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Comment by mrjin | Hacker News Reader

Oh well. I just returned 3 USB-C hubs in a row, one almost fried my computer. Since the introduce of USB-C, I have more cables than ever. There are virtually so many types of USB-C cables with different capabilities and all looks almost exactly the same. Some cannot handle charging current of 2A or less. Some might be able to do 3A, some maybe 5A. And some of it is USB 2.0, some are USB 3.x 5Gbps, 10Gbps, 20 Gbps or maybe even 40 Gbps. Some have DP-Alt mode, some don't. It's simply a random combination of any of the previous stuff. I wish I had read the specs and labeled them correctly. Now I have a whole bunch of them and I cannot tell which can do what except very few long thick ones for my monitors.

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It's simply a random combination of any of the previous stuff. [...] Now I have a whole bunch of them and I cannot tell which can do what except very few long thick ones for my monitors.

Get a Thunderbolt 4 cable, they can carry Thunderbolt 3, Thunderbolt 4, every USB protocol up to and including 4, DP alt-mode, and 100W power delivery. Moreover, most of them are clearly marked. The Apple cables are expensive, but some other good brands (like CalDigit) offer them at reasonable prices.

I just returned 3 USB-C hubs in a row, one almost fried my computer.

Most USB USB-C hubs (USB-C is only the connector) are terrible. Even many premium brands (like Satechi) often use cheap Chinese reference designs that will fry themselves pretty quickly, cause a lot of interference, and have all kinds of annoying limitations (mostly because they use 5 or 10 GBit/s USB 3 standards).

Since I have switched to quality Thunderbolt Docks, I haven't had any issues.

> Since I have switched to quality Thunderbolt Docks, I haven't had any issues.

Do you have a list of quality docks? Or how you determine what a quality dock is?

I've tried several through work, so far Dell has been the only ones that just worked with everything. Lenovo was fine for most things, HP didn't even work with the laptop it was designed for.

I think the biggest thing is how much power the dock provides and how much attached devices need.

Mostly checking reviews and specs. My wife and I both use a StarTech dock at work and we have two at home. So far no issues with our Macs.

One thing to watch out for (when you are using a Mac) is to avoid Docks with a Realtek NIC. They use a generic USB driver on macOS that adds CPU load and usually only reaches 700-900MBit. Intel I210 NICs are great, they use PCIe over Thunderbolt and have a native driver.

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