Thunderbolt port woes..

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Level 1

4 points

Thunderbolt port woes..

Hi

Having a weird issue with Thunderbolt in my early 2011 13” MacBook Pro (MacbookPro8,1).

Have tried on both Yosemite 10.10.4 and Mountain Lion 10.8.5 (dual boot)

I bought a Kanex Thunderbolt to USB / eSATA adapter a few weeks ago that dozens seem to register on the Thunderbolt bus.

It is working OK because I tried it on another 15” late 2011 MBP and read both the adapter and a USB3 external HDD plugged into it.

I also bought a Apple Thunderbolt to Ethernet Adapter and that worked OK as did plugging an external monitor in (same connector but mini DisplayPort)

Yesterday, I went to the Apple Store Genius Bar appointment to look at it and were able to replicate the issue i.e. Kanex adapter worked OK in their newer Macbook Pros

Interestingly when also tried Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter which also didn't work, though as mentioned above the Thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter did as well as a Thunderbolt to Thunderbolt cable and putting into Target Disk mode, and the other Mac was able to see that OK.

One of the things we thought may be an issue was that several months ago I replaced the optical drive with a SSD (OWC kit), so there are two drives installed internally - perhaps having both drives were perhaps drawing too much power from the Thunderbolt Bus.

But later on, I removed that so that there was only one drive installed (either HDD or SSD combinations) and that didn't fix the problem.

So clearly there are mixed results there..

The only other difference I can see between the two MacBooks is that the other late 2011 MBP has Thunderbolt Firmware version 25.1 and my early 2011 is 22.1.

Also get the Thunderbolt Port status:

Status: No device connected

Link Status: 0x7

Speed: Up to 10 Gb/s x2

Receptacle: 1

Port Micro Firmware Version: 2.1.3

The ROM versions are:

Boot ROM Version: MBP81.0047.B2A

SMC Version (system): 1.68f99

Have reset SMC, PRAM about 5-6 times as well..

Also tried as per other post (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5430468) reflashing the the 2 Thunderbolt firmwares 1.0 / 1.2 to no avail..

Obviously don’t want to buy an new logic board which was quoted approx $900 to replace for something that it may not resolve.

Has anyone else had these issues? If so, would it be possible to share your results / workarounds if possible please?

Thanks in advance

Richard

Melbourne, AU

MacBook Pro (13-inch Early 2011), OS X Yosemite (10.10.4)

Posted on Jul 9, 2015 7:02 AM

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Answer 1

richard_au Author

Level 1

4 points

Jul 25, 2017 9:26 PM in response to richard_au

Hiya

Realised that I never followed up on this thread for closure...

Eventually after many months and escalations, I managed to convince Apple to get the system board replaced.

Of course, this fixed the issue - so perhaps there was a low-level component / firmware compatibility issue that was resolved with that.

Regards

Richard

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Answer 2

Nov 27, 2015 1:09 AM in response to richard_au

Hi,

I have a similar problem and wonder if you have resolved yours? I have two 13" MBP's - one Early 2011 and one 2012. I am using a Blackmagicdesign HDMI - Thunderbolt video interface which is recognised and works perfectly on the 2012 MBP but does not even power up on the Early 2011 MBP. Exactly the same settings and config as you show regarding Thunderbolt. I have installed the two TB updates - no change. TB on both MBP's works fine with a video adapter and also with an external Freecom HD cradle - just that the Early 2011 won't power up the Blackmagic interface. I haven't had a motherboard upgrade and don't know whether what I have was the earlier or later motherboard. Even if this is the problem, maybe not worth exchanging now - better to resign myself to not having HDMI video input via TB on the earlier machine?

Any ideas gratefully received.....Peter

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