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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)

#401

Post by moffkalast »

seszett wrote: post #348
theshrike79 wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I swap between three different computers. Everything is attached to the same dock. I just need to swap the USB-C connector between the three and I get the same displays and peripherals. Doing this with a "healthy array of external ports" would be a huge pain in the ass.

You could do it the same if you had an array of ports (as long as one of them is USB-C). You would just also have the possibility to use the other ports without a hub.

This guy gets it, more is always better.

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

#402

Post by microtonal »

xattt wrote: post #347
microtonal wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I ended up getting a Lenovo USB-C Gen 2 hub a couple of years ago, It works fine on ThinkPads. Unless you are using Linux, where 4k@60Hz does not work due to lane misconfiguration (maybe this is fixed by now?). On Macs, I have found this Dock to be a complete disaster. It would often not charge unless you plug/unplug the Dock several times. Also Ethernet often doesn't work (it uses a Realtek NIC). I had two and sold…

There have been a couple of firmware updates over my couple years of ownership. I had a couple of issues with the dock simply not connecting to the non-Lenovo computer, but this was fixed with the fw update early last year.

These issues were with the firmware updates early last year (I think the last update I tried was from April 2021). I see that they finally provided a new firmware update March this year. Too late \o/.

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

#403

Post by Xenixo »

moffkalast wrote: post #204
moritonal wrote: post #7

If 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. 1. https://www.caldigit.com/thunderbolt-4-element-hub/

Remind me to never buy a laptop without a healthy array of dedicated external ports. This is lunacy.

I love my USBc with hub setup.

Sure this is relatively new and a ton of hubs are shit but this will only become better.

I can use my Anker mini dock on my laptop, switch and Samsung s22.

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

#404

Post by moffkalast »

michaelgrafl wrote: post #377
moffkalast wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remind me to never buy a laptop without a healthy array of dedicated external ports. This is lunacy.

My laptop has enough ports. But I don't want to plug them all out and in again when taking it from one desk to another one.

This thread is making me think there is some breed of programmer out there that has 8 work desks in their house and switches between them sequentially every 5 minutes.

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

#405

Post by moffkalast »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #260
gumby wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not denying your application need, but I only plug in power and sometimes an external monitor. I don't think I've plugged anything else into my computer in years. So it might be lunacy for you but it's not necessarily lunacy for others. And given the amount of market research these guys do I suspect the "never plug anything else in" crowd is pretty significant.

I’m with you on this. I’m a FAANG software engineer who does hardware stuff too and I have a 2020 MacBook Air with 2 (two!) USB-C ports. One for charging, one for other stuff. In my two years of owning the device I have not once ever been frustrated needing the third port. I do quite often use both of the two ports, but even needing three seems to never happen in my use case. I don’t use external monitors with that d…

You seriously never needed to plug in a plain common USB-A flash drive or any other peripheral? Or flash an sd card or anything of the sort? Interesting.

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

#406

Post by baybal2 »

code_biologist wrote: post #207
baybal2 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is almost impossible to avoid it. I am doing these Type-C hubs, and other small stuff peripherals for a living. My suggestion, don't look stuff retail, and don't look big brands, even Dell. Pretty much any "brand business" had zero RnD. Their only feedback channel is the RMA rate. If it gets too bad, they just change the supplier. Instead, I really suggest going the other way. Smaller makers have no money for bi…

What is an example house brand? Amazon? I understand your reasoning and it makes sense, but I'm not sure what brands that actually means, or how to find them.

No post body was provided.

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

#407

Post by justsomehnguy »

moffkalast wrote: post #405
SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m with you on this. I’m a FAANG software engineer who does hardware stuff too and I have a 2020 MacBook Air with 2 (two!) USB-C ports. One for charging, one for other stuff. In my two years of owning the device I have not once ever been frustrated needing the third port. I do quite often use both of the two ports, but even needing three seems to never happen in my use case. I don’t use external monitors with that d…

You seriously never needed to plug in a plain common USB-A flash drive or any other peripheral? Or flash an sd card or anything of the sort? Interesting.

Or just an external keyboard...

I'm using a BT mouse explicitly not to bother with a stupid "2.4GHz USB Receiver" and keep one (USB-A!) port free.

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

#408

Post by bayindirh »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #400
bayindirh wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reporting from my MacBook Air M1, there's actually not enough thickness. The (male) plug itself is as thick as the side of the laptop. Considering the (female) socket's size & surrounding machinery, the Air needs to be at least 20% thicker to accommodate a USB-A port.

The back edge is more than twice as thick as a USB C opening, which is 2.65mm. Unless this picture is wrong, that should be visibly thicker than an A plug... But whatever, whether it fits or not with the current molding, the laptop does not need to be thicker to fit those ports. It just needs to change the curve near the back. Look how thick the middle is between the ports it has. That's way more than enough. Thickne…

> Unless this picture is wrong, that should be visibly thicker than an A plug...

Just re-measured with a USB flash drive and an actual MacBook Air M1 (which I'm actually typing this comment on), and it's not. Do you want a photograph with a caliper?

> But whatever, whether it fits or not with the current molding, the laptop does not need to be thicker to fit those ports. It just needs to change the curve near the back. Look how thick the middle is between the ports it has. That's way more than enough. Thickness including screen peaks at 16mm.

Actually, you can see in [0], there's no space to fit a full depth, full height USB-A port inside there. You need to make the machine definitely thicker to accommodate that ports, given all the shielding a USB-A port around it [1]. This is a listing for a straight port. You'll probably need a 90 degree version in a MacBook Pro, unless apple does something ingenious.

[0]: https://d3nevzfk7ii3be.cloudfront.net/igi/eIi44fP1clanGHWQ.f...

[1]: https://sa.rsdelivers.com/product/wurth-elektronik/692121430...

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

#409

Post by baybal2 »

eqvinox wrote: post #380

> Ah, so it’s a Realtek RTL8153! I always found Intel NICs to be way more reliable and stable, but okay, that’s a reasonably popular chip. Intel doesn't make USB ethernet controllers, they only do PCIe. Realtek has a near monopoly on USB Ethernet, the only other supplier I can think of is SMSC/Microchip LAN7500, and I'm not sure it's any better. > There’s also a second USB hub, but only a 2.0 one, same vendor, but 0x…

No post body was provided.

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

#410

Post by aenis »

microtonal wrote: post #329
nerdawson wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did you replace it with? Having the same problem with mine and looking for an alternative.

We have three StarTech docks since November or December. No coil whine so far, except for the Realtek NIC (which works out-of-the-box on Macs, but is meh otherwise), we didn't have any issues with it. https://www.startech.com/en-eu/cards-adapters/tb3cdk2dpue

I bought two identical 3x 4k docks from Startech, and used them for M1 and M1 Max macbooks. One of them developed a very loud coil whine. No other problems, but it was too loud to be used alongside a dead silent laptop. The other is fine.

Docks are always a hit or miss thing. I had Dell docks before, also ~350 eur or so, and they consistently failed to wake up the external screens on resume from sleep. Same screens worked just fine on the Startech.

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