Chosen Solution
I plugged the Thunderbolt cable from the Apple Thunderbolt Display into my MacBook the other day, as I have done one thousand times before. There was a huge cracking sound - like a capacitor burned out or similar and the display went dead. Smoke and ozone smell - although no visible smoke. No response since. The MacBook is fine. The powerboard the display was plugged into is also dead - no response on any outlet. All other devices plugged into the powerboard are OK. What do you think the chances are that the display circuitry survived? Is it worth spending the money on a new power supply to test if it works? Or, at least spending the money on the suction caps to tear the display down and visually inspect? Could you even tell from a visual inspection if the silicon got fried? Thanks for your advice in advance.
After inspecting the internals I did replace the power supply unit and the monitor is working fine. So, for anybody else who has this issue, I can confirm that the power supply blowing up does not necessarily fry the circuitry and it is worth having a go at replacing the power supply.
Depending on the fault, it may be a cheap fix. At least take the monitor apart and see if there is anything grossly obvious at fault. We can’t tell you what to check without photos of the internals. Refer to these guides to open it and check everything out. If it turns out it’ll be ~40% of the cost to repair the display, it may ultimately make more sense to replace it. Parts for these aren’t cheap and can be difficult to come by, unlike more common generic TN options.
I don’t think it is worth it. Once something internal breaks, it is really hard to fix. Unless you want to take the time to fix it, you should probably replace it. If you want to take the time to replace it, there are ifixit guides on this website.
