I am an IT guy and have a lot of USB cables and chargers.
As the world consolidates on the USB-C connector, regardless of what cable is actually used, it becomes more important to verify the specs of a cable and chargers.
Just because they might say USB3 doesn’t mean that they are USB3, they might USB2 with USB-C comnectors, or they might be a hybrid solution with a low data rate and a high charge rate.
How do you know?
A real USB cable analyzer costs a shitload of money.
I have three tools that can help me get and idea about what kind of cable or charger.
- The USB data lines tester - this tool shows if a USB cable has all pins connected, a quick and dirty test to verify the design of the cable, if not the quallity.
- USB Power meter - This is probably the most useful tester you can get for everyday use, it shows the current power draw when connected in series with a carger/powerbank, cable and device, you can verify that a device is actually charging and how fast it is charging. You can verify that a charger is supplying the correct amount of power and even see a diagram of how the charge rate over time.
- USB power load tester - This allows me to force test a charger’s output, it also tests if the charger can support fast charging protocols like QC or PD, the model linked does not seem to support PD testing, but mine from joy-it.com does.
USB cables are a mess when it comes to compliance with the standard.
I’ve been buying overengineered cables (promoted by a popular Linus youtuber, which I won’t link due to not being an ad bot) just so I don’t have to worry about the cable being the problem.
If you do this professionally, a thermal camera is also useful, I’ve found some bad cables on client sites just by scanning the cable mass in IR. Cheap cables + high current loads (like laptop charging) can summon the magic smoke demons.
Hahaha, your description about summoning USB magic smoke demons gave me an idea…
I knew there was something wrong with Seth Rogan
This post is very timely. I’ve recently gone down the USB cable testing rabbit hole. Wish it weren’t needed, but alas.
Also just learned about GaN charging hubs. I’ll take “Things I didn’t know existed until a few days ago that I absolutely need right now for $1,000, Alex!”
They are so good for travel and relatively cheap
This is not dull at all, thanks for sharing! 👍
I really LOVE USB Cable tester.
I hate the fact that we need them. But daaamn, they helped me a lot to prevent future problems (I had one one problem with a device and then realozed that i had 3 USB cables which were kinda “faulty”
Didnt knew the last device. Gonna order that too :D
The links in this post contain a boatload of metadata, which means that the “IT guy” needs more training or is trolling for referral clicks.
Edit: The links have now been updated by the OP
This IT guy is an IT guy, not an infosec guy, he is also making this post on mobile, making it harder to get an overview of links.
This IT guy also made this post when both tried, and finished it later after sleeping.
This IT guy did not login to aliexpress on his phone, this IT guy makes enough money to not need referal links, this IT guy has a big boy job.
Finally, this IT guy does not enjoy the implicit callout for being a troll or incompetence.
What does logging in or not have to do with it?
No one said anything about referral links.(edit: my bad, I’m doing this at ass o’clock many hours past I should be asleep) Your links literally have something referencing GPS in them that may be related to your own location when you made the search, which is potentially a danger to your own privacy.It took 2 minutes to clean these, and that was only because I had to un-freeze the dedicated URL cleaning app on my phone (I use IronFox on mobile with settings/extensions to auto clean links, and similar on my PC). I spent more time typing up this response.
You could have even cleaned them manually by deleting the ? and everything after it. Alternatively there are a good handful of different open source tools for android that would have made it as easy as copy and paste. Hell, there are online tools too.
As a fellow IT person who has graduated to systems admin/engineering, just quiet down and edit your post please. Sometimes we fuck up too.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005008242565776.html
Ah, a helpful post!
Thank you for your explanation, really helpful, I am very seldom on aliexpress, ans had zero idea that they included my GPS coordinates.
I’ll edit my post and work to do better in the future!
I was checking your links before I was reading this discussion fully to the end and was like “I dont see any problems here… the links seem legit…” 😅
As a fellow it guy who does a lot on mobile I always reccomend URLcheck (Android)
Damn, I have that installed and I’ve never even used it! That ends now…
It also supports regex! So when people send me those shitty Insta / tiktok links I dont habmve to press 5 times the check redirect button :D
I have updated my post, thanks again for the help!
Hey, just wanted to follow up and apologize for my shitty tone. It can be easy to forget just how freaking vast the landscape of IT has become, and how it’s entirely possible to be a professional with a long history in the field and still have blind spots. Plus it doesn’t help that everything keeps trying to hide more and more of the actual details from end users.
Thank you for taking it in stride and politely.
Hey, thanks for the apology, though I wasn’t offended.
I am fine with some banter and you also took the time to explain the issue and sort out my links, which I really appreciate.
The other poster was rude in just bashing without explaining the risks, and I was sarcastic back to them, you took the time and helped me, that is the difference.
I hope you will have a great weekend, I have tickets for the Project Hail Mary film for tomorrow evening, and I hope you also get to have some fun.
Don’t let that bother you. It was very non-dull of that person.
We, and I hope I’m speaking for more than myself, try to adhere to the old time dull methods of giving others the benefit of the doubt. It isn’t super well known, outside of privacy/infosec circles all of the dirty tricks used by companies to track people.
Hehe, it fine, the first guy was rude, but right, so he got a stupid reply, the other guy was helpful and showed me the issue, and while they had a slightly annoying tone, I apriciated it.
We should all take a moment and meditate on the relevant XKCD:
