281–290 of 498 posts
Excited for the first ATX power supply which takes USB-C as input rather than the traditional IEC 60320 C13/C14. I mean, it'll probably cause some fires, but it'll be exciting!
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Maybe with an attached labelling machine to print the results in a way that could easily be affixed to the cable? ;) Oh, and please with an integrated wirecutter that automatically destroys cables if their results are too bad?
Heh I had a cursed micro-USB cable at the office that only carried power, no data - had fun debugging why my board did not work.
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Should be detectable though, at least in many circumstances. USB-PD has bidirectional communication, so at least in theory both ends could know how the cable is performing by comparing voltage and current measurements at either end. If the cable drops too many Watts, the load can be disconnected.
Now you will run into WiFi type problems where your cable gives you different charge speeds depending on the season and time of day. Service will degrade and you may not notice the problem and may never figure it out in the end.
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Not using the proper cable could lead also to fires, for example. We are talking about a significant amount of current. If you don't use a cable rated for that current, the cable or the connector will overheat, and possibly start a fire. And it's not a remote possibility. It happened to me with a fast charging phone power supply and the phone, and the cable was the one provided by the manufacturer! The type-C connect…
It should be impossible for any set of non-damaged, non-defective, spec-compliant set of USB-C cables and peripherals to cause fires. The specifications are very carefully designed to prevent any combination of cables and devices from causing damage.
Either way, this is an incredibly common device that can be damaged by incompatible hardware where it's difficult to determine compatibility without bricking the device.
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I would love to see somebody attempt to damage a micro-USB or USB-C port by forcing a USB-A plug into it. Not going to happen, sorry. They may as well try to force a NEMA-5 plug into a VGA port. It's nonsensical. At a certain point on the usability continuum, user error becomes so severe that only dementia can explain it. But USB-C incompatibilities are so far from that point that arguing otherwise seems like bad fai…
What is your suggested solution? Every potential configuration USB-C can offer needs its own physically different cable? We're going to need a dozen different form factors now. How do you do that at scale economically? How does it help when someone inevitably buys the USB-C cable with shape y when they need USB-C cable with shape x? It physically doesn't fit, great, but they still have the wrong cable and their devic…
> How does it help when someone inevitably buys the USB-C cable with shape y when they need USB-C cable with shape x? [...] They still have to take it back to the store.
It helps because they know they have to go back to the store, and aren't left wondering if the problem is actually with themselves somehow using their computer wrong. As I mentioned earlier: "Some USB-C cables not working with some USB-C sockets leaves users feeling gaslit."
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Not using the proper cable could lead also to fires, for example. We are talking about a significant amount of current. If you don't use a cable rated for that current, the cable or the connector will overheat, and possibly start a fire. And it's not a remote possibility. It happened to me with a fast charging phone power supply and the phone, and the cable was the one provided by the manufacturer! The type-C connect…
> We are talking about a significant amount of current. Are we? I'm not sure how they deliver more power in this specification. But traditionally, the additional power (from 5W to 20W to 100W) was through additional *voltage*, not current. > And it's not something trivial that power supplies and phones can detect, there is not a way to determinate the voltage drop in the cable built into the standard (basically all t…
That level of power delivery is negotiated after the devices are connected. The cable also has to advertise that it is capable of that power delivery.
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Explaining to my aunt or uncle or grandparents that, no, the cable and charger they bought isn't the right one for their phone/laptop/whatever even though it fits isn't ideal. Sure, it might just charge slowly (cue family tech support call), but it could also just show "not charging" on OS X for example, which is just confusing for most people. It's a real problem, even if tech savvy people are fine with lower charge…
Even I have this problem. I bbought an amp reader and throw out anything reporting below 0.4ma/h. So many devices come bundles with poor cables my house is riddled with cables that I just never want to use for charging. I'm actually TERRIFIED of pluggin anything in to my kids Switch other than Nintendo's official cable, incase I brick i t. Does anyone know if they've patched this? I have some Dell laptop charger USB-…
USB-C bashing threads represent the 'HN echo chamber' for me. :) I understand the problems of different cables, I've run into them already. One cable can do Thunderbolt, the other cannot. One cable transmits 4K video signal, the others doesn't transmit anything. And so on. However, it is sooooo much better than anything before because at least _most of the time_ stuff works. Chargers charge. Sometimes slower, sometim…
It is still a rather new phenomenon. Most of HN used to be USB-C supporters. Especially those on Apple camp. For years mentioning every single problem listed in this thread would get downvoted into oblivion.
Since most of them didn't bother jumping in to defence their beloved USB-C, I guess they changed their mind.
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I don't think this is accurate. [0] and [1] have 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited Graphics benchmark tested on both the M1 and the 4800U in the Lenovo Yoga Slim-7-14ARE and the M1's GPU stomps the Vega 8 R4000. It outscores even the Ryzen 5000 series iGPU. I've seen no evidence that the M1's GPU is anything but best in class for integrated graphics. [0] https://www.notebookcheck.net/Apple-M1-GPU-GPU-Benchmarks-an... [1] ht…
From "doesn't even start to compete" and "GPUs have always been the biggest power draw" I don't think they were comparing to integrated.
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Not using the proper cable could lead also to fires, for example. We are talking about a significant amount of current. If you don't use a cable rated for that current, the cable or the connector will overheat, and possibly start a fire. And it's not a remote possibility. It happened to me with a fast charging phone power supply and the phone, and the cable was the one provided by the manufacturer! The type-C connect…
It should be impossible for any set of non-damaged, non-defective, spec-compliant set of USB-C cables and peripherals to cause fires. The specifications are very carefully designed to prevent any combination of cables and devices from causing damage.
I need assurance though that my cables were carefully designed.