14 ms·
Bad USB-C cable destroys laptop
- hartator 11y agoMy biggest surprise here is there is still people using Google+.
- s0rce 11y agoI think he works for Google.
- masklinn 11y agoYep, not sure what he does these days but on some of his old reviews he noted that he's a software engineer on the ChromeOS/Pixel team: http://www.amazon.com/gp/review/R2DQ7OH7PQG24F http://www.amazon.com/gp/review/R2DQ7OH7PQG24F
- reitanqild 11y agoFull disclosure: Not a Google employee, not even a fanboy anymore after some of the stuff I have seen over the last few years. That said I'm FED UP with this Google+ bashing. Two major annoyances: no api access and centralized. Otherwise nice. Have used it a lot, but not much lately. Generally it seems to be nicer and more focused on topics than twitter.
- kentonv 11y agoHonestly G+ is amazing for technical discussion. Examples from my feed: https://plus.google.com/+KentonVarda/posts/cFsgVBuXinb https://plus.google.com/+KentonVarda/posts/cFsgVBuXinb https://plus.google.com/+KentonVarda/posts/JDwHfAiLGNQ https://plus.google.com/+KentonVarda/posts/JDwHfAiLGNQ At least in my experience, FB and Twitter simply don't produce anything like that.
- simoncion 11y ago> Honestly G+ is amazing for technical discussion. If and only if you're okay with the horribly limited formatting that Plus offers. There's no way in hell you can ever post code snippets, for example.
- kentonv 11y agoCode snippets are reasonably OK ever since they made indentation work, which was like 4 years ago.
- cornellwright 11y agoI wonder if this one cable was miswired or it's something consistently wrong with the product. Either way that something like that could make it out of the factory demonstrates terrible or no QA/QC. I've never used the Twinkie but it looks pretty cool. This shows that it may be worth adding some simple protection to the circuit to prevent simple miswires from damaging it or the host PC.
- egwor 11y agoYeah, that's what the amazon review details. The ground is miswired.
- mikeash 11y agoThe question isn't what was wrong with the cable, but whether it was just this one specific cable, or whether it's all of the cables in from this production run.
- cornellwright 11y agoRight, and either way the fact that this cable made it out of the factory to see the light of day says terrible things about this manufacturer.
- Perixoog 11y ago>I wonder if this one cable was miswired or it's something consistently wrong with the product. He bought more to find out: https://plus.google.com/+BensonLeung/posts/EBGMagC46fN https://plus.google.com/+BensonLeung/posts/EBGMagC46fN
- simoncion 11y ago> He bought more to find out: I don't think so. From TFP: "Here are some pictures of the torn down SurjTech 3M cable that fried my Pixel." Cable, singular. :)
- Tomdarkness 11y agoSurely this product should be removed from sale by Amazon until the manufacturer can investigate?
- kyrra 11y agoFor those unfamiliar, this person (Benson Leung) is a Google employee that has been testing USB-C cables to make sure they match the specs. His efforts were previously discussed on HN[0]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10508494 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10508494
- protomyth 11y agoBreaking test equipment should probably force a recall by itself. I wonder what the Amazon procedure is for reporting faulty items?
- mindslight 11y agoYes, a recall of the "test equipment".
- protomyth 11y agoI'm pretty sure you can blow up any test equipment with a sufficiently screwed up test subject.
- mindslight 11y agoSure, but reverse voltage should be nowhere near sufficient.
- sangnoir 11y agoDo you mind explaining why? Short circuits are common, and are mitigated against. Reversed voltage is exceedingly rare, especially for USB C with mirrored contacts.
- mindslight 11y agoThe purpose of test equipment is to diagnose weird situations - hence why OP broke two of them trying to understand what was happening. Its requirements are to be as robust and transparent as practical. The other end of the cable could likely be bare wires connected ad-hoc with alligator/mini clips. FWIW because the USB PD device is connecting two separate grounds, this same failure could have happened from a single broken ground wire.
- sangnoir 11y ago
- earlz 11y agoTL;DR; USB-C cable had GND tied to Vbus and Vbus tied to GND (opposite as it should be) Honestly, I'm surprised that this isn't something that thelaptop and other such USB adapters aren't equipped to deal with. This is only slightly worse in my book than a USB adapter being fried from shorting the Vbus and GND pins together
- krapht 11y agoWhy would you design in reverse polarity protection? It adds cost, and the mechanical connector already makes it impossible for VDD to short to GND in USB type C because of its rotational symmetry.
- andrey-g 11y agoI constantly have Vdd shorts due to ground loops when measuring stuff. But a more frequent case is worn out cables (every lightning cable I've owned has eventually broke). Its not rare enough of a failure mode to ignore.
- krapht 11y agoYes, and that's why the USB spec puts the burden of protecting against electrical shorts on the controller. The device side shouldn't have to worry about trying to shunt 100 Watts of power somewhere. I mean this kind of protection is way beyond typical ESD protection due to the power involved. It would add a lot of cost to do this, maybe even a dollar or two in raw material.
- guan 11y agoReverse polarity protection is often not done with diodes for the reasons explained. It is more common to use a p-channel MOSFET (or ideal diode controllers when there are multiple power sources) when more than a trivial amount of power is used by the design. They are not cheap when properly sized, but are not ruinously expensive either and are not too large for most designs.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- mindslight 11y agoThere should be a crowbar diode between the rails. If the design is too cheap for an input fuse, the source will limit/disable the short current.
- klodolph 11y agoCrowbar isn't a diode, and it doesn't protect against reversed polarity, and it's a bad idea on the input because you're relying on the other device to limit current properly, when it's the other device which got the voltage wrong in the first place.
- mindslight 11y agoIt acts like a literal crowbar, so why not call it a crowbar? There are likely already plenty of diodes across the rails (the body diodes of the chips), so without a fuse the power is already limited by just the source. IMHO you might as well try and protect the circuit from foreseeable power-limited situations like frayed cables and the OP.
- klodolph 11y agoI'm saying a crowbar isn't a diode, and you're saying that you should call a crowbar a crowbar? Color me confused. Usually a crowbar is a circuit with a triac or SCR in it designed to protect against overvoltage. This isn't about frayed cables. Frayed cables don't do this. This is about a cable which is wired the opposite of the way it should be. A minimal protection circuit is probably going to cost around $0.20 in quantity (Si2323 on Mouser). For a $500 Chrome Pixel C, the protection circuit is worth the effort if more than 1 in 2,500 ($500 / $0.20) laptops would fail due to charger cables with reversed polarity. If you think that fewer than 1 in 2,500 laptops will fail this way, then don't bother.
- AdmiralAsshat 11y agoHN has previously had a story on the author, a Google engineer who tests USB-C cables on Amazon to make sure they're spec-compliant. He does some amazing work: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10508494 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10508494 I don't have any devices right now that use USB-C, but whenever I see a deal pop up for one, I usually check the Amazon listing to see if this guy has reviewed/certified the cable yet. I recommend others do the same. It's not worth damaging your $800+ laptop because you wanted to save $10 on a cable.
- plorg 11y agoAnother user has compiled Benson's reviews into a Google spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wJwqv3rTNmORXz-XJsQaXK1dl8I91V4-eP_sfNVNzbA/edit https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wJwqv3rTNmORXz-XJsQa...
- xur17 11y agoAnd a website: https://usbccompliant.com https://usbccompliant.com
- nitrogen 11y agoDo those affiliate codes support the original reviewer guy, or just the operator of the website (if they are different people)?
- matt_heimer 11y agoDoes it matter? As someone that has hunted for cables reviewed by Benson I really wish I had known about this website. They are both providing a service.
- nitrogen 11y agoIt's definitely useful. I just wouldn't want Benson's review work to become unsustainable because of lack of funds, jealousy, or whatever.
- guelo 11y agoUSB-C seems like a really bad standard if the cable can destroy expensive electronics. EDIT: Even if the cable is wired and built correctly (which is apparently difficult for manufacturers to get right), cables fray and tear all the time. I foresee a lot of dead electronics upcoming.
- tantalor 11y agoBut the cable was not standard USB-C... that's the problem.
- digi_owl 11y agoWell when the cable has GND and VBus crossed, standard compliance issues goes out the window. This was a straight factory QA failure.
- tomswartz07 11y agoIt's not the standard that's bad, it's the actual wiring of it. That's akin to saying: The US power grid is a bad standard because I wired up my house wrong and it burned down.
- JoshTriplett 11y agoThat's like saying Ethernet, VGA, and many other standards are bad because http://www.fiftythree.org/etherkiller/ http://www.fiftythree.org/etherkiller/ shows cables that directly pump AC power into them.
- ThinkBeat 11y agoHe is brave to do his testing on such a nice computer. I hope he somehow gets this covered. Amazon should pay him for his work.
- bsimpson 11y agoHe's a Google employee, presumably using corporate hardware to advance the USB C ecosystem that the Pixel line is shepherding. I'd be shocked if Google didn't let him replace it.
- tewha 11y agoSurjTech. SurgeTech? Seems an oddly appropriate name.
- symmetricsaurus 11y agoKilled a laptop when plugging in my phone (with the old 30 pin connector). Turns out a bit of foil from a wrapper had become stuck in the slot on the phone. Since this was in the bad old day the laptop was fixable for under $200 so it wasn't too bad. Still, makes sense to keep an eye on what you plug into your computer.
- randyrand 11y agoI recently fried my laptop (still worth $500 on ebay and was $1800 new...), from a cheap chinese pcie adapter. I would love to know where or how I could repair it for and how much.
- sedachv 11y agoYou can find motherboards and other components on eBay. http://www.laptopinventory.com/ http://www.laptopinventory.com/ has a very good catalog and excellent how-to videos. I have done parts replacement on a few of my laptops (screens, keyboards, touchpads) and if you have ever added RAM to a laptop the process for the other components is not really any different.
- nalllar 11y agoThe item appears to have been removed from amazon now. Clicking the link to the item[1] on the review page leads to a 404. [1]: https://www.amazon.com/SurjTech%C2%AE-Standard-Adapter-Devices-Macbook/dp/B01937P0O6/ https://www.amazon.com/SurjTech%C2%AE-Standard-Adapter-Devic...
- totalart9000 11y agoQuestion is, did they pull it for real or did they only do so to relist it without having that review show up?
- cocoflunchy 11y agoInteresting that most of the reviews for Anker and Aukey products on Amazon have a variation of the same "I was provided with a free sample of this product in exchange for my unbiased professional review."
- coleca 11y agoThat seems to be the trend lately. Most of the reviews are polluted with this SPAM now. Amazon Vine is an AMZN sponsored program to enable this. I had a similar issue with a lightning cable purchased on Amazon that claimed to be a licensed Apple cable, but wasn't. I plugged it into a real Apple charger, went to plug the other end into my iPhone and sparks flew out of it as soon as it got close to the phone.
- greedo 11y agoHow on earth do you think the tech review industry works? 99% of the reviews you've read utilize free gear provided by the vendor. Some publications have taken steps to curb potential excesses, but at least when I was freelancing (2000-2005), almost all writers were provided gear for free, and allowed to keep said gear. Ethical journalists can attempt to ignore the impact of gratis equipment, but it's difficult in the best of situations. Just as difficult as trying to ignore the impact of a "helpful" PR department. Apple was particularly good at this; I was provided with every version of the iPad for reviews. Once Apple got over their death march, this dried up, and dealing with their PR firm became tedious. HP provided notebooks, PDAs, anything, with no expectation or real system for returning equipment. The only vendors I ever dealt with that were strict about returns were Kodak/Canon with their DSLRs and lenses. These were normally around $10K or greater, so I was not surprised at all. Bias is implicit in any review where the publication isn't purchasing the items it reviews. I'm not sure how Sweethome and the Wirecutter work, though I know they make $$ off of purchase referrals through Amazon.
- wtallis 11y agoThere's a big difference between giving review samples to journalists to review and publish on their own sites, and giving samples to be reviewed in bulk on Amazon in the same context of customer reviews and aggregated together with the same scores, with only a footnote of disclosure. Getting review samples isn't the problem; the reviews are just being published in the wrong manner. It's particularly inexcusable that the reviews solicited in this manner are eligible to be tagged as "verified purchaser" reviews.
- scld 11y agoI guess he learned that step 1 should be using the ohmmeter and step 2 should be plugging it into hundreds of dollars of equipment.
- qb45 11y agoDo you really test each USB cable you buy like that?
- wmf 11y agoWe're talking about a guy whose job is to test USB cables.
- fernandotakai 11y agofrom what i remember, it was not his job -- he worked on products that have usb-c components (like the pixel laptops) and wanted to make sure the products on amazon were up to spec. you can see his reasoning here: https://plus.google.com/+BensonLeung/posts/LH4PPgVrKVN https://plus.google.com/+BensonLeung/posts/LH4PPgVrKVN
- scld 11y agoDefinitely not, I would buy cables that had already been reviewed by a very thorough user like him! But this guy has made it a hobby to buy different USB 3 cables and try them out. If I was doing that, I would have made a continuity check test rig to measure point to point and also measure the pullups that he usually ends up measuring by hand.
- mmanfrin 11y agoHis review has 1,120 positive votes out of 1,121; I don't think I have seen anything get near that high with just one 'unhelpful' vote. https://www.amazon.com/review/R2XDBFUD9CTN2R/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm https://www.amazon.com/review/R2XDBFUD9CTN2R/ref=cm_cr_rdp_p...
- gpvos 11y agoSeems to be a kind of bait-and-switch operation, see this G+ comment by Lance Nanek: >>It's pretty common on amazon for some good items to be shipped to get some good ratings, then for the seller to replace them with cheap, almost non-functional, shoddy replacements. It's happened to me before with bicycle equipment (pushing the button on a rear light pushed right through the casing, etc.). So it's entirely possible you got a good one from their initial offering, then they started selling something else.<<
- knughit 11y agoThese are the wonders of globalization. USA consumer protection laws don't apply to foreign manufacturers using noname brands.
- aikah 11y ago> These are the wonders of globalization. USA consumer protection laws don't apply to foreign manufacturers using noname brands. That's false if you buy stuff on Amazon. That's true if you buy goods on a chinese website. USA consumer protection laws certainly apply since Amazon is a US corporation. Otherwise Amazon would be selling controlled substances like it's an Rx.
- outworlder 11y agoReversed polarity? So, how does that even happen? Are they assembling cables by hand, individually? And not testing them?
- Spooky23 11y agoI think at some point Amazon should take some heat. They should at least de-emphasize uncertified cables or require vendors to have licensed the USB logo. If you buy a power strip, even a cheap one, you at least get some assurance that it is UL rated and probably won't burn your house down. USB isn't just a keyboard connector anymore... We should have some assurance that cables are legit and safe.
- pluma 11y agoAmazon in Germany happily sells you power strips / connectors you can't use in Germany without effectively voiding your insurance if your house burns down (e.g. T-connectors that let you connect two Schuko plugs to a single wall outlet without a cable). Granted, for some of them it adds a small disclaimer "Only for export" but let's be honest: if you're selling to consumers, you're not selling for export.
- nathancahill 11y agoI tried to get a bit of dust out of the USB port of my MBP with a metal tweezers. Sparks flew and that was the end of that laptop.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]