No refresh on System Report?

Hi, all. I'm just attempting a PC/Mac switch and starting out with a late 2011 MBP. There's more than a few things driving me crazy, as you can imagine. I'll address the first one right now. When I open System Report to look at peripheral devices it does not show what I consider 'current state'. Example is trying to connect an OWC Thunderbolt 2 dock. If I have the report open and plug in the dock, or a TB external drive for that matter, it will not show unless I close the report and reopen it. Is there some way to refresh that page without closing and reopening? I hate to bring up PC but in that system anytime you connect or disconnect a drive it appears or disappears immediately.
I will probably start another topic soon but does anyone have any experience using the OWC dock on a late 2011 MBP, model 8.2? I can get the dock to show as 'connected' in the report but the only port that works is HDMI. No USB 3.0 which is the real reason I bought it. I am using 3 different TB cables, 2 of them Apple. Please don't mention OWC support. I tried that and I think the people responding also handle toaster ovens. Their replies go off into outer space and don't address a simple question. Thanks for your time and I'll be back here with some more stuff, I'm sure.

Welcome to our forums.

I will probably start another topic soon but does anyone have any experience using the OWC dock on a late 2011 MBP, model 8.2? I can get the dock to show as 'connected' in the report but the only port that works is HDMI. No USB 3.0 which is the real reason I bought it. I am using 3 different TB cables, 2 of them Apple. Please don't mention OWC support. I tried that and I think the people responding also handle toaster ovens. Their replies go off into outer space and don't address a simple question. Thanks for your time and I'll be back here with some more stuff, I'm sure.

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That has not been our experience with OWC (Mac Sales) support and customer service. Your 2011 MacBook Pro does not have USB 3 ports, therefore the dock is not going to supply USB 3. However, the Late 2011 MacBook Pro models still have firewire. By the way, Apple considers your model (Late 2011 15" MacBook Pro) vintage which means they will refuse to work on it.

Thanks for responding. I would never consider bringing anything up with Apple. As far as vintage they will roll their eyes if you walk in with anything other than the latest and greatest. I have read numerous reviews from customers who claim that the dock is THE way to breathe new life into an older Mac. I have written to them on 3-4 occasions asking specifically if the late 2011 can run 3.0 from the dock and al I get is the same message telling me to do the system resets. When I mention that the ad seems to imply very strongly that 3.0 is possible as long as you have Thunderbolt I get a 'we'll get back to you on that'.

And it dsoes not have Thunderbolt 2 either.

With your general disatisfaction with an old (seven years) computer you may be better off in Windows world which you may know something about.

Firstly, I want to say thanks for the very quick responses on this site. I'm impressed. I realize the machine does not have TB2 but according to OWC that is not a deal breaker, it will only run at TB1 speeds which would be fine. All the info I read indicates that the dock uses the 10kb speed of the TB connection to convert that to a USB 3.0 port at 5kb. That seemed to make sense to me. To look at it the other way and say you need a later Mac with 3.0 already installed makes the OWC dock look like a very overpriced 3.0 hub. Most of the later models also have HDMI so I'm at a loss to figure out why you would even consider a dock with a 2014-2015 model?
I got this old Mac to try a conversion at the urging of all my photographer friends who run Macs. Whenever I ask them an editing question they say 'I don't know how it works on PC's'.
Harry, you could be right. Although I'm no Windows fanboy I've been running it since it came out and maybe at 65 I'm not geared for something new. My thoughts right now are to sell off the 2011 and the dock and try out a machine with 3.0 and HDMI and see how that goes. I don't relish losing a lot of money but computers are a lot less expensive than cameras. ( for most of us ).

I forgot to mention this in the post but while you guys are connected can you verify if System Report works like I mentioned or is there possibly a setting on my clunker that isn't right? I'm referring to the fact that while the Report is open it will never reflect any connect/disconnect operations. I have to clear it off and then open the report again. Is that just Mac?

OK, by trial and error I discovered the Command R refresh mode.

Can I ask how you know the USB ports on the OWC Dock are not working? I believe that if you connect the dock to the MBP with a thunderbolt cable the USB 3 ports should work at 3.0 speeds, but in any case, they should also work at 2.0 speeds. But you say they don't work at all. How do you know that? What have you attached to the USB ports? Bear in mind that the port doesn't register until something is attached to it, so looking at System Report won't show the ports themselves until they are active.

I have hooked up a variety of external drives and thumb drives and none of them even show an activity light. These are drives that I know have loads of pics on them. if I remove them and plug them directly into the Mac they work almost immediately. I agree with your point that even if I didn't get 3.0 speeds they should at least work at 2.0. From the testing I've done I don't think the gigabit port is working, either. The only port that sort of works is the HDMI and that will flicker every now and then alternating with the laptop display. That was so frustrating that I stopped using it. I'm really starting to think I may have a bad dock. And all this testing was done with 3 different TB cables. Mac, when you say I should get 3.0 speeds are you remembering I have a late 2011 machine? If so, you're the first person who agrees with that theory.

I think you will get usb3 speeds from the hub, plugged into the thunderbolt port. The hub does the work to convert usb signals to thunderbolt, as I understand it. I seem to recall seeing that on a couple of tech websites.

Mac, I would be thrilled if that happened. I have a TB cable going from the only TB port on the laptop to one of the TB inputs on the dock and the dock is powered up and the LED is lit. I have tried 3 different cables. At this point the dock will appear in System Report under the Thunderbolt tab. However, any device that I plug into the docks USB ports will not appear. Those same devices will show up if I take them out of the dock and plug them directly into the laptop. I have also tried plugging in a WD Passport mini drive into the docks remaining Thunderbolt connector and it does nothing. That same drive works fine when plugged into the laptop TB port. BTW, I like your Intruder pic.

Did you try either of these?

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063

ferrarr said:

Did you try either of these?

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204063

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Thanks, ferrarr. I have tried both of those. In fact, one site recommended to do those 3 times in succession and I did that. I had the unit apart to try a RAM upgrade along with the data doubler. Didn’t help.

I have done a quick test with an OWC Dock to see how the interface works. I have an older 2011 MBP with USB2 ports on it. I connected the OWC doc to it and use a USB thumb drive that is USB3 by connecting to the USB3 port on the Dock, then used the BlackMagic Disk Speed test (in the Apple Mac store), to test the speeds. On the OWC Dock I got 54 GB write, 129GB read, when connected directly to the USB2 connection on the MBP, I got 15GB write/32GB read. From those results, I'd say that the Dock does provide USB3 speeds to machines without native USB3 ports.

I realize that's only ONE test on ONE machine, but it seems to me that using the dock with an older MBP could give you USB3 connections through the Thunderbolt port.

One more test. I plugged the same USB thumb drive into my newer MBP with USB3 ports and got the same numbers as for the OWC Dock, further suggesting that the Dock does, in fact, provide USB3 support to older systems with TB ports.

MacInWin said:

One more test. I plugged the same USB thumb drive into my newer MBP with USB3 ports and got the same numbers as for the OWC Dock, further suggesting that the Dock does, in fact, provide USB3 support to older systems with TB ports.

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Mac, I wish that was my experience. I’ve been playing with the dock a lot today and tried all my cables and 3-4 different drives in all the ports and it still does not recognize anything. Just to refresh, the dock itself is recognized in System Report but nothing attached to the Dock ever shows up.

chscag said:

Welcome to our forums.



That has not been our experience with OWC (Mac Sales) support and customer service. Your 2011 MacBook Pro does not have USB 3 ports, therefore the dock is not going to supply USB 3. However, the Late 2011 MacBook Pro models still have firewire. By the way, Apple considers your model (Late 2011 15" MacBook Pro) vintage which means they will refuse to work on it.

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chscag, I spent time on a chat with OWC yesterday and it was pretty useless. They told me I probably had a bad TB cable ( I have 3 ) and to plug it into a wall outlet instead of a power strip. The biggest disappointment was their saying they had no way of checking the unit out if I sent it in and it was probably a throwaway. But on a side note they said that the dock absolutely should work on a 2011 MBP because it uses the TB 10kb speed to power the 3.0 USB at 5kb.

Do you know that the TB port on the MBP is working properly? Do you have any other TB devices to check that? Given you have three cables, I'm going to leap to the conclusion that you do have other TB devices.

Mac, the TB port on the MBP is fine. I’ve used it to connect with 2 Thunderbolt external drives and it does show the OWC Dock as connected when I plug that in. Since I bought it used I have to face the possibility that it’s fried. I’m looking for a CaDigit TS2 on the web right now.

Since I bought it used

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Ah, new news that makes a bit of a difference. You are probably correct that somehow the original owner had it fail, then "forgot" to tell you about it. As I said, mine works perfectly. Good luck with the CalDigit, I don't know anything about them.