Thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter

[bluedukies8]

Hello,

I just recently purchased a 2011 Macbook Air 11" and 13" from my Grandma (were my Grandpa's but he passed away). I just ran out to Best Buy and bought the Thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter so I can connect my Air to our network at work, but it is not displaying in the Network settings.

I am currently running Yosemite.

I did some searching, both in this forum, Google, and Apple's community but didn't find a fix. I did find this post on Apple's community..... https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4030496?start=0&tstart=0

I did check my System Report - shows 'Thunderbolt: No hardware was found.'

I did find some info on the Thunderbolt driver update 1.2.1 but looks like that only works with 10.7.4. So do I need to roll back, install the updated driver, then reinstall Yosemite? It won't be a big deal now as I don't have much on it....though it will suck.

Appreciate any help.

 

[motrek]

Hello,

I just recently purchased a 2011 Macbook Air 11" and 13" from my Grandma (were my Grandpa's but he passed away). I just ran out to Best Buy and bought the Thunderbolt to Ethernet adapter so I can connect my Air to our network at work, but it is not displaying in the Network settings.

I am currently running Yosemite.

I did some searching, both in this forum, Google, and Apple's community but didn't find a fix. I did find this post on Apple's community..... https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4030496?start=0&tstart=0

I did check my System Report - shows 'Thunderbolt: No hardware was found.'

I did find some info on the Thunderbolt driver update 1.2.1 but looks like that only works with 10.7.4. So do I need to roll back, install the updated driver, then reinstall Yosemite? It won't be a big deal now as I don't have much on it....though it will suck.

Appreciate any help.

I don't think the 2011 MBA has Thunderbolt. Just Mini DisplayPort.

Just get a USB ethernet adapter. Should save you a few dollars too.

 

[bluedukies8]

I don't think the 2011 MBA has Thunderbolt. Just Mini DisplayPort.

Just get a USB ethernet adapter. Should save you a few dollars too.

I wondered about that, but on the side of the laptop it has the 'bolt' symbol same as the cable I bought. I also found this while doing some looking...

Which Macs have Thunderbolt Ports?
The following models are Thunderbolt capable:

• MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Late 2012) and later
• MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2012) and later
• MacBook Pro (13-inch, Early 2011) and later
• MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2011) and later
• MacBook Air (11-inch, Mid 2011) and later
• MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2011) and later
• Mac mini (Mid 2011) and later
• iMac (Mid 2011) and later
• Mac Pro (Late 2013)

 

[Significant1]

Is it a problem with both of them?
The Thunderbolt Ethernet should be present in network preferences, but will not turn green and connected just by inserting the adapter, you also have to connect ethernet and establish connection.
That your System report does not list Thunderbolt I find worrying. My 2014 does even without anything attached.

 

[Nermal]

The Thunderbolt hardware should indeed show up even with nothing connected; it shows up on my 2015 and I'm pretty sure that it did on my 2011 too.

 

[Boyd01]

I don't think the 2011 MBA has Thunderbolt. Just Mini DisplayPort.

No the 2011 MBA definitely has thunderbolt. I had one and used thunderbolt disks with no problem. I sold it to a friend and she got an Apple Thunderbolt ethernet adapter that worked fine. So that definitely isn't the problem. No idea if Yosemite breaks something though, I was running Lion back then.

 

[bluedukies8]

Is it a problem with both of them?
The Thunderbolt Ethernet should be present in network preferences, but will not turn green and connected just by inserting the adapter, you also have to connect ethernet and establish connection.
That your System report does not list Thunderbolt I find worrying. My 2014 does even without anything attached.

Well last night when I got home I plugged the Thunderbolt adapter in my 13" Air, checked Network connections and the Thunderbolt option shows immediately (in red though as Ethernet was not plugged in).

I checked the System report on the 13" and it shows more info in the Thunderbolt section than the 11" does. The 13" though is still running Lion.

 

[bluedukies8]

No the 2011 MBA definitely has thunderbolt. I had one and used thunderbolt disks with no problem. I sold it to a friend and she got an Apple Thunderbolt ethernet adapter that worked fine. So that definitely isn't the problem. No idea if Yosemite breaks something though, I was running Lion back then.

Hmm that is weird. Makes me wonder if I roll back to Lion and try to install the 1.2.1 driver from Apple if it will stay if I upgrade back to Yosemite.

Don't really want to do that and then it not work, but I don't think I will find out until try.

--------------

Ok another question. If I decide to roll back, is there anyway to use my Mac Mini as a backup for the Air? My external hard drive recently crashed and have yet to replace it.

 

[motrek]

...
Ok another question. If I decide to roll back, is there anyway to use my Mac Mini as a backup for the Air? My external hard drive recently crashed and have yet to replace it.

If you can access files on the Mini from the Air, you can create a dmg and use SuperDuper! or similar to copy your Air drive to the dmg.

 

[Mrbobb]

Stupid question, you got a very portable laptop, why not use WIFI?

 

[bluedukies8]

Stupid question, you got a very portable laptop, why not use WIFI?

My office that I work at is a smaller one and has yet to install wifi. We are looking to install it next year, but until then I would like to be able to plug in the extra ethernet cable at my desk to use it instead of using my data from my phone.

 

[bluedukies8]

If you can access files on the Mini from the Air, you can create a dmg and use SuperDuper! or similar to copy your Air drive to the dmg.

I'll have to look into this. I'm not familiar with SuperDuper! I'm pretty sure I can access my files from my Mini.

 

[c8rlo]

OP,

i also have a 2011 MBA 13", recently bought from a friend who bought it used but had recent issues with it and decided to buy the new MB; he said that the wifi card was bad and said "no hardware installed" when u click the wifi icon and could not connect to the internet via TB to ethernet adapter because of this. i knew that this was a simple fix and offered to fix it but he wanted the new MB.

i ended up buying it from him, installed the new wifi card and reinstalled ML and upgraded to Yosemite and is running with no problems. i disabled the wifi on the MBA and i'm currently typing on it as i'm posting this and connected to the internet via the TB/ethernet adapter and is working fine.

if you have a possible faulty wifi card, this is may be why you can't connect to the internet via TB/ethernet adapter.

 

[bluedukies8]

OP,

i also have a 2011 MBA 13", recently bought from a friend who bought it used but had recent issues with it and decided to buy the new MB; he said that the wifi card was bad and said "no hardware installed" when u click the wifi icon and could not connect to the internet via TB to ethernet adapter because of this. i knew that this was a simple fix and offered to fix it but he wanted the new MB.

i ended up buying it from him, installed the new wifi card and reinstalled ML and upgraded to Yosemite and is running with no problems. i disabled the wifi on the MBA and i'm currently typing on it as i'm posting this and connected to the internet via the TB/ethernet adapter and is working fine.

if you have a possible faulty wifi card, this is may be why you can't connect to the internet via TB/ethernet adapter.

Since I have had the Macbook Air, I haven't had any issues connecting to wifi. I don't have any issues with the connection dropping at all either. Thank you for the information though. Not sure I will do that now, but at least I have something to fall back on if I do experience issues with wifi.

I took the Thunderbolt to ethernet adapter back this week and bought a USB to ethernet adapter. Tested it at home and it worked instantly. Took it to work and tested it as well and it worked as it should.

Maybe once I get a new external device for back-ups I will back up my Macbook Air and then set it back to default and try to install the Thunderbolt driver fix from Apple's site and then put my stuff back on it. Not a major issue at this time since I took back the Thunderbolt adapter.

 

[c8rlo]

I took the Thunderbolt to ethernet adapter back this week and bought a USB to ethernet adapter. Tested it at home and it worked instantly. Took it to work and tested it as well and it worked as it should.

i see, glad everything worked out for you; guess i was fortunate and didn't have the same issue. may have just been a faulty TB port. after my upgrade from Yosemite to ML, i plugged my TB/ethernet adapter with no hiccups and figured the driver was updated when i did my upgrade.

 

[squashsquashsquash]

Stupid question, you got a very portable laptop, why not use WIFI?

that is an incredibly stupid question. There are places in the world where there are 2 options: ethernet or no internet.
This thread is for MBA users who choose the former. Yeah wifi is nice, but ethernet is better than offline.

 

[RenoG]

Just get a USB ethernet adapter. Should save you a few dollars too.

I just did this, because I got such a good deal on my MacAir 13" I opted to just deal with dongles since I need everything hard wired into projector system. I did the following:
-USB to HDMI
-THUNDERBOLT TO ETHERNET
Everything went better than expected.

 

[robvas]

Once in a while I have to unplug and re-connect my Thunderbolt adapter