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I finally have a gripe with the MBP Retina

W

wethackrey

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 27, 2007
259
17
Redondo Beach, California
I've been a pretty vocal supporter on these forums of the MBP Retina. I migrated from a less-than-one-year-old 17" MBP. I was nervous about losing the screen real estate of the 17", but within two weeks I'd boxed up my 17" and sent it on it's way. I'm VERY happy with the MBPr.

The past two weeks, though, have exposed a weakness. It's a minor one, but aggravating. I've just returned from leading a cloud deployment at a northern California software company. In order to have access to the appropriate network, the team needed to use Ethernet. No problem. I have not one, but two Thunderbolt to GigE adapters.

Speed was plenty fast, but there was a problem. With several folks using the team room's Ethernet drops on their laptops, the cables would get moved around as people located a free cable and strung it to their workspace. Several times this resulted in my Thunderbolt to GigE adapter becoming unplugged from my MBPr. Thunderbolt uses a non-locking friction fit connector. It's fairly easy to unplug it with relatively minor tugging on the Cat6 cable. Since I was maintaining several ssh sessions, several RDP sessions, a VSphere client session and a Remedy User Tool session into the customer's cloud orchestration stack, this was a genuine hassle.

I'm still a huge fan of the MBPr, but some sort of locking connector for the Ethernet connection (like an RJ45???) would be a huge improvement to my workday.
 
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Sounds like a legitimate concern - way more valuable than users having a problem with a brand of a panel despite nothing being wrong with it.

I'm not sure if there are any alternatives to your issue - would this be a frequent thing or is it just situational?
 
I hear ya for that being a problem, is this going to be a constant scenario where your cable could get unplugged at all times? Or is this just one situation?
 
I think a simpler solution would be to use an Airport Express. You'd have to yank an entire outlet out in order to lose a connection with one of them.

Plus it would have solved the mess with multiple people trying to yank cables left and right...

Unless, of course, you need a special authentication protocol in order to communicate through Ethernet in that situation.
 
bill-p said:
I think a simpler solution would be to use an Airport Express. You'd have to yank an entire outlet out in order to lose a connection with one of them.

Plus it would have solved the mess with multiple people trying to yank cables left and right...

Unless, of course, you need a special authentication protocol in order to communicate through Ethernet in that situation.
Click to expand...

Several places wont allow wifi due to security issues.
 
bill-p said:
I think a simpler solution would be to use an Airport Express. You'd have to yank an entire outlet out in order to lose a connection with one of them.

Plus it would have solved the mess with multiple people trying to yank cables left and right...

Unless, of course, you need a special authentication protocol in order to communicate through Ethernet in that situation.
Click to expand...
I travel with an Airport Express. Unfortunately using it isn't usually an option on a customer site. A company's InfoSec team is usually on the prowl for unauthorized WiFi access points on the secure internal network. Connecting one is grounds for being removed from the building. Having the architect banned from the project tends to slow things down.

This company is large and well known and has quite a robust network architecture including WiFi access everywhere. Unfortunately there is no route from any of the WiFi networks to the subnet the orchestration stack is on.

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eagandale4114 said:
Several places wont allow wifi due to security issues.
Click to expand...

Exactly
 
I'm actually not a fan of connectors that have locking mechanisms (VGA, DVI, Ethernet). Someone trips over your cord and I've seen people's notebook fly off a table. I can't imagine someone tripping over a Ethernet consistently would be good or the port if it was locked in.
 
It's probably best to tie down the cat6 wire to something near your rmbp so the tug doesnt make it to the laptop.
 
Tea-Aholic said:
I'm actually not a fan of connectors that have locking mechanisms (VGA, DVI, Ethernet). Someone trips over your cord and I've seen people's notebook fly off a table. I can't imagine someone tripping over a Ethernet consistently would be good or the port if it was locked in.
Click to expand...

wethackrey said:
I travel with an Airport Express. Unfortunately using it isn't usually an option on a customer site. A company's InfoSec team is usually on the prowl for unauthorized WiFi access points on the secure internal network. Connecting one is grounds for being removed from the building. Having the architect banned from the project tends to slow things down.

This company is large and well known and has quite a robust network architecture including WiFi access everywhere. Unfortunately there is no route from any of the WiFi networks to the subnet the orchestration stack is on.
Click to expand...

And that is the difference between a home user and a pro user. Right there folks!
 
iAppl3Fan said:
It's probably best to tie down the cat6 wire to something near your rmbp so the tug doesnt make it to the laptop.
Click to expand...
Sure, but there wasn't anything handy for that in this case. I'd thought I solved the problem by pinching the cable between the desk and the wall. At that point I disconnected the thing myself by absentmindedly shifting my laptop around on the desk occasionally. I hadn't realized I did this, but this project included some twenty hour days and you get pretty restless as the hour gets late.

This was the first time I missed the RJ45 from my earlier MBPs. Again, this isn't a deal breaker for me. Just an annoyance. I would still not go back to my previous 17".
 
Dark Void said:
Sounds like a legitimate concern - way more valuable than users having a problem with a brand of a panel despite nothing being wrong with it.
Click to expand...
You're right on point there.

Dark Void said:
I'm not sure if there are any alternatives to your issue - would this be a frequent thing or is it just situational?
Click to expand...
I'd say it could be a problem on more than half of the customer sites I visit since I think I end up on an Ethernet connection more than half of the time.

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Mabyboi said:
I hear ya for that being a problem, is this going to be a constant scenario where your cable could get unplugged at all times? Or is this just one situation?
Click to expand...

Over the course of two weeks it happened maybe five times. I do try to be careful about it now, but it's something I now need to be concerned about that wasn't the case with the prior MBP with an RJ45 connector.

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thejadedmonkey said:
And that is the difference between a home user and a pro user. Right there folks!
Click to expand...
I feel like I need to curtsey.
 
Tea-Aholic said:
I'm actually not a fan of connectors that have locking mechanisms (VGA, DVI, Ethernet). Someone trips over your cord and I've seen people's notebook fly off a table. I can't imagine someone tripping over a Ethernet consistently would be good or the port if it was locked in.
Click to expand...

I agree, i prefer it to fall off than be pulled out and damaged
 
Yeah I noticed the TB adapter cable unplugs fairly easily. The computer is awesome and if the TB adapter is my biggest problem then I can live with it :)
 
wethackrey said:
I travel with an Airport Express. Unfortunately using it isn't usually an option on a customer site. A company's InfoSec team is usually on the prowl for unauthorized WiFi access points on the secure internal network. Connecting one is grounds for being removed from the building. Having the architect banned from the project tends to slow things down.

This company is large and well known and has quite a robust network architecture including WiFi access everywhere. Unfortunately there is no route from any of the WiFi networks to the subnet the orchestration stack is on
Click to expand...

If WIFI is not allowed due to security concerns, then I think the USB Ethernet adapter would be the better bet than the Thunderbolt Ethernet adapter. It's slower, but USB connection is somewhat more secure than Thunderbolt.

Plus there is something called an Ethernet bridge as well... Technically not as insecure as WIFI since it doesn't broadcast to anything but the next bridge. Will greatly extend your reach... but it's still Ethernet.
 
Tea-Aholic said:
I'm actually not a fan of connectors that have locking mechanisms (VGA, DVI, Ethernet). Someone trips over your cord and I've seen people's notebook fly off a table. I can't imagine someone tripping over a Ethernet consistently would be good or the port if it was locked in.
Click to expand...

I agree with this person. This is the reason they don't make connectors with locking mechanisms anymore and the same reason the charging cable is easily able to be disconnected. Because even in professional situations, it is better to have the cord disconnect than to have your entire laptop fall from a desk or get dragged when someone tugs on the cord.
 
Use a removable cable tie to secure the ethernet cable to the legs of the table or something.
 
thejadedmonkey said:
And that is the difference between a home user and a pro user. Right there folks!
Click to expand...

I don't see the difference in the context of this thread.
Please expand.


The issue, if you want to call it that, could surely have be dealt with using a bit of lateral thinking. Some have given suggestions here. If the ethernet adapter was unplugged once, or twice, it shouldn't have happened again.
 
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