Hi,
after I already bought a faulty charger and 2 bad USB-C cables I ended up buying original Apple stuff and spending a lot of thoughts on it, I came up with one Idea which I didn't find anything about on the web.
Can you 'test' a cable by wiring one of your MacBook Pro ports to another?
The list from Nathan K.(https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...DWqENiY2kgBJUu29f_TX8/htmlview#gid=1288176877) is sure helpful, but since I'm from Germany and a lot of the tested cables are not yet available in Europe it's a pain to find some good USB-C accessories.
On the other hand there are a lot good LOOKING ones on amazon with mostly sponsored reviews or just USB 2.0 or USB 3.1 Gen1(okay for me) specs, which is often unclear or different reviewers seem to experience different speeds and the USB-IF cert. is mentioned in nothing else than USB2.0 cables and the plugable ones.
While some people - like me - doesn't own USB-C or even TB3 devices yet, those -future-wise don't want to buy USB 2.0 speced either.
Since the most cables are only certified for 60w I would at least have a possibility to know if my MacBook Pro will detect this and the 87w charger won't turn my usb c into a lightning cable while it fries my MacBook - without looking at the sensors like an Wattage-addict.
Just to know how "fast" a cable is without having some USB-C or TB accessories you can easily "short-circuit" one one port to another.
With a USB-C cable you will get a notice you will have to use a thunderbolt cable but in the System Informations you can see the speed soecs of the cable under the usb header.
Only tested it with a Apple charging cable (USB 2.0) right now, but USB 3.1 Gen 1 cables should be in the mail tomorrow to verify this, so if it doesn't work, shame on me!
Is it possible to access the information how the pins are wired in the cable, if the ground is connected, etc on the software side?
Since USB-C is still very young and there are not many devices with the possibility to do this right now so I'm more interested in the possibility of a software appearing at some point which lets every user test the cables by themselves BEFORE plugging it into AC and maybe -since there's not so much danger of damaging your device in a MacBook-internal behaviour- save a lot of devices.
While it can build a user-database with tons legit reviews in which you can even access the percentage of faulty cables with exact specs and possible dangers.
Cheers!
after I already bought a faulty charger and 2 bad USB-C cables I ended up buying original Apple stuff and spending a lot of thoughts on it, I came up with one Idea which I didn't find anything about on the web.
Can you 'test' a cable by wiring one of your MacBook Pro ports to another?
The list from Nathan K.(https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...DWqENiY2kgBJUu29f_TX8/htmlview#gid=1288176877) is sure helpful, but since I'm from Germany and a lot of the tested cables are not yet available in Europe it's a pain to find some good USB-C accessories.
On the other hand there are a lot good LOOKING ones on amazon with mostly sponsored reviews or just USB 2.0 or USB 3.1 Gen1(okay for me) specs, which is often unclear or different reviewers seem to experience different speeds and the USB-IF cert. is mentioned in nothing else than USB2.0 cables and the plugable ones.
While some people - like me - doesn't own USB-C or even TB3 devices yet, those -future-wise don't want to buy USB 2.0 speced either.
Since the most cables are only certified for 60w I would at least have a possibility to know if my MacBook Pro will detect this and the 87w charger won't turn my usb c into a lightning cable while it fries my MacBook - without looking at the sensors like an Wattage-addict.
Just to know how "fast" a cable is without having some USB-C or TB accessories you can easily "short-circuit" one one port to another.
With a USB-C cable you will get a notice you will have to use a thunderbolt cable but in the System Informations you can see the speed soecs of the cable under the usb header.
Only tested it with a Apple charging cable (USB 2.0) right now, but USB 3.1 Gen 1 cables should be in the mail tomorrow to verify this, so if it doesn't work, shame on me!
Is it possible to access the information how the pins are wired in the cable, if the ground is connected, etc on the software side?
Since USB-C is still very young and there are not many devices with the possibility to do this right now so I'm more interested in the possibility of a software appearing at some point which lets every user test the cables by themselves BEFORE plugging it into AC and maybe -since there's not so much danger of damaging your device in a MacBook-internal behaviour- save a lot of devices.
While it can build a user-database with tons legit reviews in which you can even access the percentage of faulty cables with exact specs and possible dangers.
Cheers!