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Thunderbolt 2 adapter going into my M1 iMac not reliable

I have the M1 iMac.  I've been using the old 27” Thunderbolt as a second display … used mainly for Text and Web.  A typical work flow has FCPX on the iMac and scripts, notes, various files, etc on the Thunderbolt.  That old display still makes a decent picture … but … I’m having an issue with the Thunderbolt 2 adapter going into the M1 iMac.  It just doesn’t give a solid, dependable connection.  I can go days/weeks without a problem but then the Thunderbolt Display will start flashing and then just go black ... and any app that is open on it flies over to the iMac.  Plus it can also make my RAID external drop offline (I don’t know how or why) and that causes bigger issues.  I have to jiggle and reset the adapter a number of times for it to settle down.  I’ve tried 4 different adapters and it can happen on all of them. When I had an older iMac with the Thunderbolt 2 port that I could plug directly into, this never happened.


I'm planning to go to the Mac Studio with the Studio Display soon ... but I would like to keep the Thunderbolt as a second display ... but it's just not reliable.


Any ideas/suggestions/advice will be greatly appreciated.

iMacEdit

Posted on Jul 29, 2023 2:58 PM

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Posted on Jul 29, 2023 8:40 PM

The adapter may be fine but the "octopus" (built in) cable may be bad (common issue). You can get a TB cable and connect directly to one of the open TB ports on th display bypassing the built in cable and see if that works.

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5 replies

Aug 7, 2023 12:12 PM in response to tbirdvet

It worked. It's been over a week and no flashing or disconnect (I hope I don't jinx that). I had no idea the TB port on the display would do this.


PLUS ... in. the past. I would occasionally connect that TB port on the Display to an older RAID drive. Since there is only the 1 TB port on the display, I thought that if I wanted to access that RAID drive, I would have to disconnect the Display. But just now I ran a TB 2 cable from the M1 iMac to the RAID and then a second TB 2 cable from the RAID to the Display ... and I get the RAID on the desktop and the Display works as well.


Thanks.

Thunderbolt 2 adapter going into my M1 iMac not reliable

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