USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)
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USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)
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Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)
#2I have a USB-C hub for my Macbook which isn't any of these (it's a "VMade") but looks exactly the same.
It's a heap of crap. (Or, at least, the conjunction of it and Monterey is a heap of crap.) If I leave it plugged in when the Mac goes to sleep, eventually the Mac will kernel panic and force a restart. The ethernet just randomly dies, such that I now run the Mac permanently off wifi even though I have a superb fibre connection. The USB connections do at least work, but that's about all I can say of it.
Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)
#3Sad to see Anker on the list. I used to think of them as a pretty reliable electronics manufacturer in a sea of low quality chargers and hubs.
Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)
#4I had this issue too. I switched to a dell monitor that used USB-C for video and then plugged my other useful devices into the monitor. I have two other monitors that use USB-C too, but I opted for a DVI to USB-C for the two monitors. I still have two available USB-C ports and if I'm in a bind I use one of these crap adapters via USB-C but that hasn't happened in quite some time.
Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)
#5If you use a laptop with an external monitor, a better idea is to get a premium monitor which handles charging, video, and data transfer of USB devices connected to the monitor for you. This allowed me to get rid off the wonky USBC hubs, but before my employer got me a Dell monitor I didn't know that a single USBC connection can deliver all three.
Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)
#6One of the biggest reasons that I went through the trouble of switching to a Surface Book 3 + Surface Dock 2 was to make _damn sure_ that my desk docking station setup worked well. (Plus, I'm a sucker for the Surface Magsafe-ripoff connector.)
I'm running a Dell 27" 4K monitor and a ViewSonic 15" portable 1080p monitor along with the internal display full-time, with both external displays plugged in via USB-C on the Surface dock; and it's been reasonably reliable.
I don't have any other USB-C peripherals plugged in to the dock, and I haven't tried a fourth display; but so far, so good, no complaints.
Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)
#7If you want a decent dock you have to spend a bit of money. I went through this pain before accepting the cost and buying a CalDigit Thunderbolt 4 Element Hub[1]. Run's two 4k displays at 60Hz, any peripheral and charges my laptop.
So good I bought a second.
Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)
#8Yeah I've been playing this game for the past two years with the MacBook Pro.
Most work fine for a minute and then after a few months seems to get cranky and some input will start failing :/
Currently using that Anker hub mentioned. Probably the best of the bunch but that's not saying much. Lots of little annoyances.
One thing I found was putting the low powered USB A devices on a smaller hub "stick" that's USB-C and daisy chained to the Anker one. This has been the most stable setup.
But usually about twice a month stability will wane I'll have to unplug everything, restart computer and then plug them all back in one by one.
Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)
#9It feels like Apple should have done/should do an official in-house docking system instead of outsourcing such a critical component in the overall system/value proposition.
Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)
#10And sadly, I own two out of three of those.
It's worth noting that the Realtek is crap, even ignoring the OSX driver situation. I have a few of the 2.5GBe dongles to make my synology speak 2.5gb/s (because a modern NAS is 2020 should have more then gigabit, but doens't because reasons). The driver in Linux is hot mess. I seem to have much more luck then some with it.