[HN Gopher] Thunderbolt, Displayport and Docks
___________________________________________________________________
Thunderbolt, Displayport and Docks
Author : Hackbraten
Score : 273 points
Date : 2022-09-04 12:30 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (stderr.nl)
(TXT) w3m dump (stderr.nl)
| francisofascii wrote:
| Is this complexity the reason why docks are so pricy? I still
| don't get why docks cost more than the actual monitors I am
| trying to connect to.
| banana_giraffe wrote:
| I have an ultrawide monitor on such a dock. I have three laptops
| (work, personal, so's laptop). It's been a never ending quest to
| figure this mess out.
|
| I've had one cable fail, and one dock fail. I now own three
| thunderbolt cables, and two working docks, and a dead one.
|
| Personal laptop has 3 USB-C ports, only one of which is
| Thunderbolt. If I forget and use the more conveniently placed
| USB-C port, the resolution is limited. If I neglect to connect it
| to power first, it won't reliably connect to the dock.
|
| Work laptop will connect, but will always decide I want 1080P, I
| have to manually adjust the resolution each time. I have noticed
| if the monitor is set to 120 HZ, the laptop refuses to
| acknowledge it exists. 240 or 60 HZ works.
|
| SO's laptop was quite the quest. It works now, but originally it
| refused to activate the display. Other ports on the dock worked,
| the display itself worked with a single DisplayPort ->
| Thunderbolt cable. The display was listed in the graphics card
| driver software when connected via the dock, it just refused to
| allow me to enable it. Things would work without a display
| driver, or a really old version of the driver. Various driver
| removal utilities didn't help. I flattened the laptop and
| installed the latest drivers. Things work for now.
|
| I've come away from this mess with a setup that mostly works, but
| surely doesn't feel stable. And if it stops working, I have
| basically no clue as to why. Could be a failed part, could be a
| driver issue, nothing really gives me any feedback as to why it's
| not working.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| I for one miss the world of VESA and RS232. Those were the
| days!
| idealmedtech wrote:
| You mean VGA? Most every monitor these days still has VESA
| mounting holes.
| antod wrote:
| Assuming you weren't trolling, VESA has had many more
| standards than just the mounting brackets. eg Display Port
| is one of theirs
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Electronics_Standards_A
| s...
| zzo38computer wrote:
| I also think that RS232, etc are better. I also think that it
| is better to have separate cables for audio/video (I would
| use one way digital video (with encryption or other
| complications) and balanced analog audio; can a variant RCA
| connector be made which is capable of balanced signal while
| also compatible either way with non-balanced too?), and to
| have separate ports for different purposes and numbers that
| they are addressable by, which is more secure and also to be
| able to address them by software in the computer by which
| port they are connected to. (I think USB is bad in many other
| ways too, though.)
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| 'One port to rule them all' was a mistake. Instead of being
| convenient, USB C has become a confusing ordeal of varying
| capabilities and quality control. It is like we've gone back to
| having many different types of connectors, but it is even worse
| because they share the same form factor. For any of the devices
| that use USB C to charge, I _only_ use the cable that came with
| it when I purchased it.
|
| While I complain, I would also like to mention the USB forum's
| insane naming strategy and non-obvious labeling system. Remember
| when USB 3 was easily identifiable because of the blue plastic in
| the port?
| jayd16 wrote:
| >For any of the devices that use USB C to charge, I only use
| the cable that came with it when I purchased it.
|
| So at worst, it's break even with the proprietary cable
| situation we had but with massive upside?
| sholladay wrote:
| I now regularly charge my laptop, camera, tablet, game
| controllers, and friends' devices using the same charging cube
| or battery and cable. That was impossible and hard to believe
| even just ten years ago. The only odd one out is the iPhone. I
| actually like the Lightning connector more - too bad it's
| proprietary and has limited speed/power.
|
| I never experience incompatibility with my setup, but I'm sure
| it does happen, especially with budget cables/devices. I'm not
| sure what cables you've tried but I've had good luck with Anker
| and Apple's newer cables.
| cyborgx7 wrote:
| I disagree. What we have now is so much better than what we
| used to have.
|
| Better labeling would be a nice improvement, but I'll still
| take the current state of things over what we used to have.
| philistine wrote:
| Let's start by not naming something USB4 2.0. Can anyone
| explain how that can be a good idea?
| crazygringo wrote:
| Exactly. I don't want to go back to computers with 10
| different types of ports. Everything moving to USB-C is just
| fantastic.
|
| It does suck that there are necessarily so many cable types
| (basically boiling down to no/low/hi data x no/lo/hi power)
| with no obvious good labeling system except for reading specs
| on a box.
|
| But it's also not an issue for most people since most devices
| come with their own cable. My laptop came with an appropriate
| expensive USB-C power delivery cord, my USB lamp came with a
| cheapo one, my expensive monitor came with an appropriate
| expensive high-data Thunderbolt cable. And the manufacturers
| usually sell or recommend the appropriate longer length cable
| if you need that.
|
| The issues only arise when you're trying to do more
| complicated things like use a USB hub, or run extremely long
| distances. The fact that USB hubs work at all still often
| seems like a minor miracle to me...
| rblatz wrote:
| So now I just need to remember which random cord came with
| each device and if I somehow get confused just buy the most
| expensive cord that I can find in hopes it supports all the
| different things?
| crazygringo wrote:
| I don't know about you, but I keep my cables with my
| devices, often they just stay plugged in.
|
| My monitor cord stays attached to my monitor. My external
| hard drive cable stays attached to that. My phone charger
| cord stays attached to my phone charger. Etc.
|
| Sure I have some extra old USB cables lying around from
| old devices where I tossed the device and kept the cord
| just in case... but generally speaking random cords isn't
| really a problem.
| cal85 wrote:
| > I don't want to go back to computers with 10 different
| types of ports ... not an issue for most people since most
| devices come with their own cable
|
| What is the value of all the ports being the same if you
| can't mix and match cables?
| crazygringo wrote:
| Easy -- that my laptop or desktop just has 2-4 thin,
| high-quality USB-C ports that I can plug anything into.
|
| I can plug 2 devices in of the same type, without
| worrying about there being only 1 port of that type. I
| don't have to hunt for which port is where. I don't have
| to worry that this one model of laptop is missing that
| one type of port because there's only space for 7 on the
| side with the ports.
|
| I could keep going...
| int_19h wrote:
| So long as you take some effort to ensure that your
| charger and your cables are both compliant and full-
| featured, you can then use them across all your USB-C
| devices, which is extremely handy esp. when travelling.
| paulmd wrote:
| even if you could, what is the value-add of all the ports
| being usb-c to begin with?
|
| what is my printer going to do with a displayport and
| pcie channel? obviously it doesn't need to implement
| those, but, it worked just fine with a USB Type-A 10gbps
| connector, what is the value-add of pushing that to USB-C
| at all?
| bombcar wrote:
| What we have works better "in general". But when it fails in
| specific cases it's a real pain to diagnose.
|
| I immediately order a thunder bolt cable direct from apple
| the moment I smell any issues, which often fixes it.
| AdamN wrote:
| Seems like it's really easy to diagnose - problem with
| comms over a cable? 1/ is it seated correctly, 2/ are there
| any obvious defects, 3/ are the specs of the cable and the
| ports aligned?
|
| Having incompatible ports means 3/ disappears but since
| many cables support multiple specs, it's nice to often have
| a win when connecting two devices over a cable rather than
| simply being blocked because the connector isn't compatible
| physically.
| mmis1000 wrote:
| There are actually dedicated detector for detecting
| charger compatibility or faulty cable. And they are
| surprisingly not that expensive (rage from 20 to 40 usd
| depends on spec and vendor).
|
| Something like, test the cable and get a resistance of
| 0.6O ? Let's just toss it away. This will definitely fail
| the usb protocol and stop devices from working properly
| when charge at full speed.
|
| I actually found a few problematic cables with that.
| These are pretty hard to find out normally because they
| only fail when charges at full speed (cause the voltage
| to drop too much) and transmits data at same time.
|
| Or test a charger that labels fast charging but don't
| actually get any at all? The resistance changes a lot
| when you touched the cable(probably the connection
| between board and plug breaks)? Toss it away. They are
| broken or fake, why bother keep them.
| paulmd wrote:
| got a brand/model name to look for on amazon or whatever?
| happyopossum wrote:
| > 3/ are the specs of the cable and the ports aligned?
|
| This is basically impossible to diagnose as ports and
| cables are not marked with their supported specs.
| pbronez wrote:
| HDMI has the same mess. Ports don't tell you much.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> What we have now is so much better than what we used to
| have._
|
| Agree. People are looking at the past with rose tinted
| glasses or haven't lived through the '90s - '00 tech. Every
| phone and electronic gadget had their own proprietary dock,
| cable and connector for data and charging. Even many phones
| had proprietary connectors for headphones instead of the
| 3.5mm jack. It was a nightmare.
|
| You're phone is running out of battery while you're at the
| bar/on vacation? Then good luck finding someone with the same
| Motorola charger. Want to transfer your photos to your PC and
| your 50pin Sony Ericsson data cable is acting up? Good luck
| finding a cheap replacement on a short notice. Want to plug
| in the phone's memory card in your laptop instead? Well, if
| your laptop doesn't support Sony's proprietary Memory Stick
| Pro Duo, then you're shit out of luck.
|
| And even those proprietary connectors had plenty of issues,
| and manufacturers weren't even consistent, changing their
| connectors every few years instead of sticking with one for
| the long run.
|
| What we have today has certainly teething issues, but we're
| on the right path.
| maccard wrote:
| > Agree. People are looking at the past with rose tinted
| glasses or haven't lived through the '90s - '00 tech. Every
| phone and electronic gadget had their own proprietary dock,
| cable and connector for data and charging. Even many phones
| had proprietary connectors for headphones instead of the
| 3.5mm jack. It was a nightmare.
|
| You've missed the problematic point of where we are now. In
| the mid 2010's, apple had lightning, and android was almost
| certainly micro USB. If I had a USB port, and a cable that
| fit, it would charge my phone effectively. Somewhere in the
| transition to USB-C ,we lost that.
|
| > What we have today has certainly teething issues, but
| we're on the right path.
|
| I disagree - we've missed the forest for the trees. I have
| 4 mains to USB adapters in my home, and 2 USB-A plug
| sockets. I also have 4 USB C-C cables, and 2 A-C cables
| (which stay in the wall sockets). I use these to power 2
| phones, 2 pairs of earbuds, an M1 Macbook and and iPad. If
| you pick an arbitrary cable and an arbitrary power adapter
| and plug it into a device that fits, it will do anything
| ranging from not work at all (with my anker wall charger
| and any cable into both sets of earbuds), up to charging it
| so quickly the device oveheats (140w USB c charger into
| either phone). I've got 6 devices, 4 cables, and 4 plugs
| that all have the same connection points that just don't
| work properly together. Meanwhile if you go back to the mid
| 2010's as per earlier, we had a lightning cable and a micro
| USB cable - you knew it worked if it fit.
|
| That's before you get into the nonsense around Android
| auto. I have a car with AA in it's head unit, and a USB
| port for connectivity. I must ahve tried 5 different
| branded cables before I found a reddit post that linked a
| specific anker cable that works for my very specific
| combination of car and device - I _never_ would have
| figured that out on my own.
| kec wrote:
| > up to charging it so quickly the device oveheats (140w
| USB c charger into either phone)
|
| That isn't how USB-PD works / a problem with USB itself,
| The device being charged controls the rate of charge:
| Sinks (in this case, your phone) request a voltage and
| current from the source, going off of a list of what the
| source reports that it supports. If the phone can only
| support say 10W charging it's going to request 10W of
| power regardless of how oversized the charger is.
| paulmd wrote:
| those sorts of fast-charge speeds are incredibly bad for
| the battery regardless of whether the device will let it
| do it - I think this is something the EU should step in
| and regulate tbh, because that's a huge vector for
| e-waste. _At best_ you 're changing the battery much more
| frequently, which is still e-waste, and often those
| devices are ending up in the trash because apple is the
| only vendor with a serious battery-replacement programme.
| third-party batteries are uniformly trash.
|
| set a maximum of a 1 hour charge speed and pop up a
| notification that allows the user to _manually_ elect to
| supercharge the battery faster, imo. it shouldn 't be an
| automatic "the charger supports it, imma nuke the
| battery", that just sounds like vendors speeding up the
| pace of planned obsolescence.
|
| people always complain about this with wireless, that the
| heat from a 5W wireless charger is somehow damaging the
| battery and causing e-waste as a result, and yet you've
| got vendors who are bragging about how they're zapping a
| phone battery with a 140W charger to get a third of a
| charge in 5 minutes or whatever, that's _terrible_ as a
| general practice.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> those sorts of fast-charge speeds are incredibly bad
| for the battery regardless of whether the device will let
| it do it_
|
| Source, your ass? That myth has been debunked. Check out
| Marquez Brownlee and other media tests.
|
| Modern phone charging tech and battery chemistry allow
| for fast charging without reduction in battery life.
| samatman wrote:
| Specifically, process improvements means that modern
| batteries aren't prone to dendrite formation under high
| rates of charge. Good thing too, because electric cars
| wouldn't be practical otherwise.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> You've missed the problematic point of where we are
| now. _
|
| I don't think I missed anything on the phone charging
| part, I think you're looking at other issues.
|
| _> If I had a USB port, and a cable that fit, it would
| charge my phone effectively. Somewhere in the transition
| to USB-C ,we lost that._
|
| I don't know what you think we lost, but every type-C
| plug I could find in any household or office, always
| managed to charge my Android phone, just like micro-B
| before that.
| maccard wrote:
| > I don't know what you think we lost, but every type-C
| plug I could find in any household or office, always
| managed to charge my Android phone, just like micro-B
| before that.
|
| if I show you a photo of two USB chargers, can you tell
| me which one will provide 5w to my phone and which will
| provide 15w?
|
| Why do the two ports on my 45w USB adapter provide
| different wattages with no visible difference to them?
|
| Why does my macbook have the same ports as my phone and
| iPad but not charge from them when using the almost
| identical charger to the one I'm supposed to use with it?
|
| Why does my PS5 controller only charge to 2 out of 3 bars
| when using any/all of the adapters above?
|
| > I think you're looking at other issues.
|
| There are enough issues with where we've gotten to that
| didn't exist 5 years ago for me to be confident in saying
| we're going in the wrong direction. We've standardised
| _cables_, but the important part is the protocols, not
| the cable. I _want_ different cables for different
| protocols .
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> if I show you a photo of two USB chargers, can you
| tell me which one will provide 5w to my phone and which
| will provide 15w_
|
| Why? Did you also care about that with micro-B on
| Android? Or when using different wattage lightning
| chargers from Apple?
|
| It's up to you to read the wattage on them an decide
| which one you want to use. Mobile tech has gotten more
| powerful and so have the chargers.
|
| It's your responsibility to keep track of the chargers in
| your household, but the great part is, even if you don't
| and mix them up, they'll both charge your phone either
| way, just ar different speeds, and most likely any other
| low power type-C gadget in your household like your
| earbuds. You can't expect us to go back to having
| different plugs for different wattages just because you
| can't keep track of the different chargers you own.
| Devices and chargers are smart and they'll negociate the
| quickest and safest charging wattage regardless.
|
| Since you're being obviously obtuse just to be snarky,
| I'll stop answering your questions as i think i provided
| enough arguments so far.
| masklinn wrote:
| > If I had a USB port, and a cable that fit, it would
| charge my phone effectively. Somewhere in the transition
| to USB-C ,we lost that.
|
| Nonsense. Your phone is not trying to pull 50W, any
| correctly implemented type C cable will do.
|
| The complexity of Type C is for things you were not able
| to do at all: high-power applications (>40W) and / or
| high data rates over a single cable.
|
| I've a single cable which charges my laptops, connects
| all the devices plugged into the display, and carries
| video to two different displays.
|
| That does require a cable with somewhat high specs, and
| it's unfortunate that labelling isn't the clearest and
| unsuitable cables are difficult to diagnose, but before
| this was only an option via bespoke proprietary docks.
| Now it's just a standard cable.
| vel0city wrote:
| I regularly charge my headphones off my laptop's 90W
| USB-C adapter. If your device overheats while charging
| it's not the fault of the charger it's a fault of the
| device. Don't buy crappy devices that will immolate
| themselves.
| maccard wrote:
| > Don't buy crappy devices that will immolate themselves.
|
| It's the consumers fault that manufacturers don't follow
| the spec. It's my fault that Sony PS5 controllers only
| charge 2/3 of the way when not using the console as a
| power source, or the nintendo switch doesn't conform to
| the spec despite using the same adapters, or that my
| samsung buds aren't charging when I use an anker cable.
| cm2187 wrote:
| And those humongous SCSI ports...
| https://anydifferencebetween.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2016/08/...
| mrexroad wrote:
| And you remembered to terminate the SCSI on your scanner
| after you unhooked the printer, right?
| KronisLV wrote:
| > You're phone is running out of battery while you're at
| the bar/on vacation? Then good luck finding someone with
| the same Motorola charger.
|
| Curiously, many Nokia phones in the same generation seemed
| to use the same charger form factor, at least when I last
| checked.
|
| Contrast this to me recently finding myself with an Android
| phone that has USB Type C and only a Nintendo Switch
| charger. I mean, it looks like it fits and both of them are
| the same form factor, right? So technically it should
| charge the phone, too. Except that it didn't (personal
| experience) and some online claimed that certain phone and
| charger combinations might cause them to (temporarily) stop
| working.
|
| Ergo, instead of seeing that a Motorola charger won't work
| for my Nokia device, I was left wondering about whether
| it's even safe to share the charger given that the
| connectors _do fit_. Furthermore, I 've seen cases where a
| USB cable actually doesn't carry data and can only be used
| for charging, with no clear/apparent indications of this,
| neither when buying it or when looking at it.
|
| The world would be much simpler if one plug had one spec,
| with no deviations from it being permissible. If it fits,
| it should work.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> If it fits, it should work._
|
| Except it does work, for charging at least.
|
| Everywhere I could find a type-C plug, it always managed
| to charge my phone regardless which charger brand or dock
| was at the other end. I can go to any bar, airport or
| hotel on any continent and I know I'll find a type-C plug
| somewhere VS in the past when your Cingular phone had a
| connector which wasn't available in Europe because those
| phones weren't sold there. That's a real life saver which
| many people seem to ignore just because their Nintendo
| widget decided to not follow the spec.
|
| _> Contrast this to me recently finding myself with an
| Android phone that has USB Type C and only a Nintendo
| Switch charger_
|
| Nintendo violated the spec on the Switch either through
| malice, wanting to lock users into their own chargers, or
| through engineering incompetence by not being able to
| follow a spec which every other electronics brand could.
| Nintendo is also known to be extremely anti-consumer. So
| blame Nintendo not type-C.
| jcelerier wrote:
| > Everywhere I could find a type-C plug, it always
| managed to charge my phone regardless which charger brand
| or dock was at the other end.
|
| Here it definitely doesn't. I have at least 4/5 cables /
| usb-c ports combos in my home which aren't able to
| perform this apparently basic feature ; the phone's
| charging icon will activate but it will still loose
| battery
| innocenat wrote:
| That just mean the charger is underpowered.
| rblatz wrote:
| Yeah, that's the problem you can't tell if something will
| work unless you try. And then you still have to worry
| about if it's the cable or the charger. This is a huge
| step backwards.
| paulmd wrote:
| hot take but I solve this by not buying any usb-c cable
| that isn't 100W compatible lol. I have some "full spec"
| cables that do video, and many more that are just charge-
| only/usb 2.0, but everything is 100W capable. Charge
| cables get marked with some nail polish on the connector
| body when I take them out of the package.
|
| The "fasgear" brand on amazon have worked well for me and
| they actually have 3-meter cables that do full 100w
| charging, right angle connectors for laptops/etc, and
| they have a usb 4-compatible lineup (that I have not
| tried). A 2m charge cable is $7 a pop and 3m is $11 (they
| run coupons on both frequently that take it down another
| 10% or so) but whatever, that's just kinda what it costs
| to not have to worry about it.
|
| cables that come with things go into a baggie in The Bin
| Of Solitude where they shall remain untouched until my
| descendents clean them out after I pass. "But what if I
| really really need a low-spec charge cable at some
| hypothetical point in the future!?!? you never know when
| it'll be 2012 again, buddy."
|
| gonna suck when 140W or whatever comes out and my cables
| won't do it but... I guess they'll still work at 100W.
| Hopefully. I guess it's not guaranteed either, thanks
| USB-IF.
| pooper wrote:
| > Here it definitely doesn't. I have at least 4/5 cables
| / usb-c ports combos in my home which aren't able to
| perform this apparently basic feature ; the phone's
| charging icon will activate but it will still loose
| battery
|
| Just out of curiosity, will the device charge if you
|
| 1. Let the device drain mostly if not fully
|
| 2. Start charging
|
| 3. Turn off the device
|
| 4. Continue charging with the device continued in a
| turned off state
|
| 5. ... wait (this might take a day or a week)
|
| 6. Check if the battery managed to fully charge
|
| That is, I am wondering if there is some shenanigan in
| that the device somehow refuses to be slow charged. I
| have never heard of it but if that is happening, I would
| like to learn more.
| innocenat wrote:
| > Except it does work, for charging at least.
|
| Most phone can charge off of the base 5V/3A profile, so
| it works for phone.
|
| But many bigger devices don't. I think most laptop only
| charge off of 20V mode, so it won't work if the charger
| can only do 5V or 9V. Some tablet also only do 9V,
| refusing to charge on 5V.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| I was talking about phones benefiting from type-C
| standardization the most, as you'll always find a charger
| nearby. Moving to more power hungry devices like laptops
| is moving the goalposts. Of course they won't charge off
| basic 15W phone chargers when CPUs alone draw that much.
|
| But phones and tablets will gladly charge off the more
| powerful laptop type-C chargers. So there's another
| benefit: the type-C charger of your most power hungry
| gadget will charge all your other devices.
| paulmd wrote:
| > But phones and tablets will gladly charge off the more
| powerful laptop type-C chargers. So there's another
| benefit: the type-C charger of your most power hungry
| gadget will charge all your other devices.
|
| maybe in an ideal world, but this is absolutely not
| guaranteed at all. Some chargers only support the
| profiles they need and don't support the lower-voltage
| standards in between. Even apple does this sometimes, in
| fact.
|
| https://9to5mac.com/2021/01/04/making-sense-of-the-
| oddities-...
|
| https://daringfireball.net/2020/12/charger_nerdery
|
| now of course the usb-c crowd is probably going "well
| apple needs to get its shit together!" but that's not an
| uncommon thing at all. Chargers are still designed for
| the specific device and don't necessarily support
| intermediate standards, just like motherboard ports end
| up being designed for specific use-cases and don't
| necessarily support the thing you're trying to do with
| them. Maybe that should have been a requirement, but it
| isn't, because USB-IF is shit and doesn't care about the
| consumer.
|
| _fully_ implementing the usb-c standard, to all its
| extremes and nuances, is expensive as fuck, and this is a
| cost-driven market so you can bet your bottom dollar
| someone is going to choose to swiss-cheese the standard
| and their charger will be $2 cheaper so that 'll be the
| one you buy. Or else you're paying more for Anker and
| Apple stuff (whoops, maybe not apple for chargers, but
| their cables are still the best!).
|
| and yes, it _should_ always work at the lowest-common-
| denominator standard, and there _should_ be a profile for
| the base USB 5v 1A if nothing else but... not all devices
| do. Laptops often don 't support lowest-common-
| denominator charging, for example.
|
| Just like Apple. Just like Switch. etc etc. At some point
| it stops being a problem with specific vendors and starts
| being just a badly designed standard. USB-C is trying to
| have its cake and eat it too - they want to be in devices
| for which $1 for a port or a controller chip is a big
| expense, but also scale to 40V/100W charging and 80gbps
| full-duplex data (with a 40gbps video channel and a
| 40gbps pcie link) and have everything "just work", and
| that's not really physically possible to implement in
| devices where every nickel counts.
|
| Maybe there should have been some defined "mobile" and
| "laptop/desktop" profiles, that overlapped in some
| defined ways, so this wouldn't have been a problem. Your
| mobile standard can be cost-optimized, your laptop
| standard can be full-featured, both of them have some
| lowest-common-denomiantor requirements. Laptop 2.0 always
| supports everything Laptop 1.0 did, and Phone 3.0 always
| supports everything Phone 2.0 and 1.0 did.
|
| But that's how USB-IF rolls, no need for nuance or
| delineation, just throw everything in one standard and
| let customers flounder. They do it on purpose, and people
| still defend them and love the product regardless, it's
| as mindless as people constantly (including here, ctrl-f
| any apple thread and search 'mindless' or 'fanboy')
| accuse apple fandoms of being. It's a bad standard and
| it's really just that simple, they could and should have
| done better and should not retain a government monopoly
| going forward, or else this will only continue to get
| more convoluted and complicated. Like we _literally just_
| got USB 4 2.0 and all, the leopard isn 't changing its
| spots at this point.
|
| But like, this was an eminently foreseeable outcome of
| the "one cable for everything" pipe dream people are
| pushing. Either cables/devices are expensive
| (thunderbolt), or each device supports some subset of the
| standard and end up with a confusing mess. But the "one
| cable for everything" fandom is insatiable.
|
| Just one more profile bro. It's gonna fix everything, I
| swear. One more standard and two more extensions. It's
| gonna support PCIe 5.0 and DisplayPort 2.1 and it'll
| charge your weedwhacker, just one more profile bro,
| please bro, I need this.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> Some chargers only support the profiles they need and
| don't support the lower-voltage standards in between_
|
| Yeah we don't live in an ideal world. But this has been a
| low enough encounter for me (actually never so far) to
| not overshadow the masive advantages type-C
| standardization has brought into my life. The fact that
| my phone and gadgets can all charge from the same plug
| that's now obliquus everywhere in the world is a godsend
| that people love to overlook every time they want to shit
| on the type-C standard because Nintendo screwed up.
|
| _> But that's how USB-IF rolls, no need for nuance or
| delineation, just throw everything in one standard and
| let customers flounder. _
|
| Do you have a better solution? Were the older days of
| millions of constantly changing cables and ports from
| every phone and gadget manufacturer better? I feel not.
| And what we have today, while far from perfects is miles
| better that the past.
|
| Even with standard connectors like the 3.5mm jack there
| were tons of variations, some had a mic input, some had
| input for buttons, some could even charge through them,
| etc. and not every cable could do basic audio reliably if
| it was cheap/poorly manufactured. Things weren't perfect
| back then either.
|
| _> Just one more profile bro. It's gonna fix everything,
| I swear. One more standard and two more extensions. It's
| gonna support PCIe 5.0 and DisplayPort 2.1 and it'll
| charge your weedwhacker, just one more profile bro,
| please bro, I need this._
|
| Extra profiles are not there to fix things, they're there
| to extend the functionality of the type-C connector,
| which is what the end-game is. Yeah, extra profiles won't
| work if you don't have the right cable, which could be
| confusing for the consumer, but let's not halt
| technological progress in the right direction by
| constantly making perfect the enemy of good.
|
| I love, and I think everyone else will agree, that now we
| have a single cable coming into the laptop instead of a
| huge octopus spaghetti monster from every port that needs
| to be plugged and unplugged individually for every
| peripheral every time you want to leave your desk. I'm
| sure there will be people who prefer the octopus
| spaghetti monster, but I don't want to go back to those
| days, so the disadvantages of the move to type-C are
| massively overshadowed by the advantages.
| paulmd wrote:
| > Do you have a better solution?
|
| Yes, I literally said it in my post: instead of a
| "profile" being "20V@2A" it should be "laptop 2.0" and
| laptop 2.0 includes a _mandatory_ selection of power
| /data/video capabilities, with 3.0 being a strict
| superset of 2.0 capabilities. You can always add _more_
| capabilities, if you have 3.0 data but only 2.0 charging,
| that 's fine, but, you have to advertise that as 2.0.
|
| Desktop/laptop ports are _required_ to carry video and
| pcie, mobile standards don 't have to... or maybe higher
| versions of the standard should start requiring it.
|
| If that means motherboard makers have to start
| advertising that their ports only support the "mobile"
| connectivity levels because they didn't want to put
| video/pcie on the port... tough, that's information the
| consumers need to know.
|
| > Even with standard connectors like the 3.5mm jack there
| were tons of variations, some had a mic input, some had
| input for buttons, some could even charge through them,
| etc. and not every cable could do basic audio reliably if
| it was cheap/poorly manufactured. Things weren't perfect
| back then either.
|
| 3.5mm headset (headphone+mic) connectors were the closest
| thing I've ever seen to a bulletproof connector apart
| from VERY niche things like low-impedence headphones that
| required an amp. Not sure that's a good example either. I
| guess there's line level, but, go to best buy and pick a
| random device (any device) with a headphone port and a
| random pair of headphones and they work 100% of the time,
| guaranteed, I'll bet you money on this right now at my
| local best buy.
|
| Ethernet? Displayport? Both of those pretty much
| negotiate seamlessly down to whatever capability they
| both support.
|
| You can't make ethernet "optional" stuff, because
| ethernet does exactly one thing and it either works or it
| doesn't. My home network just works - go to best buy and
| pick a random switch and a random ethernet device and it
| works 100% of the time, and I'll bet you money on that
| too. Even things like crossover ports are dead now, the
| only real thing that matters even to nerds is stuff like
| MTU size that _also_ transparently work unless you
| actively fuck with the settings.
|
| It's really _only_ USB-C that has turned into a
| trainwreck and it 's specifically because USB-IF doesn't
| define meaningful profiles and just makes everything an
| optional feature, and since "it can do everything" that
| means most things don't do anything more than the bare
| minimum.
|
| > Extra profiles are not there to fix things, they're
| there to extend the functionality of the type-C
| connector, which is what the end-game is.
|
| Well, if you use profiles in that manner, don't be
| surprised when people are confused by your connector that
| has 57 different profiles and nothing supports anything.
|
| Again: why can't a profile be "laptop 2.0" and my laptop
| supports that? Why do I have to know that my laptop needs
| the 40V/2.5A profile to charge and that I need X charger
| and Y cable?
|
| That's purely down to USB-IF mismanagement and
| corruption. They _should not_ have a government monopoly,
| they 're working for the vendors, not for you.
| dmitriid wrote:
| That's what Intel did with Thunderbolt (4?)
| specification: you either support all of things listed
| there, or you can't call yourself Thunderbolt-compatible.
| paulmd wrote:
| Yup. And I think that's the dichotomy: "supports
| everything on everything" or "cable doesn't cost $60 and
| goes farther than 2 meters", take your pick.
|
| Expense was pretty much a foregone conclusion at the
| start of the thunderbolt "one cable for everything"
| experiment, and now people want to do that with usb in
| general. Sure, that'll be great, but it's going to be
| expensive, including in places that don't need those
| capabilities. If you allow deviations from the standard,
| then you are back to things being incompatible with
| various devices/cables/chargers. They allowed that with
| power profiles (in particular) and video capabilities and
| now it's a mess.
|
| Framing profiles in terms of device use-cases is my
| attempt at turning that soup back into something
| comprehensible for average consumers, while keeping the
| benefit. People approach this as "I want to plug my phone
| into the charger and have it just work", "I want to plug
| my dock into my laptop and do everything through one
| cable", etc, and those are actually _use-cases_ and not
| _feature profiles_ , they don't really care that the
| laptop needs 40V 2.5A or 25V 3A, they just want it to
| work. But of course a $10 vape pen (or phone) doesn't
| need 40V 2.5A charging. So you have a "phone profile" and
| a "laptop profile" and iterate those things as
| groups/featuresets and not as a bunch of profiles thrown
| into one enormous standard.
|
| You can retain most of the "universal standard" juice
| without squeezing too hard on the "$60 cable" expense
| side of things. You could have one cable for laptop docks
| and one cable for phone charging and have a lot of
| overlap between, but still not have to use a $60 cable to
| charge your phone just because that's what a laptop
| needs, and yet not have a confusing free-for-all of "this
| charger doesn't do that".
|
| I'm just a rando though so it's not like I have any say.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> go to best buy and pick a random device (any device)
| with a headphone port and a random pair of headphones and
| they work 100% of the time, guaranteed, I 'll bet you
| money on this right now at my local best buy._
|
| Sure, maybe the audio will work, maybe it will have
| static cause they're cheap since the manufacturer cut
| corners to save $.01. But does the mic on them work with
| my device? Or the buttons on them, will they work
| controlling the volume? IIRC, wired 3.5mm headphones had
| separate versions for iPhone and Android as the buttons
| on them worked different on each platform. So making
| 3.5mm an example of successful standardization across all
| platforms is laughable IMHO.
|
| _> it should be "laptop 2.0" and laptop 2.0 includes a
| mandatory selection of power/data/video capabilities,
| with 3.0 being a strict superset of 2.0 capabilities._
|
| What if for me as a consumer, or me as a manufacturer,
| don't need the full Laptop 3.0 capabilities in my ideal
| product, and my product just needs Laptop 2.0
| capabilities with only a couple of Laptop 3.0
| functionality to make me happy? Why make a needlessly
| more expensive product with features the target customers
| don't need, by having such coarse and inflexible
| standardization with little room for movement?
|
| It might not matter for a $2k Macbook where you could
| throw the kitchen sink in there, but for a $200 phone or
| a $500 laptop, it does. both in terms of cost and size.
|
| Yeah, the type-C flexibility is both a blessing and a
| curse.
| paulmd wrote:
| > What if for me as a consumer, or me as a manufacturer,
| don't need the full Laptop 3.0 capabilities in my ideal
| product, and my product just needs Laptop 2.0
| capabilities with only a couple of Laptop 3.0
| functionality to make me happy?
|
| I think the confusion, expense, and e-waste from having
| 57 different profiles is worse than a hypothetical about
| some new class of device that demands drastically
| different capability sets from the existing ones. The
| answer is... USB-IF should define Laptop 2.0 such that
| that doesn't happen, and if there is some drastically new
| class of device that merits a new profile, we make VR
| Headset 1.0 or whatever. If there's some new USB 5.0
| standard that everyone is going to want... then we
| release a new Laptop 3.0 standard with that included.
|
| and if you are making a netbook or something that doesn't
| need super-powered 100W charging then... market it as
| Laptop 1.0? what exactly is the problem?
|
| It's a hypothetical edge case that is completely and
| trivially solvable if it ever comes up, and doesn't merit
| throwing away the whole USB-C standardization idea.
|
| > Why make a needlessly more expensive product with
| features the target customers don't need, by having such
| coarse and inflexible standardization with little room
| for movement?
|
| because that's the whole point of USB-C, to eliminate
| redundant cables and move towards standardized
| devices/chargers, and the entire point is lost if you
| allow vendors to play silly buggers with current/voltage
| profiles.
|
| Like, basically what you're saying here is you don't like
| the idea of USB-C at all and want a more granular set of
| capabilities. That would be great! Just have one standard
| that covers audio, and another one or two that cover
| video? We could hypothetically give them all different
| cables, so no device has to use any cable that's any more
| expensive than it _must_ be, and give them all different
| connectors so there 's no consumer confusion about what
| plugs into what, right? Sounds good to me.
|
| The harm from "device profiles" is... manufacturers would
| have to market that device as "Laptop 2.0" or "Laptop 2.0
| With 40gbps Data" or whatever the extension ends up
| being. Laptop 2.5, if you will. Having to be more
| specific in advertising is much much better than allowing
| massive consumer confusion and e-waste due to
| incompatible chargers/cables/etc.
|
| Even if there end up being a lot of "Laptop 2.5" devices,
| there is a huge value-add from having that "Laptop 2.0"
| standard - we eliminate an entire class of "my charger
| works with 40V 1A but not 25V 3A" problems, because the
| laptop needs to support _at least_ laptop 2.0 to be
| advertised as laptop 2.0, it 's a guarantee that it works
| _at least that far_. Same for chargers /cables/etc - it's
| a fixed target for them to work against, whereas right
| now with 57 different profiles it's a free-for-all.
|
| The problem of course being - USB-IF will never do _any_
| of this of their own volition. They work for the OEMs,
| not for you.
|
| > What if for me as a consumer, or me as a manufacturer,
| don't need the full Laptop 3.0 capabilities in my ideal
| product, and my product just needs Laptop 2.0
| capabilities with only a couple of Laptop 3.0
| functionality to make me happy? Why make a needlessly
| more expensive product with features the target customers
| don't need, by having such coarse and inflexible
| standardization with little room for movement?
|
| > It might not matter for a $2k Macbook where you could
| throw the kitchen sink in there, but for a $200 phone or
| a $500 laptop, it does. both in terms of cost and size.
|
| You seem to be trying to have it both ways here: isn't
| this _precisely_ the concern leveled against having
| multiple different connectors? The counterargument is
| that having one cable /charger for everything eliminates
| a huge amount of waste and redundancy, even if it's
| significantly more expensive to implement fully. Each
| cable may be more expensive - but you don't need 5
| different cables, because you plug into your dock with
| one cable and you get video/pcie/data.
|
| Having Desktop/Laptop and Phone profiles is the same
| USB-C concept taken further: instead of allowing
| manufacturers to still do inane shit with voltage/current
| profiles and video/pcie capabilities that render various
| cables/devices incompatible despite physically plugging,
| we say "if you want to advertise a 'laptop' standard
| connector, _it must_ support at least this set of
| capabilities ". And we pick some reasonable sets of
| capabilities, whatever those end up being. If you want to
| go further, fine, if you need a new class of profile
| defined, fine, but most devices will fit into those bins
| and we will define new bins if necessary.
|
| If you want to reduce cost for devices that don't need
| the full set of capabilities on every single port, then
| stop trying to shoehorn USB-C into everything and let me
| have a physical displayport and a 3.5mm headset. Done. If
| you're going to force this USB-C shit on me, it needs to
| be consumer-friendly enough that you don't need a PHD to
| determine whether your laptop charger will work right
| with your tablet.
|
| Nobody wants to go back to every phone having a different
| connector, but, that's not really going to happen at this
| point.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> e-waste from having 57 different profiles_
|
| How does that generate huge amounts of e-waste?
|
| You're drawing a huge amount of strawmen by cherry-
| picking niche scenarios of "wrong cable to wrong product"
| incompatibilities and promoting that as being the norm
| for everyone using usb-C everywhere, as an argument of
| why usb-C sucks. Sure, there are cases where this may
| happen and it sucks, but realistically, that's not been
| the case for me so far since 2016 when I made the switch
| and you're ignoring the massive amount of compatibility
| that already exists and also works just fine for everyone
| else, including in our office where we have a mix of Dell
| and Lenovo laptops and docks plus 3 brands of android
| phones.
|
| You're also ignoring the huge amount of e-waste prevented
| by having a single charring conector for all phones for
| the last few years allowing you to reuse older chargers
| on new phones across different brands and even different
| devices, albite at lower speeds sometimes, depending on
| fast-charging standard used. But still, in an emergency,
| I'd rather be able to charge my dying phone slower using
| the bartender's charger than not being able to do that at
| all because he's phone has one of the other 12 charging
| connectors we used to have. This standardization has been
| a huge win for consumers and the environment despite the
| issues from having 57 profiles which are mostly in the
| PC/laptop space.
|
| Yeah it's far from perfect today, and it could be better,
| and hopefully things will improve with time, but
| standardization will always be a long and hard battle
| when you have so many parties with different interests
| and ideas, and still, compared to what we had in the
| past, I'd rather take this route instead of scraping all
| this progress by letting perfect be the enemy of good.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| > _What if for me as a consumer, or me as a manufacturer,
| don 't need the full Laptop 3.0 capabilities in my ideal
| product, and my product just needs Laptop 2.0
| capabilities with only a couple of Laptop 3.0
| functionality to make me happy?_
|
| Too bad you get it anyway? I don't see why this is an
| issue. I already cannot buy a laptop that has exactly
| what I need. I'm sure that many people are in the same
| boat. You already make compromises and spend money on
| things you don't want to get things that are a priority.
| And we spend far more money doing so already than the
| cost of a USBC controller.
|
| At least this way I know exactly what I'm getting.
| chiefalchemist wrote:
| > Were the older days of millions of constantly changing
| cables and ports from every phone and gadget manufacturer
| better? I feel not. And what we have today, while far
| from perfects is miles better that the past.
|
| Better in some ways? Yes. Not better in other ways? Also
| yes.
|
| Where someone stands on the spectrum depends on how you
| feel about uncertainty. That is, previously you were
| certain about what did work (i.e., the cord + charger
| that came with your phone) vs what did not.
|
| Now, there's more compatibility yet at the same time
| we've taken on uncertainty.
|
| I generally feel we're better off. But there are also
| enough times where I think, "Sure, maybe jetpacks was too
| much to expect two decades into the 21st Century, but
| connector + cable being a no-brainer isn't. FFS why do I
| have to think so much about something that should be so
| simple?"
|
| Yeah, it's not binary.
| goosedragons wrote:
| Pretty sure when the Switch launched it's 15V 2.6A spec
| wasn't part of the PD standard. Not really any different
| from the myriad of phones out there with their own custom
| fast charging protocol like OnePlus. Mainly where they
| went out of spec was the dock side to make connecting
| that easier. The Switch charges fine with other chargers,
| running the dock is a bit trickier because of the 15V
| 2.6A requirement but some like the newer MacBook ones
| will do it.
|
| That said I have several cheap devices that refuse to be
| charged/powered by a PD charger like an Apple charger.
| For instance the Neo Geo Mini, only likes basic 5V 1A
| chargers for some reason (I guess looking at the MB
| charger it doesn't support 5V 1A). If the charger doesn't
| support what the device wants it won't work. My phone
| happily will charge with what the Switch charger puts
| out.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> Pretty sure when the Switch launched it's 15V 2.6A
| spec wasn't part of the PD standard. Not really any
| different from the myriad of phones out there with their
| own custom fast charging protocol like OnePlus._
|
| You missed my point entirely. The speed of the charging
| is not the issue here. It shouldn't matter what PD or
| fast charging protocol Nintendo or OnePlus would use,
| they should all be backwards compatible to legacy slow-
| charging and trickle charge from any type-C charger ever
| made, which is a lifesaver in an emergency and is why the
| type-C connector is a godsend.
|
| Nintendo fucked up the pin-out on the connector making it
| completely non-standard and incompatible to any other
| type-C charger released. The speed of their charging
| protocol was not the issue.
| boltzmann-brain wrote:
| Charging is one thing, but getting display out or
| Ethernet is at another level. After reading the link, I
| am still none the wiser on a situation I experienced
| recently. I have a Moto G6 phone. I bought a USB C dock
| for it, a "Kapok 11-in-1-USB-C Laptop Dockingstation Dual
| HDMI Hub" on Amazon. It would charge, but the video out
| didn't work, and the Ethernet didn't work either. Both
| did work for my Steam Deck, though. How come? I
| understand some USB C hubs work for Android phones, some
| don't, and I don't know how that works. How does one find
| a dock that will work with Android? That specific dock
| _does_ mention compatibility with a bunch of Android
| devices; but not specifically Moto. But I know that the
| Moto G6 does support external display outputs and
| Ethernet connectivity - I just haven 't found a device
| which allows those, yet.
| int_19h wrote:
| Moto G6 simply doesn't support video output. That's not a
| USB-C issue.
| msbarnett wrote:
| That's only "not a USB-C issue" if you fail to understand
| the central complaint about USB-C - that ports that
| support, say, video output (or input) are visually
| identical to ports that do not, and cables that can carry
| video are indistinguishable from those which only support
| USB 2, or those which only support charging at 15 W, or
| those that support charging at 100 W or or or. Thus the
| central question: is his phone failing to output video a
| failing of the phone? The dock? The cabling involved?
| Some combination of the above?
|
| Everything looking the same with zero indication of what
| does what is _the_ USB-C issue. The answer here might be
| "your phone doesn't have that capability", but the fact
| that you have to dive into the data sheets of everything
| involved including all of the cabling just to figure out
| what the hell the outcome is _supposed_ to be versus the
| observed outcome is all completely absurd.
| taxicabjesus wrote:
| My brother recently moved, and was taking his USB-C
| powered cable boxes back to the cable company. I thought
| the cable company wouldn't care if the power adapters
| were missing.
|
| The cable boxes' USB-C power supplies do not charge my
| Sony USB-C camera. They're on my stack of things I
| intended to look into one day, but haven't gotten around
| to it yet.
| [deleted]
| goosedragons wrote:
| The pinout is fine. You can charge a Switch with random
| adapters fine, powering docked mode is trickier because
| older PD adapters don't support it but newer ones do. The
| Switch adapter will happily charge my phone, tablet,
| eReader, etc and I have used it as my only charger on
| trips where I don't bring a laptop. Perhaps the problem
| here is OnePlus and whatever THEY do to get their fast
| charging spec?
|
| Nintendo did more non-standard stuff with the dock port
| dimensions. Not so much pinouts. 3rd party docks fried
| Switches because of shit power management sending more
| voltage than the Switch needed.
|
| EDIT: The problem seems to actually be that the Switch
| charger only supports 5V 1.5A whereas some phones require
| 2 or 3A and are not compatible.
| gumby wrote:
| No downside I hadn't expected is that because of all the
| extreme back compatibility you could have a TB4 drive and
| TB4 host but accidentally use a cable that only supports
| USB 1/2. It would work, just at very low speed, and an
| unsophisticated user would simply suffer, not knowing how
| to diagnose the problem.
| gumby wrote:
| "No downside" should be "A downside..."
| gumby wrote:
| In this case Nintendo violated the spec in their
| implementation. This is an exceptional case.
| ghusbands wrote:
| It's really not. I've got a Dell USB-C charger that
| continually drops out when I try to charge a Lenovo
| laptop with it, and a USB-C hub with power passthrough
| that won't at all charge two laptops out of three with
| USB-C. My laptop's charger causes my phone to overheat.
| When I plug my laptop in to my phone's rapid-charger, it
| sometimes trickle-charges and sometimes does nothing.
|
| Basically, I have to carefully choose chargers for
| devices and can't just use any of the USB-C chargers
| available. Throughout this thread, there's people
| pointing out similar cases.
| tyrfing wrote:
| > My laptop's charger causes my phone to overheat
|
| If it actually overheats and doesn't just get very warm,
| that's a fire hazard and you are using dangerously faulty
| equipment.
| cesarb wrote:
| > My laptop's charger causes my phone to overheat.
|
| The charger which came with your phone probably doesn't
| output enough power to charge your phone at its maximum
| speed, while your laptop's charger has more than enough
| power for that. But what decides at which speeds to
| charge is actually your phone's built-in charger (what we
| are calling a "charger" is actually a power supply, the
| true charging circuit is always within the phone itself).
| So if your phone is overheating, either it's just hotter
| than you expected but still within its design parameters,
| or your phone charging circuit was badly designed.
|
| > When I plug my laptop in to my phone's rapid-charger,
| it sometimes trickle-charges and sometimes does nothing.
|
| Even funnier than that: when I plug my phone into my
| laptop using a USB-C to USB-C cable (because the phone's
| battery is low and the power is out), the _phone_ tries
| to charge the _laptop_ ; I have to go to the USB control
| in the phone's notification area and tell it to do the
| opposite.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> I've got a Dell USB-C charger that continually drops
| out when I try to charge a Lenovo laptop with it_
|
| Interesting, we have various Dell and Lenovo type-C and
| thunderbolt docks at work and they can each cross charge
| the Lenovo and the Dell laptops we have.
|
| Maybe your charger is faulty.
| KronisLV wrote:
| > This is an exceptional case.
|
| Then it seems to me like they should have chosen a
| different connector, maybe even be encouraged by some
| entity to do so, as to not cause undue confusion or
| frustration.
| gumby wrote:
| Well yes they should have, and were publicly shamed for
| it.
|
| Or they should have stuck to the spec.
| jrockway wrote:
| Charging is one aspect. People are bricking their devices
| today because everyone loves the center-positive barrel
| connector. It's used for everything from 3.3V to 48V (and
| maybe even more than that). Plug your 5V device into a 12V
| supply, rest in peace, device. The shared form factor is
| nice, though, when you do carefully compare the voltage
| markings. I have a drawer of random 12V power supplies, and
| I have no idea if any of my devices are actually using the
| 12V power supply they came with, and it all works.
|
| Meanwhile, the varying form factor for computer parts has
| never really been a problem. Back in the day, nobody ever
| tried to connect their VGA monitor to their PS/2 mouse
| port. But now, thanks to USB-C, many people try that, only
| to have it fail. They might have to get a new computer or
| monitor to salvage even one of them, but in the past, it
| was pretty easy to get something to work. (Still not
| perfect, of course. You still had to have a graphics card
| that could drive the monitor at the timings you desired,
| and sometimes the optimal timings for the monitor weren't
| achievable with your particular video output. This problem,
| of course, still affects HDMI, DVI, DisplayPort, and
| Thunderbolt.) Meanwhile, the ports that were the same
| caused a lot of confusion. How come you couldn't connect
| your PS/2 keyboard to the mouse port?
|
| All in all, I think Type C is kryptonite for today's
| economy. Consumers only look at one spec when purchasing
| peripherals -- the price. To make the lowest price USB type
| C cable, you simply remove any copper from it that isn't
| related to charging a phone. That means you end up with
| people that want to use displayport alt mode, or data
| transfer, and can't, and have no ability whatsoever to fix
| the problem themselves.
|
| None of this precludes a standard that lets you charge your
| phone, but it's complicated when you want to use one port
| to charge your phone, your laptop, your desktop, your
| monitor, share data, stream video, etc. and USB didn't get
| this one right. Of course, the industry did even worse
| without a standard, but it's still terrible.
| torginus wrote:
| If you're a techie looking to understand everything, USB-C is a
| confusing mess - however if you're just a regular person buying
| a random USB-C dock at the computer store, it's very likely the
| model you're going to get will support charging, display out
| and fast enough port speeds that using an external drive won't
| be painful.
| paulmd wrote:
| > if you're just a regular person buying a random USB-C dock
| at the computer store, it's very likely the model you're
| going to get will support charging, display out and fast
| enough port speeds that using an external drive won't be
| painful.
|
| sure, but, when they plug it into their computer it's not
| going to work because almost no motherboards support video or
| pcie over their type-c connectors. the dock will do it, that
| doesn't mean the rest of the system will.
|
| also, while the cable that comes in the box will work... what
| if you need a longer one? if they buy a random usb-c cable
| off the shelf, will it work with video? survey says probably
| not... especially if they're a typical consumer and buy the
| cheapest one.
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| It's like using a low-bandwidth hdmi cable on a 4K tv. People
| may not notice that their device isn't charging well but as
| long as it's charging they may not complain. Doesn't mean the
| situation is anywhere close to ideal.
| spockz wrote:
| I get this with a "cheap" USB c cable from Action. On good
| days it will train in at 60W charge. More often just at
| 30W. No problem for my 13" M1 laptop you never notice
| unless trying to rapid charge or looking at stats. But I
| did notice it with my old intel mbp it couldn't stay
| charged.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Not if you want to connect two 4K monitors at 60Hz, which is
| not an unusual thing to want to do. (It required that your
| dock, cables and machine support Thunderbolt 4).
| jenia2022 wrote:
| Why do you only use the cable that came with it? What's the
| problem with charging a device over USB-C?
| marzell wrote:
| I feel like now, even though there may be varying levels of
| compatibility/capability, at least more devices physically plug
| into the same cables with at least basic functionality. IMO
| it's better than having different physical ports that are
| completely incompatible.
|
| Additionally, I've never had any problems with USB-C cables
| physically failing without extensive abuse. I cannot say the
| same for on-brand Apple charging cables.
| paulmd wrote:
| > While I complain, I would also like to mention the USB
| forum's insane naming strategy and non-obvious labeling system.
|
| battered USB-C users: "You don't know him like I do, he really
| loves me and he says he's gonna release USB 4 and leave all
| this confusion behind us forever!"
|
| USB-IF: "haha but what if I released usb 4 2.0? ... ... ..."
|
| Like c'mon nobody can deny that they're absolutely doing this
| shit on purpose, creating confusing standards makes it easier
| for the forum members to market older crap and pretend it
| supports the latest thing without incurring the cost of
| actually supporting it.
|
| it's _extremely extremely_ concerning that this is the
| standards body that the EU has given a government monopoly to
| develop connectors for our devices. This forum does not have
| consumer interests at heart, at all, they are looking out for
| their members, not for you. And like an abusive partner, they
| aren 't gonna suddenly wake up one day and change everything...
| they _exist as an organization_ so that Asus can make 1% more
| profit on a laptop by using an older usb controller, not to
| produce good standards that consumers can understand.
|
| Unlike HDMI, there's just no alternative right now. We
| _desperately_ need "VESA for data connections" and to get the
| wheel away from the shitters at USB-IF.
| eli wrote:
| Something something malice and incompetence
| b3morales wrote:
| Sure but don't forget Gray's Law: _Any sufficiently
| advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice_
| colordrops wrote:
| Businesses never sacrifice user needs for the bottom line?
| eli wrote:
| Well meaning standards never have confusing names?
| colejohnson66 wrote:
| If they stopped at USB 3.1 Gen 1 and 2, it'd be
| forgivable, but then doing USB 3.2 Gens 1, 2, 1x2, and
| 2x2, then USB4 Gens 2x1, 2x2, 3x1, 3x2, and now USB4
| version 2 (what?), it's hard to give the benefit of the
| doubt.
|
| <rant>
|
| Being able to market a USB 3.0 cable as USB4 despite only
| reaching 5 Gb/s is nothing short of incompetence, and
| almost certainly deceptive. There's _zero reason_ to
| rename old speed capabilities when we still refer to USB
| 480 Mb /s as... _2.0_. If every feature of USB4 is
| optional besides 5 Gb /s, what's the purpose of being
| able to call something "USB4 compatible" besides
| marketing?
|
| It's the same reason HDMI 2.0 is now 2.1! Because almost
| every feature that's new in 2.1 is optional. A few months
| ago, the media went crazy about Apple listing their new
| MacBook as supporting HDMI 2.0 when 2.1 had been out for
| a while, but it turned out they were just being more
| honest.
| cesarvarela wrote:
| My 3 rules:
|
| 1. buy everything thunderbolt 4 certified
|
| 2. connect monitors using tb -> dp cables
|
| 3. avoid Linux and Windows (vms are ok)
|
| Everything works as it should and using only one cable I'm
| connecting my MacBook to 2 monitors, a webcam, a screen capture
| card, a microphone, a stream deck, and it even charges the
| battery.
|
| Break one of the rules and be ready for a world of pain.
| zmmmmm wrote:
| > I'm connecting my MacBook to 2 monitors
|
| Did you really find a solution where you plug in one cable and
| you natively get two independent screens out of your MacBook?
| To my great frustration I have found my M1 Pro can only extend
| to one monitor, not two. Every solution out there either ends
| up with "mirrored" displays (useless) or requires to virtualise
| the link via DisplayLink which I really don't like. Apparently
| it's a fundamental issue with limitations of Apple's
| implementation.
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| M1 MPB 14", 2 external monitors: I would pay quite a bit of money
| if Apple would make a dock that I could plug into and have my
| apps move back into the position they were in (including correct
| monitor) when I unplugged the cable. Bonus points if windows
| would automatically arrange themselves back when I unplug and
| work on laptop only, but this is probably a Mac OS thing more
| than a dock thing, right?
|
| Currently it's just a crapshoot as to where my apps will be. Will
| they be on the right monitor? Will the monitors have magically
| juxtaposed? Will everything be only on the laptop screen? Who
| knows!? This is a productivity destroyer for me, multiple times
| per day.
|
| Yes, I wait until both screens have powered on. And then some
| extra time... and it doesn't matter at all.
| dmitriid wrote:
| > if Apple would make a dock that I could plug into and have my
| apps move back into the position they were in (including
| correct monitor) when I unplugged the cable.
|
| Isn't that handled by software? That Apple hasn't been able to
| provide for ages despite originally bosting to have the best
| monitor support, and now releasing "the best" external display
| with Studio Display?
|
| > Currently it's just a crapshoot as to where my apps will be.
| Will they be on the right monitor? Will the monitors have
| magically juxtaposed? Will everything be only on the laptop
| screen? Who knows!?
|
| Yup. It's been a pain for me since forever.
| ozzydave wrote:
| This is the monitors fault though right? Because the
| manufacturer flashes them with the exact same identifier, so
| the laptop has no way to tell them apart. There was a blog post
| about it here recently.
|
| https://notes.alinpanaitiu.com/Weird%20monitor%20bugs
| jcynix wrote:
| You might want to try out "window tidy" which allows to define
| arrangements of windows:
|
| https://www.lightpillar.com/window-tidy.html
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| This has been a big pain, for me.
|
| The only docks that have worked for me, have been the CalDigit TS
| _X_ docks, which I have used for a long time. The TS4 is out of
| stock on the CalDigit site, and I 'm never using Amazon again,
| for anything over about $100. I'll get it, eventually.
|
| I have the latest 14-inch MBP (M1Max).
|
| The biggest issues that I encounter are:
|
| 1) External keyboard wake up/recognized.
|
| If I use a dock, the keyboard is often not recognized. I found
| that I need to plug directly into the Mac. Otherwise, it
| sometimes won't wake the computer, or the computer sometimes
| "forgets" the keyboard.
|
| 2) Monitor Handling.
|
| I use a 49" LG Ultrawide (5120 X 1440). I used to have it split
| into two monitors (3840 X 1440, 1680 X 1440), but now use it as a
| single, ultrwawide, after Apple started natively supporting that
| resolution.
|
| I found that many docks (even "Thunderbolt" ones) and adapters,
| refused to allow me to select the ultrawide size. Also, the
| monitor would often fail to be recognized, after the computer
| wakes, and I would have to reach under, and unplug/replug, to get
| it recognized. I have the monitor plugged directly into one of
| the TB ports, with a TB-to-DP cable, and it works great.
|
| From what I understand, the new CalDigit should fix these issues.
| rektide wrote:
| The note in this article that for whatever reason Mac's dont
| support the MST capabilities from DisplayPort 1.2 (january
| 2013) is I think the primary reason folks hate USB-c. Because
| the obvious great thing docks definitely absolutely should do
| doesnt work for Apple systems.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| That makes sense.
|
| I really think they included the HDMI, just for projectors.
| It's worthless, as a daily monitor port (to me).
| usrusr wrote:
| I consider that a given. In my mind I call HDMI "the new
| VGA port"
| nfriedly wrote:
| I have a different LG ultrawide, and I was able to update its
| firmware through their split screen software, which made it
| behave much better with MacOS.
| grog454 wrote:
| What TB to DP adapter do you use? I have a similar setup (49" +
| M1 Mac), but I have a KVM switch between them for switching
| between the mac and a windows machine. The windows machine has
| worked flawlessly, but not a day goes by that the Mac doesn't
| crash the monitor and I have to force shutdown by holding the
| monitor power button for 5s.
| [deleted]
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I suspect that it might go to DisplayLink, on the Mac.
|
| I've learned to avoid DisplayLink. It's a hack.
|
| I have a USBC-to-DP adapter, that I plug into a TB port.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Sorry. Should have been more specific.
|
| This is the cable that I use:
| https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074V5MMCH
| jhickok wrote:
| You know, your use case about exactly mirrors mine-- I even
| have that display. I got sick of waiting for the TS4 to become
| available (waited a year, almost bought at 2x the price on
| Ebay) and bought the Caldigit Element Hub. Mounted it under my
| desk with double sided tape and now I just plug in the one
| thubderbolt cable. I have yet to have a single issue. My M1Max
| MBP has zero issues waking up and connecting to the devices. I
| hope you can find a TS4!
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I thought about that hub, but now, I think I'll wait for the
| TS4.
|
| I didn't want to shell out all that dosh, just to be
| disappointed.
| js2 wrote:
| I've had good luck with the Elgato Thunderbolt docks. First
| their TB2 dock which after I updated to a 2018 13" MBP 4-port
| version I used with Apple's TB3 to TB2 adapter, and now their
| TB3 dock, which I've used with both with that same 2018 MBP and
| currently with a 16" M1 MBP. I've used the TB3 dock with a BenQ
| 32" 4K monitor via DisplayPort, but I recently upgraded to the
| Apple 5K Studio Display which is chained off the dock's TB3
| output.
|
| I attach a variety of USB devices (keyboard, mouse, backup
| drives) and haven't had any trouble with it.
|
| It's over-priced at $250, but I picked it up from Costco last
| December for $100.
|
| I mention it because it's been trouble-free for me and it never
| seems to be listed in the reviews I've seen.
| seanalltogether wrote:
| > Also, the monitor would often fail to be recognized, after
| the computer wakes, and I would have to reach under, and
| unplug/replug, to get it recognized. I have the monitor plugged
| directly into one of the TB ports, with a TB-to-DP cable, and
| it works great.
|
| I get this all the time with my 2560x1440 144hz monitor even
| though it is plugged directly into my m1 mbp. It's maddening
| and I still can't figure out how to resolve it.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I don't use the HDMI port. I have a USBC-to-DP adapter, that
| I plug into a TB port.
|
| I think Apple cheaped out on the HDMI port.
| paulmd wrote:
| for you, and for parent: make sure you turn off "EUP
| Compliance"/"EU Power" or "Deep Sleep Mode" options if you
| have them... that's another source of issues surrounding
| sleep/wake with monitors.
|
| Even apart from the monitor just hanging in the sleep
| state... a lot of them have glitchy behavior until you hard
| reboot the monitor. Some monitors actually will (internally)
| execute a full reboot of the monitor controller board when
| you wake them as a result, because they can't reliably come
| back out of the Deep Sleep state, and that's _another_ source
| of the "monitor disconnects and windows moves my
| icons/windows" glitches. The monitor is actually
| _electrically_ unplugging itself and replugging when it
| wakes.
|
| Vendors don't really care because everyone (who's in the
| know) turns the feature off because it's broken and causes
| problems.
|
| This particular EU regulatory exercise was a failure. Or at
| least, EU needs to rip off the bandaid and _require_ that it
| be enabled with no option to disable it, which would
| obviously lead to problems and poor reviews, which would
| _eventually_ lead to a fix... after a couple years of glitchy
| monitors.
| larusso wrote:
| > TB1/2/3 ports can be daisychained with up to 6 devices in the
| chain. Hubs (i.e. a split in the connection) are not supported
| until TB4. The last device in the chain can be a non-TB DP
| display as well.
|
| This didn't work with the Apple Thunderbolt Display. I tried this
| a few times and got this only to work with a TB Hub in the
| middle.
|
| And to add to: > Thunderbolt 4 seems to be essentially just USB4
| with all optional items implemented (but USB4 is more like TB3
| than USB3...).
|
| TB4 is as described but adds restriction to min/max speeds. This
| is more for the to be connected devices than the computer. It is
| a form of seal that it will work with the highest possible speed.
| Otherwise it could just be USB-4 or TB3.
| ledgerdev wrote:
| Guess what, my Lenovo TB4 dock isn't compatible with lenovo TB3
| laptops.. go figure, better yet just buy a framework!
| notacoward wrote:
| > It is like we've gone back to having many different types of
| connectors
|
| Not quite. Before, if the cable provided by your device
| manufacturer failed or was lost, you had practically no chance to
| replace it other than buying another overpriced cable from the
| original manufacturer. Keeping a backup around for every single
| device was often infeasible. Now you have a very good chance of
| finding an adequate replacement, even of a reasonably priced
| _exact_ replacement if you work at it.
|
| "But you can fry your Nintendo Switch now!" Well, yeah, but
| built-in signaling and negotiation has kept such cases rare
| enough to make the news, and it wasn't impossible before. Maybe
| not with the smaller devices using unique connectors, but back
| then it was common to reduce the number of adapters by carrying a
| "universal" one and a bag of tips. Set the voltage wrong and
| BZZZT fried laptop.
|
| So it's complex in _different_ ways but I agree with those who
| say that thinking it 's _worse_ requires some serious rose-
| colored glasses (or not having been an adult during that time). I
| 'll take being able to charge nearly a dozen different devices,
| from earbuds to laptops, with the same _one_ charger and cables,
| even if that cable doesn 't provide absolutely full functionality
| for every combination. Carrying around a bunch of separate
| connectors and (usually built in) cables really sucked. In
| practical terms, it left people stranded without any power
| option, or with an actually dead device, even more often.
| Cu3PO42 wrote:
| > TB1/2/3 are only implemented by Intel chips, and TB1/2 is used
| almost exclusively by Apple. TB4/USB4 can be implemented by other
| chip makers too, but this has not happened yet I believe.
|
| Apple has made USB4 controllers for their M1/M2 devices. Though
| it isn't fully clear to me if the author is aware and meant
| "chipmakers other than Intel and Apple".
| rizzaxc wrote:
| has anyone tried their M1 Pro with 2 4K monitors, one at 120/ 144
| and the other at 60 using 1 cable? I think it's theoretically
| possible with compression but I'm afraid of compatibility issues
| paulmd wrote:
| TB3/USB4 tops out at a pair of 4K60 displays. I don't think
| even DSC can get you a 50-70% bandwidth increase regardless of
| whether M1 Pro/Max support them.
| rrgok wrote:
| I'm starting to think that it is all purposefully designed to
| confuse the consumer. There is no reason, absolutely no reason at
| all, that the same cable/port can sometime transport only video,
| sometime only audio, sometime only raw data, sometime only power
| and sometime all of them put together or some combination of
| them. We can connect to a server to other side of the world or
| watch movie from youtube with the same cable (Ethernet, heck with
| the same connection) while writing a comment in HN, but somehow
| connecting a monitor and usb keyboard needs N different type of
| cables/port.
| notacoward wrote:
| > There is no reason, absolutely no reason at all
|
| There is a reason: cost. A lower-capability cable is cheaper to
| make, and people don't want to pay more when the lower
| capability (often just power) is all they need. If every cable
| had to be made to the absolute highest spec, people would
| complain about that too. There are also economies of scale etc.
| from using the same connector.
|
| Yes, the situation is bad. Worse than it needs to be. Better
| branding and labeling and OS diagnostics would all help. But
| "absolutely no reason" is still either naive or exaggeration.
| cowtools wrote:
| It's not just about the cable, it's about the controller chip
| on either side of the cable, and the bandwidth (pcie, etc.)
| attached to the controller.
|
| You can't make a standard that always does everything while
| being afforable enough to be used in low-cost, low-margin
| devices
| colordrops wrote:
| Yeah you can, enforce labeling and colors, maybe even an
| extra nub that only fits certain ports if capabilities aren't
| needed.
| tiffanyh wrote:
| Does anyone know of a good (single) comparison chart with:
|
| - power wattage
|
| - data speeds
|
| - capabilities (eg Display Port)
|
| I've found a few below but they aren't complete.
|
| [0] https://cdn-
| learn.adafruit.com/assets/assets/000/085/324/med...
|
| [1] https://www.akitio.com/images/support/faq/thunderbolt3-vs-
| us...
|
| [2] https://i.redd.it/1n2tk9cd9kj21.png
|
| [3]
| https://www.thunderbolttechnology.net/sites/default/files/th...
| brian_herman wrote:
| The styles of this site are amazing black and white.
| nfriedly wrote:
| I prefer DisplayPort over HDMI, and find it rather annoying how
| many USB-C hubs only have HDMI options - especially when it means
| extra circuitry to convert from DP to HDMI.
| burlesona wrote:
| Ok I knew the situation was confusing but after reading this I am
| dumbfounded. It seems so much strictly worse than the old world
| of having different cables with different connectors - yes you
| had to have a lot of different cables but you couldn't _get it
| wrong_. Now we have all the same complexity _and_ you can't tell
| what's what by just looking at the connector.
| izacus wrote:
| And now if you "get it wrong" you still mostly get a functional
| experience at slower speed or resolution.
|
| Which is still a massive massive improvement over finding out
| that you can't plug in a device because you lack the exact same
| cable or needs.
|
| Nowadays this only happens at the edge of capabilities, not for
| basic functionality.
|
| Good riddance. I don't want to lug 10 cables with me instead of
| a single high end USB-C.
| colordrops wrote:
| Naw, I'd rather it not work than work at lower refresh rate
| or resolution.
| izacus wrote:
| You can always then throw the cable in the garbage and
| simulate the old situation of not having anything.
| colordrops wrote:
| That's precisely what I do, after having lost a few hours
| messing with graphics drivers and kernel params before I
| realize it was the cable. Would have rather had my time
| back.
| quest88 wrote:
| I disagree. It's harder to debug why the peripheral is not
| 100% functional. Moreso for those non-technical folks.
| bombcar wrote:
| It reminds me of people buying nice VGA LED monitors and
| running them at non native resolutions.
|
| I used to be quite well known as the "computer guy" because
| I would set people to native resolution.
| wonnage wrote:
| Things are just insanely complicated now but I don't blame
| the connector. I had the un-fun experience of trying to get
| 4k 60hz working on my Mac recently. Turns out I had to
| toggle a setting on my monitor to reserve more bandwidth
| for display resolution instead of for USB devices. This
| supposedly isn't a problem if the Mac supported display
| stream compression, and it's supposed to, but apparently
| that broke as part of some Big Sur update.
|
| USB has always had software bugs but the explosion of
| optional features and unexpected hardware combinations has
| made it feel like Bluetooth; connecting is the easy part,
| but have fun negotiating all the different profiles and
| making sure both ends of the connection support the same
| things.
| izacus wrote:
| It's the exact same situation like having to debug a broken
| HDMI or DP cable. You don't get any more info, you just
| have less flexibility and more crap to lug around.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| This. And I think there's also the software that's involved
| in all this.
|
| At work, I have an HP laptop with Thunderbolt 4, DP alt-
| mode, etc.
|
| I use an external screen and kb/mouse, so I have an HP
| USB-C G5 dock. It has a USB-C connector, only supports up
| to USB 3, but that's fine. It supports DP 1.4 and HDMI 2.0.
|
| Its cable is fixed, so I'd expect it to be "up to
| standard". Also, HP Dock, HP laptop, Windows 11 as
| recommended by HP, you'd expect all this to just work,
| right?
|
| Wrong! If I want 4k@60Hz on the monitor, I have to do a
| stupid dance of plugging the monitor on HDMI _in addition_
| to DP (doesn 't work if DP isn't plugged in), unplug de DP,
| replug the DP, unplug the HDMI. It then works as expected.
| Colors are weird on HDMI (doesn't do 4:4:4 coding for some
| reason) so I insist on a DP connection.
|
| Once this setup gets going, it will usually survive a sleep
| / wake cycle ( _if_ the PC wakes up, but that 's a
| different story). However, there's a pretty good chance the
| image will be partially messed up: most often crazy colors
| and moving lines, sometimes the image will be OK, only
| somewhat misaligned (think old LCDs with VGA connectors
| before "auto-adjusting" them) and the monitor will complain
| of frequency mismatch or something. If I switch inputs on
| the monitor, it will come back OK. It will not survive a
| reboot (have to do the dance again). The BIOS has a special
| "use high definition" entry, that warns against reducing
| the USB bandwidth. Didn't make a difference.
|
| At home, I have an HP desktop with Thunderbolt 3, DP out,
| etc. I have a USB-C monitor which works fine up until the
| Windows login screen when it goes blank (no signal).
| Windows install worked fine. It works if I force the
| resolution to less than 4k@60Hz. I only got to see the
| Windows desktop once with this. Didn't survive a reboot and
| never worked again.
|
| None of this happens with Linux/X11, everything works as
| expected on the same hardware.
|
| I fancy myself fairly technical, but I have to admit I have
| no idea what's going on. Not even where to start looking
| for issues. I've tried updating the BIOS/firmware across
| all devices, no luck.
| bombcar wrote:
| It's always the cable. Except when it's not, then it's
| another cable.
|
| What happens is Windows tries to help - and so switched
| out of the mode you wanted because something in the cable
| or negotiation indicated it wouldn't work.
|
| Linux often doesn't do that and just blindly runs ahead -
| and so if the monitor becomes working a moment later - it
| works.
|
| Utilities for Mac and windows can sometimes force what
| mode it uses.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| This could possibly explain the issue with the USB-C
| monitor, but then why would this work after the HDMI
| circus? The hardware and OS clearly are capable of doing
| this, and no cable is replaced in the process. I also
| don't move them around during the reboot.
| bombcar wrote:
| I'd suspect crappy monitor software that changes what it
| reports on ALL interfaces when it detects an HDMI cable.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| And yet, the same DP connector on the same monitor with
| the same cable works fine when plugged into a DP
| connector on another computer (on Windows).
| danieldk wrote:
| _I have an HP USB-C G5 dock_
|
| USB-C docks (as in USB and DP-Alt mode over USB-C) and
| dongles are a world of hurt. We had a bunch of them
| (including from reputable vendors like Lenovo and Anker)
| and we always had issues, needing to replug the cable
| because charging wouldn't work, crappy network adapters,
| suspend-wake issues, BlueTooth/WiFi interference, etc.
| The only adapter that worked well were the Apple Digital
| Multiport AV adapter, but it is overpriced and only has a
| measly 2 ports (plus power passthrough).
|
| My wife and I both switched to Thunderbolt 3 docks both
| at home and at the office and the problems are gone.
| Everything always comes up, including after sleep-wake
| cycles. If often have my private MBP stationary and
| hooked up for days.
|
| I really love Thunderbolt docks, just plug one cable and
| you have everything hooked up.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| Well, I daily drive a Linux box, and I've been using a
| USB-C monitor with integrated hub for years without any
| issue. Both the HP and the cheap Chinese dock work
| perfectly with Linux. No sleep/interference/missing
| devices issues. I only noticed this because I was
| recently trying a few things on Windows at work. Hence,
| my suspicion that the OS is somehow involved.
|
| Another issue is that thunderbolt only recently has
| become more common on PCs. My late 2021 AMD laptop
| doesn't have TB, for example. Only the higher-end HP
| laptops at work had it, but they had other issues which
| made them unusable for me (soldered RAM, under-powered
| CPUs and shiny screens), so I chose lower-end models.
| paulmd wrote:
| See my comment elsewhere but usb-c to hdmi or thunderbolt
| to hdmi is always an active conversion, and those
| converter chips are (in my experience) pretty shitty
| around edge cases like sleeping. Those problems I'm
| referencing only show up when the laptop comes back from
| sleep.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32714107
|
| Wouldn't be surprising at all to me if it was just down
| to the active converter not handling it right, even on a
| fancy expensive dock. There are only so many active
| converter chips on the market after all and they're
| oriented towards cost not correctness.
|
| And I mean, mine _sorta_ works after sleep... like 3 /4
| or 7/8 times. And if it were an active cable that you
| were plugging and unplugging every time, that works 100%.
| You only notice the flaw because it's a dock, and that's
| not really what the converter was designed for.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| That would explain the issue with the colors on HDMI, but
| not why the DP connection doesn't work.
|
| This is DP pass-through, there's no DisplayLink or
| similar involved.
| cpurdy wrote:
| >This is DP pass-through, there's no DisplayLink or
| similar involved.
|
| How do you know that it is DisplayPort pass-through?
|
| From what I've seen, if it's going through a USB-C hub,
| there is almost zero chance that it is DisplayPort pass-
| through, although such a thing is possible to implement,
| in theory.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| Because it shows up on Linux as an output of the
| integrated graphics card (DP-X-Y in xrandr), and it also
| works in the BIOS or during Windows installation.
|
| Before this, I had a DisplayLink dock that would not work
| on Linux without specific drivers.
|
| The HP specs [0] say the number of displays depends on
| the computer's graphics card.
|
| Don't know if there's anything in between DisplayLink and
| pass-through, though, so I can't be certain it's not
| that.
|
| [0] https://support.hp.com/us-en/product/hp-usb-c-
| dock-g5/277672...
|
| Specifically:
|
| _For USB-C functionality, host PC must support the
| DisplayPort Alt mode protocol through its USB-C port._
| innocenat wrote:
| I am pretty sure DP cannot be encaspulate in USB 3.1/3.2.
| (USB4 can carry DP over Thunderbolt), so alternative mode
| MUST be used (1 highspeed TX/RX pair for USB-C 5/10Gbps,
| and another pair for DP Alt Mode).
| eigen wrote:
| > This is DP pass-through, there's no DisplayLink or
| similar involved.
|
| is it, or is there a re-driver? also, there are 4 high-
| speed lines in USB-C; 2 are used for USB3 so the other 2
| are for DP-HDMI convertor and DP connector. seems like
| only 1 of HDMI or DP should work at 1 time.
|
| anyways, this is not an issue with USB but an issue with
| the dock behavior.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| > is it, or is there a re-driver?
|
| How would I go about verifying that? I've never installed
| any driver for the dock, and the DP-connected screen
| works during early boot. Linux recognizes it as DP-X-Y.
| I've never had the curiosity of plugging in the HDMI port
| under Linux.
|
| On Windows, it recognizes 3 screens when both DP and HDMI
| are connected (the third being the internal laptop
| display).
|
| I know there's a similar HP dock, the G2, that does say
| it has DisplayLink, whereas this one doesn't.
|
| > the other 2 are for DP-HDMI convertor and DP connector.
| seems like only 1 of HDMI or DP should work at 1 time.
|
| If it's a USB 3.2 2x2, shouldn't that be able to handle
| one 4k@60Hz stream per lane, thus supporting two 4k@60
| displays at the same time?
| cesarb wrote:
| > Linux recognizes it as DP-X-Y.
|
| That's interesting, I've always seen Linux recognizing DP
| ports as only DP-X in xrandr. So my first guess would be
| that what you have within the dock is a something like a
| DP MST hub, to split the single DP port into two, and
| then one of these two ports goes into the active
| converter to HDMI (perhaps in the same chip), while the
| other is exposed as the DP socket.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| You may be on to something, especially since I seem to
| remember people having MST displays complaining about
| wonky support.
|
| Another fun fact: the laptop I'm typing this on shows 4
| DP connections (DisplayPort-0 through 3), one HDMI-A-0,
| one eDP. There's no dock connected to it right now. When
| I was using the Chinese dock with a DP monitor, one of
| the four was showing up as connected.
|
| The PC only has two USB-C connectors and one HDMI. So, I
| guess it expects to be able to drive two displays per
| USB-C port.
| paulmd wrote:
| ya, fair, I just wouldn't rule out the HDMI chipset doing
| something stupid (negotiating down on colors etc) and
| that causing havoc elsewhere... like (as a sibling
| comment mentions) windows deciding to use that across all
| the panels etc.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| Possibly, that's why I suspect the OS is somehow
| involved, too, especially since by default there's
| nothing connected to the HDMI port. Or, at least, some
| kind of interaction between the dock firmware and the OS.
|
| The other commenter mentioning that Linux "doesn't care
| and plows through" could be on to something, too.
|
| But I should note that I haven't "forced" anything. The
| display is detected as 4K@60Hz with no intervention on my
| part.
|
| Whereas on Windows, before I do the dance, it only says
| 4k@30, I can't manually change it to 60 Hz; not with the
| standard Windows settings app, anyway.
|
| This also happens on a separate dock. But on that one, it
| never works under Windows, DP or HDMI, dance or no dance.
| Works perfectly on Linux, though. However, that's some
| random Chinese dock off Amazon, so I chalked it up to
| shady implementation on its side.
|
| However, this just goes to show that things aren't so
| "simple" as OP stated, things can fail in weird ways
| which aren't straightforward to diagnose. And the
| hardware isn't obviously broken, either, since I'm typing
| this on Linux attached to the Chinese dock in 4K@60Hz
| without having done anything special to get it going. So,
| something, somewhere, may be somehow out of spec, but how
| can I diagnose that? On the face of it, all my components
| are what I'm supposed to use.
|
| I guess there are just too many moving parts, whereas a
| DP cable connected to the graphics card is pretty
| straightforward.
| theshrike79 wrote:
| It's really fun trying to debug that crap.
|
| For example: My Macbook Pro has a 87 watt USB-C power supply.
| My Steam Deck charges using USB-C.
|
| When I connect the two, the Deck tells me it's not charging
| at full power. While being connected to a 2x more powerful
| power supply than it's official one.
|
| Without consulting Google, can any regular person figure out
| what is the issue?
|
| (SPOILER: Steam Deck only charges using 15V, the Apple PSU
| supplies 9V and 20V, no 15V)
| rwiggins wrote:
| I suppose at least it _tells_ you that. That 's always my
| worry with the cable shenanigans - that I'll get some
| degraded experience and not realize it until it matters.
| cube2222 wrote:
| In contrast, I prefer the current world. Usually, when I
| unexpectedly need some cable for some device (and i.e. have to
| borrow it) it's for charging. And so far every time the cable +
| charger worked for what I needed to charge.
|
| Data- and protocol-related stuff is more complex indeed, but
| those I can usually research and check the specs of before
| ordering, so it's really a non-issue.
|
| As this article describes, you can also just look for
| everything Thunderbolt 4 compatible, as it's a standard on top
| of the USB 4 standard that's just an aggregated specification
| of "this stuff works" for most of the important extensions.
| [deleted]
| Latty wrote:
| I disagree.
|
| I remember the hell of every phone having a different charging
| cable and having to ask around hoping someone had the same
| brand as you. Sure, it might be a bit of a pain that you can
| find a cable/charger that won't support the full charging speed
| of your device, but at least you can still charge it slower.
|
| If they'd changed the connector, you'd throw away your old
| cables and buy new ones, so just do that every time for the new
| spec if you really want.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| That's an oversimplification of the old world.
|
| We had different connectors that would or would not work
| depending on your specific application. Some connectors would
| only have a smaller set of pins for restricted use cases
| (charging only, sound only etc.) than the full standard, you
| still had the quality and ratings issue (think ethernet
| cables), some companies would still recycle connectors used in
| other contexts for their specific purpose (a sheer round
| connector is one of those: there must be hundreds or
| proprietary cables with a round connector).
|
| And of course you'd have adaptors to make a connector work in
| an equivalent setup.
|
| Sure more shapes would make any of these issues limited to a
| specific shape, but there was still plenty of room to get it
| wrong.
|
| All in all I think USB C is still a step forward.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > We had different connectors that would or would not work
| depending on your specific application. Some connectors would
| only have a smaller set of pins for restricted use cases
| (charging only, sound only etc.) than the full standard, you
| still had the quality and ratings issue (think ethernet
| cables), some companies would still recycle connectors used
| in other contexts for their specific purpose (a sheer round
| connector is one of those: there must be hundreds or
| proprietary cables with a round connector).
|
| Er, but isn't that exactly the problem with USB now? Not all
| USB ports and all USB cables are interchangeable, some
| devices use certain pins for restricted use cases (charging
| only, sound only), cables and devices have painfully varying
| quality (https://www.pcmag.com/news/poorly-designed-usb-c-
| cable-kills... ,
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/11/google-engineer-
| leav...), and companies reuse the one connector without
| actually being fully compatible (Nintendo, I'm looking at
| you).
| makeitdouble wrote:
| It totally is. I even have a Xiamo robot toy that uses the
| USB-C shape connector over a completely proprietary
| connection (non of the voltage or protocol match)
|
| The difference is it's one less issue to deal with: we
| don't have to fret about the connector shape anymore.
|
| There's also a fighting chance to have "all around" cables
| that match 90% of what you expect to be using it for.
| alexvoda wrote:
| Add to this complexity the fact that AMD 6000+ supports USB4.
| And USB4 is sorta compatible with Thunderbolt 3 and 4, though
| it is mandatory compatible with DP but no longer compatible
| with HDMI.
|
| Also add USB4 v2 to the mix.
|
| It gets really complex.
| paulmd wrote:
| > it is mandatory compatible with DP but no longer compatible
| with HDMI.
|
| Just FYI, not sure if you're intending to imply this but a
| lot of people get it wrong regardless and it's worth saying:
| usb-c/thunderbolt was NEVER compatible with HDMI.
|
| DP++ (the hdmi mode for DisplayPort connectors) is and has
| always been an _optional_ extension, it's just so widely
| supported on full-size DP ports that people don't even
| realize it. And it's NOT included in most embedded
| implementations of DP - like the usb-c alt mode. DP++
| involves using a different voltage, and it would be super
| complex to do the voltage change in situations like that
| across a USB link... you 'd probably have to have a voltage
| converter for the DP pairs to run at HDMI voltages.
|
| Anyway, all usb-c to hdmi cables are active cables. The
| adapters for hdmi 1.4 are dirt cheap and they're so small
| they fit inside the plug, but, they're active converters and
| they can have all kinds of weird behavior. Same for docks,
| the hdmi coming off your thunderbolt dock is an active
| converter chip and I've personally experienced hdmi-specific
| glitches on a Dell thunderbolt dock that I think were
| attributable to this.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| This lines up with my experience of DisplayPort over TB and
| USB being considerably less of a pain than HDMI over TB and
| USB, and compounds with my experience of HDMI generally
| being more of a pain than DisplayPort.
|
| Sometimes I wish HDMI would just go away, or for HDMI-only
| devices (mainly TVs) to add a DisplayPort just so I
| wouldn't have to deal with HDMI.
| altairprime wrote:
| On Zyxel 16.8 rackmount modem enclosures, the barrel power plug
| that went into each modem blade was hot on the outside barrel
| rather than on the inside like every other sensible power
| connector using barrel plugs.
|
| So you would destroy a blade every couple weeks when an unused
| or unplugged power connector barrel would touch the modem blade
| and destroy the modem through its circuitry's apparently-
| unprotected ground.
|
| We've been having connector issues for as long as we've had
| connectors.
| j-krieger wrote:
| I disagree. USB-C is common for what, 3 years now? Issues like
| these are growing pains.
| paulmd wrote:
| Usb-c was specified a decade ago and thunderbolt has been
| around for a long ass time too. I could have bought "growing
| pains" in 2016-2017, it's just a flaky standard at this
| point.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Or just pains that will grow in the coming years
| philistine wrote:
| Intel and Apple to the rescue. If you focus on Thunderbolt
| ports, cables and docks, everything is simple to understand.
| Theodores wrote:
| I was hoping to find out if I can use a TB4 hub to connect two
| computers for super fast networking. Currently I have a cable
| between two computers, when I plug it in I get the ridiculous
| fast speeds and it configures the point to point networking in
| such a way it falls back to wifi if the cable is not present.
|
| I would like to do this with a TB4 hub in the middle. I don't
| want to connect a GPU (yet) but I do want the speed of networking
| with no latency that TB4 networking does. I think it is faster
| than NVMe SSDs.
|
| Does anyone have a TB4 hub and two linux boxes and TB4 cables to
| see what happens if you connect two computers via a TB4 hub - do
| you get the networking automatically?
| morsch wrote:
| Apparently, it's possible:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Thunderbolt/comments/s6vq3k/connect...
| [deleted]
| chx wrote:
| I can't tell what Linux does but USB4NET works without a hitch
| through USB4 hubs.
|
| To go technical we need to check the USB4 System Overview.
| https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/D1T1-3%20-%20USB4%20...
| to find four types of Protocol are mapped to USB4: USB3
| Adapters, DP Adapters, PCIe Adapters, Host Interface Adapters.
| We are all familiar with USB3, DP, PCIe but what is a "Host
| Interface Adapter"?
|
| Now we need to open another document
| https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/D2T1-3%20-%20USB4%20...
| to find "Provides parallel communication channels: Control
| Packet Routing, Host-to-host tunneling" under the Host
| Interface section. It's Host-to-host tunneling we want.
|
| Finally, go to page 55 of this PDF and see Path Terminology --
| most importantly you can see there can be any number of Path
| Segments.
|
| So to recap: The so called Thunderbolt networking is now called
| USB4NET, it is provided by the Host Interface Adapter, and it
| can travel over any number of routers. (In the first doc, you
| can find routers are the fundamental block of USB4, host,
| router, device are all routers and in this sense they are the
| same.)
| formerly_proven wrote:
| > Does anyone have a TB4 hub and two linux boxes and TB4 cables
| to see what happens if you connect two computers via a TB4 hub
| - do you get the networking automatically?
|
| What happens if you plug two TB4 ports from the same device
| into the hub?
| Theodores wrote:
| I don't fancy spotting $300 to find out. Right now I have a
| mere USB C hub that does not do power delivery. I need a dock
| and they cost money I can spend on other things. However, if
| I knew of a dock that worked then I would get one, price
| permitting.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Ah I misunderstood.
|
| But since you use Thunderbolt networking, what is the
| actual speed of it? I've seen statements that suggest it
| emulates a 10 GbE NIC and so only does 10 gigabit/s, but
| that sounds kinda weird. Is it a full duplex almost-40
| gigabit/s link?
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| > I think it is faster than NVMe SSDs
|
| NVMe is sitting directly on PCI-E bus, which is connected
| directly to the CPU. The only thing what is faster than that is
| RAM.
| hatware wrote:
| I think they are talking about bandwidth, not latency.
| Thunderbolt should give 40gbps, which is a ton of bandwidth.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| I thought Thunderbolt was also directly on the pci bus which
| is also a reason I don't want too many tb devices. I prefer
| not to have my motherboard fried
| Hackbraten wrote:
| Not possible with just a TB4 hub. A Thunderbolt connection is
| always between a host and one (or more) devices. It can't
| support two hosts at the same time.
|
| What problem are you trying to solve, which isn't already
| solved with your existing Ethernet cable?
|
| _Update:_ I stand corrected. [1] Turns out most Thunderbolt
| controllers can act as downstream devices, too!
|
| [1]:
| https://www.reddit.com/r/Thunderbolt/comments/s6vq3k/comment...
| Theodores wrote:
| Ethernet is going to need two ethernet adapters. I only need
| two machines networked.
| politician wrote:
| This is the sort of post that I find myself wanting to click a
| button and have it indexed into my personal information system,
| so that I can find it later without hoping that it doesn't
| disappear from the Internet or fall off search indices before I
| need it.
|
| In lieu of this mythical system, this post on HN.
| ajvs wrote:
| archive.org?
| Terretta wrote:
| Add the Markdownload Markdown Web Clipper extension to your
| browser. Exists for Chrome, Edge, Firefox, as well as Safari on
| MacOS and iOS.
|
| Organize using whatever Markdown tool you like, from folders
| and OS search to Obsidian.md.
| ghaff wrote:
| Use an online tagging service?
|
| I use pinboard.in all the time. A lot of people seem to like
| raindrop which is newer and more maintained.
| worble wrote:
| Joplin has a great addon that can clip entire pages into a note
| (with various options such as convert to md or just plain
| html). Works great for articles but I imagine anything really
| JS heavy might fall over, although luckily I've never really
| had any problems with it myself.
| darkteflon wrote:
| Print to PDF -> put it in a "knowledge base" folder in your
| home dir -> find it (or anything else) later using full-text
| search with, e.g. Houdahspot. Simple and durable. I store
| thousands of articles this way going back years. Search-first
| interfaces are great.
| rssoconnor wrote:
| For a person satisfied with a single monitor, I figure it makes
| sense to get a monitor that is itself a dock.
|
| At the moment I'm considering the Dell UltraSharp 32 4K USB-C Hub
| Monitor - U3223QE. I know it is only a USB-C hub, but I'd like to
| be able to plug my older laptops into it on occasion, so I need
| something with a least an HDMI input and preferably also a
| DisplayPort input.
|
| I don't know anything about monitor-hubs so if people have
| comments or recommendations, please let me know.
| mrweasel wrote:
| The only thing I'd stay for using a Dell monitor is: If you
| plan to use it with a Mac, be sure that they are compatible.
| Dell has a fantastic return policy, which was lucky for me,
| because the first USB-C monitor I ordered from then had a
| pretty terrible image when I used a Mac. It's no fault of Dell,
| it is Apple who are rather picky with displays.
|
| If you just need the one monitor, Dell has some great options.
| I can just have the one cable to my laptop, everything else is
| wired to the monitor and works great.
| karmakaze wrote:
| I've had the poor image quality problem with Macs and Dell
| displays for ages. My go-to fix that usually works is to
| generate a custom EDID profile for the monitor that lets it
| negotiate to use RGB signalling rather that YPbPr 4:2:2 crap.
| I think Apple does this on purpose. LG displays seem to work
| out of the box.
|
| I Googled "Mac EDID ruby"[0] to try to find the script that
| I'd found and used.
|
| [0] https://embdev.net/topic/284710
| MikePlacid wrote:
| I was looking for a dock for a MacBook M1, and was going to
| buy some $300 box (and there were no absolutely reassuring
| reviews for any of them) and was compiling the similar
| looking table - when I noticed that my Dell U2721DE has a
| sound jack... and an Ethernet jack - and does not have any
| problems docks have, like overheating.
|
| So the Dell monitor is connected to 3 computers now, it
| switches sound depending on the video source (!) : USBC,
| DisplayPort and HDMI all pass sound to my headphones. And
| Ethernet stays with USBC box - exactly what I wanted. I still
| need a keyboard/mouse switch but overall "Display as a dock"
| setup turned out very good for me.
| daviddever23box wrote:
| Looks great!
|
| I am using a 350-nit Philips Brilliance 329P9H (manufactured by
| AOC), and, frankly, the size makes a huge difference contra the
| need for multiple panels. It works well with Windows and macOS
| devices.
|
| One does not need Thunderbolt on a device like this; anything
| latency-sensitive or bandwidth-intensive should be connected
| directly as is. USB-C is fine.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| I'd like having a high-speed (10Gb) network port on the
| monitor, all connected through the single cable.
|
| Sure, I think some of the latest USB standards should be able
| to support that while at the same time providing 4K@60Hz. But
| I'd also like the monitor to support higher resolutions, too.
| rssoconnor wrote:
| Good observation. PC Magazine says the ethernet port of
| this Dell monitor I'm considering is 1000Mb/s. I can
| probably live with that, though I'd certainly prefer a
| monitor-hub with a 10 Gb port if I can find one (that still
| has DP and HDMI inputs).
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| A surprising number of monitor docks only support USB 2
| (perhaps because they think people will only use keyboards or
| mice).
|
| Also, many monitor docks power off the USB ports when they go
| to sleep, and then you can't use a device on those ports
| (including a keyboard or mouse) to wake up the computer.
| salmonlogs wrote:
| Monitor USB ports also tend to have limited power output too.
|
| If you want to use a webcam and a usb Jabra speakerphone for
| video calls you may exceed the power limits.
|
| Took me way too long to diagnose the issue
| izacus wrote:
| The reason for common USB2 in monitors is lack of bandwidth -
| the non-Thunderbolt USB leaves only space for USB2.0 speeds
| next to 4K@60Hz connection.
|
| Most new monitors will however allow you to switch to USB3.0
| speeds at the cost of being capped at 4K@30Hz.
| innocenat wrote:
| There is plenty of bandwidth if DP 1.4 is used. DP1.4 only
| require one superspeed pair for 4K@60Hz, leaving the other
| pair for USB3.1 data connection.
| izacus wrote:
| I'm guessing the monitors aren't using DP1.4 then, since
| now I've met many (Phillips, Lenovo, etc.) USB-C screens
| which have this switch in their settings.
| rssoconnor wrote:
| The Lenovo ThinkVision P27u-20 27-inch Monitor is Thunderbolt 4
| and cheaper, but also smaller and the ethernet port is still
| only 1Gb/s.
| aliceryhl wrote:
| I have two monitors of this model and they work great with
| both my work and personal laptop, both of which run Linux.
|
| You can connect the monitors with a display port cable, then
| use a single USB-C cable to connect both to the laptop in one
| go. The dock also works great for everything I've needed it
| for. (dock only works on one monitor when daisy-chaining
| them, but that's no big deal and appears to be a fundamental
| limitation of using display port to daisy-chain.)
| ridiculous_fish wrote:
| I have this monitor and I really like it.
|
| It acts as both a USB hub and a KVM switch. I plug my MBP in
| with USB-C, and also attach a Linux desktop via DisplayPort and
| a separate USB3 cable. When I switch the display between the
| Mac and desktop, my keyboard and mouse also switch because
| they're connected to the monitor.
|
| As others have said, using USB C for display leaves only USB2
| speeds for other devices attached to the monitor. This is fine
| for keyboard + mouse but I wouldn't attach an SSD to the
| monitor's USB ports.
|
| Other nice qualities include connectivity options (USB-C, HDMI,
| DisplayPort), a very beefy 90 watts power delivery, slim
| bezels, and highly adjustable height/tilt/rotation. Downsides
| are no speakers and 60 Hz refresh rate. But I haven't found
| anything better than this display.
| rssoconnor wrote:
| How do you feel about the 32" size? I understand there is a
| 27" version with identical features.
| NonNefarious wrote:
| Thanks for all that.
| goalieca wrote:
| Just be sure your monitor actually supports 60Hz with usb-c. I
| had a dell once that claimed 4k@60 but they never exposed the
| menu option to downgrade usb 3 speeds to usb2 speeds to support
| the 60Hz. I was stuck at 30hz. HP monitors do not have this
| problem.
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