple care they told me that it was coincidence that it happened at the same time as the update and it would be costly to repair as it was either something to do with display or logic board. I took my MacBook into my retail location I bought it from and was told that they have had MULTIPLE people bring in macbooks with the SAME issue (I live in a really small city so the amount of people is quite large proportion wise) and that they could fix the issue by remotely resetting the MacBook at a cost of $130-$150. Relatively cheap considering what I was fearing, but if this is a common problem related to Apples update why are we paying to fix it and why is apple support saying its something major???

Imac 27" late 2009 SOS beeps at startup after firmware update

Here is the story.
After a firmware update, imac did not start up and beeped. The only way to get it to start was to reset the VRAM using the command option P R. Then it was starting fine, but for each reboot I had to do the same.
A firmware update later... And now even that doesn't work.
Could it be the logic board battery? ( computer is 3.5 yrs old and part of it was 2 months in storage so off the grid).
Anyone has had a similar issue before I bring it to the applestore and wait for the overpriced repair?
Thanks!

Hi Gus,
Which beeps?
The following table lists the new tones and their meaning:
Tone(s)    Description
1 tone, a 5-second pause, repeat    No RAM installed
3 successive tones, a 5-second pause, 3 successive tones    RAM does not pass data integrity check
1 long tone when holding down the power button    Firmware upgrade in process. See About firmware updates for Intel-based Macs for more details.
3 long tones, 3 short tones, 3 long tones    Firmware restoration from CD in process. See About the Firmware Restoration CD (Intel-based Macs) for more details.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2538
Might be time to replace the PRAM Battery, 4 years is close to their lifespan, far less if ever without AC power, & can cause strange startup problems...
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/CR2032/
Not easy to do yourself.
PS. You reset the PRAM.

IMac won't start when Thunderbolt RAID is connected

Hi,
I've been having this issue for several months. When I start the iMac (late 2012) the Pegasus R4 RAID will automatically turn on as it should. However the iMac stays stuck at the grey screen before the Apple logo appears until I unplug the Pegasus thunderbolt cable. Sometimes I also have to restart the iMac at this point before it will boot further.
I remember in the first months when I got the iMac and Pegasus I never had this issue up until a certain point before summer.
I read in other discussions that external harddrives power connectors sometimes cause this type of trouble. But isn't the Pegasus R4 advertised and sold by Apple? There shouldn't be an incompatibility issue then, right?
Thanks for any help.

My suggestion would be disconnect the iPod. That's just me though.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93953
I'm guessing Boot Camp is the culprit. Whatever emulated BIOS it's using doesn't like the iPod as a startup disk.

IMac won't start with Thunderbolt Display connected after firmware update

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for