Why is my Thunderbolt display flashing on and off?

Hi -
I ave a 25 month old Thunderbolt 27" display that I run from my 25 month old (1 month past the applecare) MacBook Pro. Since upgrading to Mavericks my MBP runs like junk - but that may be another story.
Last night - shortly after connecting the MBP and booting up, the display started going black for a second and then coming back. This happened about 5 times within the next 2 minutes before I shut down, checked all the connections and rebooted. Within a minute of being fully operational it started again so I shut down again. On the third boot things calmed down. It flashed once - off then on - then stablized for the rest of the night. All of this time the screen on the MBP itself remained on and un-flickering.
What is happening??
I've checked all the cables and they are exactly as they were when I set the thing up 25 months ago.
Is there a battery that has to be changed?
Is the MBP causing this or is the display dying on it's own?
I should be able to get more than 25 months out of a monitor - don't you think?
Can anyone lead me to a solution?
TIA -
j2

I saw it happen the other day and realized that I had left a piece of paper on the track pad. As soon as I removed the paper it stopped. Computer seems fine.

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Why is my Thunderbolt display flashing on and off?

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