• floofloof@lemmy.ca
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    2 months ago

    Every device I have just has a couple of blue ones and a couple of black ones, perhaps some orange ones and some USB-C ports, and good luck figuring out what they all can do. No symbols anywhere.

    • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      It’s cool, the colors are just for aesthetics. Internally they’re all connected to the same USB controller chip anyway.

      /s probably

      Edit: it was a joke. I know blue means 3.

      • Redex@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        If they’re following the standard, which they often do but sometimes don’t, white indicates 2.0 and blue indicates 3.0+. I think there are more but I don’t remember the other colours.

      • tal@lemmy.today
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        2 months ago

        the colors are just for aesthetics.

        Blue is a convention to indicate USB 3. Of course, not everyone actually implements that, and USB-C ports don’t, as far as I know, do that at all, just USB-A.

        My current desktop does both – the case has USB ports on the top that come off a USB header from the motherboard, which have a simple number “3.0” pointing at its USB-A ports in front, but uses black plastic for them. The motherboard’s USB connectors in back use the “blue plastic” convention on its USB-A 3 ports, and black plastic on its USB-A 2 ports. The motherboard also labels the USB 3 ports by having a text label reading “USB 3.2”, which isn’t listed on OP’s set of symbols, and puts symbols on them.

    • bitwaba@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Black is USB 2, blue is USB 3, and Orange or Yellow are usually “always on” and/or 2.4 amp or some other kind of thing like that.

      • tal@lemmy.today
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        2 months ago

        and Orange or Yellow are usually “always on” and/or 2.4 amp or some other kind of thing like that.

        It’s the variety and surprise here that adds novelty and excitement to life.

        https://www.usbmemorydirect.com/blog/usb-port-colors/

        The blue USB port is also known as USB 3.0 or SuperSpeed (SS) USB. It was introduced in 2008 and offers a data transfer speed of up to 5 Gbps, which is more than 10 times faster than USB 2.0. In addition, it can transfer data in both directions simultaneously.

        I definitely have a number of devices that use newer-than-USB 3.0 and use blue.

        The teal USB port is also known as the USB 3.1 Gen 1 or SuperSpeed+ (SS+) USB. Released in 2013, it supports up to 10 Gbps data transfer speed, which is twice as fast as USB 3.0. The color is similar to USB 3.0, but it will appear as slightly more green-toned than the classic blue of 3.0. This is the easiest way to differentiate USB 3.0 vs 3.1 ports.

        I don’t think any of my devices actually use teal, regardless of what they support. Oh…hmm. Wait, I think my last desktop motherboard did that.

        goes to investigate

        Yeah, it has teal and blue ports.

        My current motherboard uses blue or red for everything USB-A, so clearly isn’t using blue to indicate “USB 3.0”, and labels every port, blue or red, in English as “USB 3.2”. So it clearly isn’t using the port color to indicate purely speed.

        The red USB port is generally classified as USB 3.2, which was released in 2017. However, it can also be used to indicate a USB 3.1 Gen 2 port.

        Another source of novelty and excitement.

        Yellow USB Port Meaning

        The yellow USB port is another color that can indicate either USB 3.2 or USB 3.1 Gen 2.

        So much excitement.

        The yellow USB port is more commonly found on laptops while the red USB port is more commonly found on desktop computers. This is because the yellow USB port indicates that it is always on, meaning it will continue to draw power even when the computer is turned off or in sleep mode. As a result, you can generally use it to charge other devices, such as smartphones.

    • shalafi@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I believe yellow or orange ports always deliver charging power regardless of device’s power state.