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Bad USB-C cable destroys laptop

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Re: Bad USB-C cable destroys laptop

#111

Post by wtallis »

greedo wrote: post #97
cocoflunchy wrote: post #58

Interesting that most of the reviews for Anker and Aukey products on Amazon have a variation of the same "I was provided with a free sample of this product in exchange for my unbiased professional review."

How on earth do you think the tech review industry works? 99% of the reviews you've read utilize free gear provided by the vendor. Some publications have taken steps to curb potential excesses, but at least when I was freelancing (2000-2005), almost all writers were provided gear for free, and allowed to keep said gear. Ethical journalists can attempt to ignore the impact of gratis equipment, but it's difficult in th…

There's a big difference between giving review samples to journalists to review and publish on their own sites, and giving samples to be reviewed in bulk on Amazon in the same context of customer reviews and aggregated together with the same scores, with only a footnote of disclosure. Getting review samples isn't the problem; the reviews are just being published in the wrong manner. It's particularly inexcusable that the reviews solicited in this manner are eligible to be tagged as "verified purchaser" reviews.

Re: Bad USB-C cable destroys laptop

#113

Post by bmelton »

eklavya wrote: post #108
kstenerud wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Nexus 5X supports the new 15W fast charging USB-C standard . It takes about 15-20m for my phone to go from empty to full from the wall charger, and considerably longer from a USB A port.

I think something is broken on mine then. It takes an hour and five ten minutes to go from 15% to full from a wall charger. Are you sure it only takes 15-20 mins?

Second data point. Mine takes about 35 minutes to go from near empty to full if I use the supplied wall charger, and is substantially slower if I use most other things (though oddly, my Anker DC->AC 2-port USB-A charger is able to support rapid charging).

When you plug it in, turn it off, then back on. Down at the bottom, near the fingerprint, it should indicate the type of charging you're getting. I've seen three modes, and I apologize for not knowing the distinctions, but they're "charging slowly", "charging" and "charging rapidly".

Times are commensurate to the charge mode, and rapid charging is unsurprisingly quite fast.

Another thing that might be the case is if the OP is going from actual empty to full without turning it on, which should (to some extent) expedite charging as there is no discharge happening at the same time, maybe.

Re: Bad USB-C cable destroys laptop

#115

Post by ackfoo »

paulmd wrote: post #39
earlz wrote: post #10

TL;DR; USB-C cable had GND tied to Vbus and Vbus tied to GND (opposite as it should be) Honestly, I'm surprised that this isn't something that thelaptop and other such USB adapters aren't equipped to deal with. This is only slightly worse in my book than a USB adapter being fried from shorting the Vbus and GND pins together

Electrical faults are just a fact of life. Wires fray, cables get tugged, or are miswired from the factory. And you just know that sooner or later some genius is gonna jam a butter knife in there for the hell of it. The basic USB spec requires that all ports be protected with a small self-resetting polyfuse for exactly this reason. I don't know if the Type-C or USB 3.1 specs includes something similar - I would assum…

I found a USB Cellular data adapter in the trash and plugged it in to my MacBook Pro, which instantly shut down.

Rebooted, and the USB port did not work. Shut it down and left it for half an hour, and, yay, all working again.

Disassembled the adapter. Turned out to be a dummy used for display. No guts, just a steel bar across all four pins of the USB connector. Looked real from the outside.

It was a very, very stupid thing to do. Thank-you Apple for putting a self-resetting fuse in my MacBook Pro. Saved my idiot butt.

Re: Bad USB-C cable destroys laptop

#116

Post by nathancahill »

klodolph wrote: post #72
mindslight wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There should be a crowbar diode between the rails. If the design is too cheap for an input fuse, the source will limit/disable the short current.

Crowbar isn't a diode, and it doesn't protect against reversed polarity, and it's a bad idea on the input because you're relying on the other device to limit current properly, when it's the other device which got the voltage wrong in the first place.

You guys might want to check in with EEQ. Lots of diode knowledge over there.

Re: Bad USB-C cable destroys laptop

#117

Post by matt_heimer »

nitrogen wrote: post #104
xur17 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And a website: https://usbccompliant.com

Do those affiliate codes support the original reviewer guy, or just the operator of the website (if they are different people)?

Does it matter? As someone that has hunted for cables reviewed by Benson I really wish I had known about this website. They are both providing a service.

Re: Bad USB-C cable destroys laptop

#118

Post by bsimpson »

kstenerud wrote: post #81
bsimpson wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought one of these recently, based on Benson's endorsement, for my Nexus 5X: http://smile.amazon.com/dp/B018F8BGLA It's worth noting that the Nexus 5x doesn't do USB 3.1, so even if you get a fancy Super Speed cable like this one, you are still suck with slow charging from your computer's USB A port.

The Nexus 5X supports the new 15W fast charging USB-C standard . It takes about 15-20m for my phone to go from empty to full from the wall charger, and considerably longer from a USB A port.

It does, from a USB C cable. Unfortunately, the fast-charging protocol for USB A (USB Battery Charging 1.2) needs a USB 3.1 controller, which the Nexus 5x doesn't support; hence, the slow charging with an A -> C cable, even if it's a 3.1 SuperSpeed cable.

Re: Bad USB-C cable destroys laptop

#119

Post by gnarbarian »

userbinator wrote: post #102
CydeWeys wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USB-C does lots of things, including high voltage charging, backwards compatibility, and reversible orientation. Yeah, you could make it simpler, but then you'd have to start giving up some of those features, at which point now you've just reinvented USB-A again. It's just as complicated as it needs to be. And for godssakes, the pin-out diagram isn't that complicated; it only has 24 pins! There's no excuse for flippi…

"only" 24 pins? That's still 6 times more than the previous standard...

Parallel scoffs at your measly 24 pins.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_port

Re: Bad USB-C cable destroys laptop

#120

Post by colejohnson66 »

gnarbarian wrote: post #119
userbinator wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"only" 24 pins? That's still 6 times more than the previous standard...

Parallel scoffs at your measly 24 pins. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_port

Only 25 pins? Why not 40? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_ATA
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