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WhatCable: Know what your USB-C cable can do

whatcable.uk

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Re: WhatCable: Know what your USB-C cable can do

#41

Post by notpushkin »

david422 wrote: post #27
pdpi wrote: post #15

I literally spent more than an hour yesterday debugging issues with USB-C cables that I wasn't aware were charging only, and this shows up today... Better late than never, I suppose, and definitely worth my ten quid.

I was trying to figure out slow network speeds one day and I finally swapped an ethernet cable and got full speed. It turns out some ethernet cables are missing wires - and capped at 100Mbps! Wait what? I didn't even know that was a thing. I don't know where I got the wire, but into the trash it goes.

100 Mbps is sometimes just enough for the job. And it’s easy to see that you only have two pairs instead of four – just look at the connector.

Re: WhatCable: Know what your USB-C cable can do

#42

Post by PhilipRoman »

traceroute66 wrote: post #28
bestouff wrote: post #3

I'm using the hardware tester from Treedix in which you have to plug both ends of the cable and which tests a lot of things, I'm quite fond of it. I have a basket with a lot of USB-c cables and without the tester I can't remember (nor guess) which one does what.

> I'm using the hardware tester from $INSERT_NAME_HERE Oh god not again... before everyone starts naming their favourite brand, here's a 265 comment HN thread[1] (from last week !) on why these cheap USB-cable "testers" are not worth anything. TL;DR You need a six-figure wallet to seriously call anything a "hardware tester" for USB cables. User ChrisMarshallNY has a one-liner summary buried in that thread: Think abou…

Am I missing something? For practical use you only care if it carries a certain amount of packets per second without excessive retries, not whether it preserves the waveform exactly.

Re: WhatCable: Know what your USB-C cable can do

#43

Post by seanw444 »

nerdsniper wrote: post #25

Something that keeps needing to be pointed out every thread this stuff appears on: What these tools report are not functionally different from just believing "what's on the packaging", despite the misleading marketing claims. These tools read a chip called an "eMarker". These eMarkers are programmed to say whatever the manufacturer wants them to say - there's no requirement that the information be based in reality. P…

So basically, it's cheap for them to defraud the consumer, and prohibitively expensive for the consumer to adequately protect themselves from it. The absolute state.

Re: WhatCable: Know what your USB-C cable can do

#44

Post by bestouff »

blightful wrote: post #9
bestouff wrote: post #3

I'm using the hardware tester from Treedix in which you have to plug both ends of the cable and which tests a lot of things, I'm quite fond of it. I have a basket with a lot of USB-c cables and without the tester I can't remember (nor guess) which one does what.

Nice. You just got them a sale from me. I have a crap ton of cables so this will come in handy.

Exactly my use case.

And I have nothing to gain from that sale.

Re: WhatCable: Know what your USB-C cable can do

#45

Post by bestouff »

traceroute66 wrote: post #28
bestouff wrote: post #3

I'm using the hardware tester from Treedix in which you have to plug both ends of the cable and which tests a lot of things, I'm quite fond of it. I have a basket with a lot of USB-c cables and without the tester I can't remember (nor guess) which one does what.

> I'm using the hardware tester from $INSERT_NAME_HERE Oh god not again... before everyone starts naming their favourite brand, here's a 265 comment HN thread[1] (from last week !) on why these cheap USB-cable "testers" are not worth anything. TL;DR You need a six-figure wallet to seriously call anything a "hardware tester" for USB cables. User ChrisMarshallNY has a one-liner summary buried in that thread: Think abou…

OK sure your 6 figures thing or even that 20k thing are way better testers than the Treedix. But for my use case, i.e. verify what's actually in the cable (not blindly trusting the marker) the latter is sufficient and very ergonomic, and the "real" testers are overkill.

Re: WhatCable: Know what your USB-C cable can do

#46

Post by traceroute66 »

PhilipRoman wrote: post #42
traceroute66 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm using the hardware tester from $INSERT_NAME_HERE Oh god not again... before everyone starts naming their favourite brand, here's a 265 comment HN thread[1] (from last week !) on why these cheap USB-cable "testers" are not worth anything. TL;DR You need a six-figure wallet to seriously call anything a "hardware tester" for USB cables. User ChrisMarshallNY has a one-liner summary buried in that thread: Think abou…

Am I missing something? For practical use you only care if it carries a certain amount of packets per second without excessive retries, not whether it preserves the waveform exactly.

> For practical use you only care if it carries a certain amount of packets per second without excessive retries

The $40 black-boxes do two things:

    1. Basic electrical continuity test
    2. Read the marker chips (if present)
There is zero chance that a $40 black-box, even if it did a naïve packet pushing test, would deliver you reproducible results and introduces all sorts of other random variables.

"Excessive retries" sounds like exactly the sort of intermittent, hard-to-diagnose cable issues that you will not find unless you test the USB cable on a 6-figure rig. :)

Re: WhatCable: Know what your USB-C cable can do

#48

Post by traceroute66 »

lloydatkinson wrote: post #33
traceroute66 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm using the hardware tester from $INSERT_NAME_HERE Oh god not again... before everyone starts naming their favourite brand, here's a 265 comment HN thread[1] (from last week !) on why these cheap USB-cable "testers" are not worth anything. TL;DR You need a six-figure wallet to seriously call anything a "hardware tester" for USB cables. User ChrisMarshallNY has a one-liner summary buried in that thread: Think abou…

Are you suggesting there is no middle ground and that simply knowing if a USB-C cable is a USB C cable or a fake one can't be done with a cheap tester?

> Are you suggesting there is no middle ground

Sadly yes.

Like many people on that thread concluded:

The best "middle ground" thing you can do is pay a premium to buy your cables from reputable manufacturers.

Re: WhatCable: Know what your USB-C cable can do

#49

Post by traceroute66 »

bestouff wrote: post #45
traceroute66 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm using the hardware tester from $INSERT_NAME_HERE Oh god not again... before everyone starts naming their favourite brand, here's a 265 comment HN thread[1] (from last week !) on why these cheap USB-cable "testers" are not worth anything. TL;DR You need a six-figure wallet to seriously call anything a "hardware tester" for USB cables. User ChrisMarshallNY has a one-liner summary buried in that thread: Think abou…

OK sure your 6 figures thing or even that 20k thing are way better testers than the Treedix. But for my use case, i.e. verify what's actually in the cable (not blindly trusting the marker) the latter is sufficient and very ergonomic, and the "real" testers are overkill.

> verify what's actually in the cable (not blindly trusting the marker) the latter is sufficient

But as was repeated 101 times on that thread ....

All that those cheap $40 boxes are doing IS reading the marker.

Sadly you are kidding yourself if you think a $40 box off Amazon is doing any sort of "verification". Let alone in any sort of calibrated, reproducible sense free of random unknown variables.

Re: WhatCable: Know what your USB-C cable can do

#50

Post by traceroute66 »

jwr wrote: post #47

What would be really interesting is if I could connect a cable to two ports on a Mac and have the Mac test the cable.

> What would be really interesting is if I could connect a cable to two ports on a Mac and have the Mac test the cable.

Not reproducible and introduces all sorts of other random variables to your test (buffering etc.).

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