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USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)

overengineer.dev

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Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)

#351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those Dell ones that come with the XPS caused us endless problems at work. Higher res screens would just not work properly. The only one that consistently just worked was the apple HDMI/USB-A/USB-C charging dongle.

Sounds to me that you for some reason got the older USB-C 3.1 / Gen 1 docks those are limited to 5gbps which means no 4K@60 the Gen 2 USB-C / TB3 docks work quite flawlessly as long as you ofc plug them into a Gen 2 or TB port…

They should be able to get 4k@60 with the older docks. I have such an older monitor which works fine. It's just that the usb 3 ports work at 480 Mbps.

Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)

#352
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to expand on this: I suspect and have been told that almost all powertools follow this model. The markup for most tools in the same class is essentially branding only.

This is mainly because power-tool quality across the board has greatly increased - once you're into a "band" they're much the same, though there are differences it's usually one of "focus" not of quality. If you're dealing with off-brand or no-brand tools, you can still end up with something entirely usable but crappy. The prices usually tell most of the story.

"Project Farm" on YouTube does really great tool reviews with zero BS. There are differences between major tool brands and it's not just a matter of same factory, different brand sticker like with a lot of electronics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpjBJ8aQ3NE is a good example. It's pretty hard to go wrong with any of the major players these days, more about what color you like or their tool ecosystem. I'm into Milwaukee and like a whole lot of their tools, so I ended up getting about a dozen of them over the years. Milwaukee tends to be on or near the top in terms of performance, and while that might not be necessary for occasional non-professional use, I have done a few things with them where I was glad to have the extra power or just have a well-designed tool that is easy to use. Festool is even more premium but when I started buying Milwaukee they didn't have any or maybe only very few cordless tools, and they were too expensive for me at the time. Home Depot does pretty awesome holiday sales on Milwaukee if you keep an eye out, and eBay also has great deals on "tool only" once you have some batteries in your ecosystem of choice, as people do things like buy combo packs and sell the individual tools they don't want. Milwaukee also has excellent batteries that while pricey, are again relatively easy to find deals on if you keep an eye out.

Hand tools are sometimes more about feel than actual performance differences, but over the years I've come to appreciate (and be able to easily afford) the nicer stuff. It's nice not stripping Phillips head screws now that I've got really nice drivers with excellent sharp grippy tips in all the different sizes to properly fit. I grew up with the poorly-made fake chrome set of "jewelers" screw drivers that I'm sure many of y'all also learned on. I guess it makes me appreciate Wiha / PB Swiss / Wera / Felo / Klein MIUSA / custom boutique stuff (check out Scout Leather Co and CountyComm TPSK for some of the best precision multi-bit drivers I've used) more now.

On hand tools, Project Farm reviews those too, e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP4uECoH8cc for torque wrenches.

I admit that there are some made-up Chinese brands that are just slapping a random name on stuff coming out of the same few factories and selling on Amazon (then changing the name if they get bad reviews) for tools, but that's only really at the bottom of the market. Mid and top-tier tools do actually have measurable performance differences in many cases. Whether that's worth it to you is for y'all to decide. I just really hate ruining a project / breaking stuff because of bad tools that can't do the job, and I dislike supporting companies that make knock-off designs (i.e. they don't pay for their own R&D) out of cheaper, weaker metals then selling look-alikes at still-too-much-for-what-you're-getting prices. There's actually a name for this in the bicycle world: "bike shaped objects".

Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)

#353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the thing too about desktop vs laptop is not just core count but TDP. An Intel 12900K on an OC can draw like 400W ( https://wccftech.com/intel-core-i9-12900k-overclocked-to-5-3... ) vs a laptop that will get you a max of like 115w for turbo ( https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/132215/... ). And good luck getting anything close to RTX 3090Ti performance in a laptop. It'd basically be a toasted…

To be honest I see this as a win for laptops nowadays. I still work from home most days of the week and I prefer not to have a power hungry workstation turned on all day, especially with current electricity prices. Because of unfortunate timing of when my contract expired I already pay around 800 euros per month for energy

>>Because of unfortunate timing of when my contract expired I already pay around 800 euros per month for energy

Wait, what? Are you like cryptomining or something? That's actually insane. I charge two electric cars at home, work from home using a powerful workstation, and my electricity is about £100/month. How do you manage to spend 800 euro a month????

Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)

#354
post #5

If 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.

My experience is similar. I also "burned out" a couple of USB-C hubs (including a very similar Anker branded unit) so eventually upgraded to a decent monitor with integrated USB-C hub. Being able to switch between all the laptops in our household and my PC with only one cable has been really great. Although, we often find our Apple laptops have problems recognising the connected devices so we have to connect and re-connect a few times to ensure everything is working as it should. No such problems with the PC!

Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)

#355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had really bad luck with TB3 docks including the OWC and CalDigit. It seems that having a stiff TB cable on a non-locking port isn't that great of an idea. I ended up rigging up some cardboard and lots of tape to reinforce and stabilize the dock side of the connection on the OWC, and connecting to it would work only about half the time, and even then my dual external monitors would usually be swapped L/R. The be…

Although this solution doesn't really solve any of the fundamental issues with cable rigidity and easy to unplug usb-c/tb ports or the continuous "add another abstraction layer" problems of the ever expanding complexity of do everything on a single cable standard, OWC sells a ClingOn adhesive backed usb-c/tb lockable connector which prevents my cables from unplugging constantly when the wind blows and triggering the…

I did see those a while ago! They sadly weren't out when I got the original TB3 dock from them when that first came out, so no idea how well they work, but seems like they might help. IIRC the dock itself tended to generate a fair bit of heat, so I wonder how well that adhesive really holds up. It'd be great if this was just built into the dock, maybe removable in some way if one wanted to use a TB3 cable that didn't fit.

Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)

#356
post #3

Sad 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.

I got a few Anker keyboards years back and they were the worst ones I've ever used. They failed for no reason after a few months.

At that time, comments saying Anker was the best peripheral maker flooded the internet and made me feel like I was crazy.

Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)

#357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is missing Ethernet, which seems to be important to the author. Having heard positive things about caldigit, I got their USB-C Pro Dock and I get frequent screen blanking with my M1 Mac, and often some of the USB ports fail to work. I don't use the ethernet port, but I think it is a Realtek (so likely the same thing the author is complaining about) I have spoken to caldigit support and so far they have replaced th…

> It is missing Ethernet, which seems to be important to the author. CalDigit's TS4 has Ethernet (2.5 GbE). I've been a happy TS3 user for years. https://www.caldigit.com/thunderbolt-station-4/

I'm running a CalDigit Connect 10G on a relatively high-end NUC and it's great for a quick little Plex box that also sits on my 10G network segment next to a TrueNAS box doing 2x10G on DAC cables with LACP on a Chelsio T6225-CR.

I had bad luck with the QNAP QNA-T310G1S and Sonnet Solo 10G SFP+ (surprising as their stuff is usually rock-solid) -- both based on the AQC100S chipset and the aQuantia AQtion driver just didn't work for me under LTS Ubuntu.

Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)

#358
post #5

If 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.

This is the real life hack, no more dongles nor docking stations, but all of the benefits of just having to plug in 1 cable.

This route doesn't have to be expensive either, my 1440p, 27 inch Philips docking monitor cost $270, basically the price of mediocre level docking station.

Re: USB-C hubs and my slow descent into madness (2021)

#359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is missing Ethernet, which seems to be important to the author. Having heard positive things about caldigit, I got their USB-C Pro Dock and I get frequent screen blanking with my M1 Mac, and often some of the USB ports fail to work. I don't use the ethernet port, but I think it is a Realtek (so likely the same thing the author is complaining about) I have spoken to caldigit support and so far they have replaced th…

Does it have an audible coil whine? I've tested 5+ TS3 Plus docks, and all of them have a coil whine, which can be heard in a quiet room, without playing any music. Sometimes I like to work in silence, and the coil whine really bothers me.

So, this is really random, but if you can open up the case and figure out what is whining, folding up tinfoil neatly in half about a dozen times will make a really effective shield and cut like 95% of the whine. I found out about this trick from an open-source synth (PreenFM 2, incredible little frequency modulation synth) that had some whine due to the display. Sticking the thick piece of tinfoil between the display and the PCB boosted the SNR an almost unbelievable amount. Give it a shot, it only costs time and tinfoil! Be sure to stick some electrical tape around anything it might contact though, so you don't short anything out.
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