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Comment by eternityforest | Hacker News Reader

Most people who want 40Gbps can diagnose the issues, the rest will assume "Oh, it takes 6 hours, better plan for it, that's how it is". But it will work every. single. time. at those very slow 2.0 speeds.

What they should do is give a popup saying "You have a slow cable, it could be faster, go rummage till this message goes away and mark the good one with a sharpie", and that wouldn't need any changes to the spec

They've chosen reliability over quality. Cheap reliability is a great thing. We did fine before fast hard drives, we can often live without them. But we'll want to scream if we can't get it working at all.

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> What they should do is give a popup saying "You have a slow cable, it could be faster, go rummage till this message goes away and mark the good one with a sharpie", and that wouldn't need any changes to the spec

I think something like this exists in Windows. I'm not sure under what conditions it triggers, but I remember occasionally seeing a tooltip saying something like "this device could work faster", directing me to plug it into a different USB port.

I remember this as well, but wasn't this way back if a usb 2.0 device was on a 1.1 (!) port?

Not sure if they continued this for USB 3.0 and USB-C.

They did continue this for USB-C. My new laptop with USB-C charging port constantly whines that my new, after-market charger should be replaced by a $LAPTOP_MAKER charger to charge faster. The cable is theirs but the power supply is a multi-output charger instead of their original charger. At the moment I believe the problem is some sort of signaling rather than the capacity of the power supply.

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20070821-01/?p=25...

I haven't seen that message in a long time, but I remember it being quite unhelpful as often there was no way to plug the device in to a port that made Windows happy. And no way to tell Windows you didn't care so stop complaining about stuff.

The only time I recall ever seeing this message myself was when I was writing USB device firmware from scratch. In my situation, the actual problem was that I had made a mistake in one of the Windows-specific device descriptors. So it’s possible that the device itself was wrong…

> go rummage till this message goes away and mark the good one with a sharpie

I dunno if I even have the right kind, or how to even shop for the right kind, because there are like 500 wrong kinds that are all wrong for a different reason =/

Basically I just look for Thunderbolt 3/4 support and if it doesn't have that, I give up, because who the heck has time to understand 4000 kinds of incompatible USB?

Maybe they could have a link in the popup?

I wonder if you could start an online cables boutique that just sold tested and reviewed cables and cable management with a 50% markup for people who just don't want to deal with it.

Then you have to wonder about how to make sure the link doesn't 404.

And your store idea invalidates having cheaper devices and cables and a ubiquitous protocol.

The only good thing about USBC is that if you moderately keep up to date with all your devices, eventually, recharging becomes relatively easy for all your devices. I don't think I've ever had a problem charging a USBC device. Generally everything charges everything. The high power devices like laptops are probably the exception since you need a brick that can deliver 65-80W[1].

1. One reason why Apple Silicon is so appealing. The M2 Air is plenty fast and basically consumes the power of an iPad. You don't need a 30W supply to charge it.

You're lucky. I've had a LOT of issues charging USB-C devices, like:

- devices that don't support USB Power Delivery

- chargers that don't put out sufficient power

- chargers that don't put out sufficient power only when there's more than 1 device plugged in

- devices that only work with a special USB Type A charger (the fat kind), not with C to C charging

- Google/Samsung phones not charging with each other's chargers, even though both have similar power draws and both use USB-C

- devices where only certain USB-C ports can reliably charge (some recent Macbooks had this issue)

- devices where the USB-C port can't be used for charging at all, only comms

- USB-C hubs with unreliable power supplies that sometimes work sometimes don't and eventually dies on you altogether

- USB-C cables that wear out unpredictably over time and only support slow charging after a while, not PD fast charging

etc. All of those were scenarios I've personally experienced in the last few years. It's a nightmare.

Who's "they"? The operating system vendor? I don't think there is even a single go-to place/brand to buy certified USB cables. The entire ecosystem is a mess, and even ordering first-party from Microsoft/Dell/etc is no guarantee that you'll get the right kind of cable, and I doubt that any of their support staff knows the ins and outs. I don't think even the standards body members themselves can figure that out at home.

Thunderbolt is much cleaner but much more expensive.

50% ıs too low. Anyone doıng this should aim for 5000% and also shout everywhere how their copper is so much better than anyone else's that it's worth many times its weight in gold.

If you just buy Apple's most expensive Thunderbolt/USB-C cable, it'll solve basically all your problems.

Except for the fact that it's very expensive.

I love having a ten-foot-long Thunderbolt 4 cable!

(So much so that I bought two of them.)

Same. Expensive but so worth it. I also have a 10 foot USB-C cable from Facebook I use with my Oculus

Just don't let it touch the floor at any point. /AudiophileAdviceMeme

That might work as long as the cable delivers its promise of a balanced soundstage and fast punchy mids!

Not good enough unless it also gives me sparkly highs!

You have to be sure to plug it in the correct orientation for that

> I dunno if I even have the right kind, or how to even shop for the right kind

I don’t know if you can trust what you see on eg Amazon but “USB IF certified” should be a fully-spec-compliant cable. I’ve successfully bought cables on Amazon this way.

It’s annoying, but from research that’s the magic incantation to search for.

> What they should do is give a popup saying "You have a slow cable, it could be faster, go rummage till this message goes away and mark the good one with a sharpie"

Android does this. "Charging slowly"

You need to find mighty shitty cable and they aren't talking about charge speed, but transfer speed...

I have a USB-C cable thay came with my monitor which doubles as video and power pass through. If I use thay cable on a Dell USB-C hub, my Pixel reports it can only charge slowly. Cable doesn't matter.

There is no way to tell what a good cable is ('good' brands included), or if the cable is even the problem.

I like your popup, but half the time it would result in the user finding/buying a fast cable, plugging it in, and getting a “this cable can’t support the power requirements of the device” popup. Maybe we can generalize the popup to just say “nope, try another one”?

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