I once bent the USB-C connector on a dell dock just because the cable is stiff and the bend from going below my desk put too much force on the connector. It still works, but has an angle now. If the cable wasn't permanently attached, having the wear parts on that side would be fine. The EU should definitely mandate that, I don't see any technical reasons for soldering one side of the cable.

On the WD19/22TB it's actually user-replacable/upgradable, but parts aren't necessarily easy to find.

I've ruined many usbc connectors like this and specifically dell dock connectors

> yes, connectors got much better in the past decades

Really? How is e.g. the HDMI connectors "better" than the VGA connectors? VGA connectors seems far more robust to me. Same with d-sub mouse connectors.

I guess the signal rating is better now but the old ones didn't need high frequency capabilities.

VGA connectors were incredibly irritating to deal with, especially since so many of them were equipped with smooth screwing bolts with very little area to spin them with your fingers. I for one don't miss this.

If you wanted to have quick insert connection you could just not tighten the screws. I almost never tightened the screws, but it was good on monitors which were pivoting.

I am writing this on a screen where the HDMI connector pops out if a even touch it.

Just tighten one of them, its what i do half the time

And other half of the time you tighten another?

Yes :P. I’m a coward and never put it in without tightening at least one or both

I drilled two holes in my laptop as it had no room for VGA cable screws :D (about 2y ago)

> I am writing this on a screen where the HDMI connector pops out if a even touch it.

Just one more reason to switch to DisplayPort. The only downside of DisplayPort over VGA is that it's up to the connector model if it locks, not user input; but other than that DisplayPort seems clearly superior over VGA. Apart from the obvious signal improvements, slightly more compact design and the recessed port, even an non-locking cable sits far more securely than an unsecured VGA cable.

If I had to choose between a disconnection and damaged circuitry… I managed to pull too strongly on a DisplayPort cable plugged into monitor, resulting in broken PCB. Luckily, the HDMI wasn't affected.

Honestly, I have never tightened those screws.

Some of them actually had an end slot that could be tightened / untightened by a regular screwdriver It took me ages to realise this.

In the 1980s and presumably before, plugs like this often only had screws you needed a screwdriver to tighten.

I don't know if this was to prevent people disconnecting things, or if the expectation was that once connected, things should stay that way for years.

It helped me a lot when I had a colleague who had a strong workman's hands and who could not be found at the end of presentations where he had set up the projector's cabling.

I bent a few pins in a VGA connector due to misalignment once. This was when the cable was hardwired into the monitor!

Ye maybe I am just nostalgic. Hard to tell.

You never had one of the pins slightly bending so the connector wouldn't fit anymore and you had to manually try to bend it back?

Sure. But if I remember correctly the cable ends are both male, so it was never the device that got bent. In some sense weakness on the right part is a feature.

every meeting room had a long semi-permanent cable wired through the walls / floors. bent pins on those were not fun.

Once you’ve been involved in repairing them, you start to insist on the sane approach - cable in the wall, connected to a faceplate which has a plug on the back and a plug on the front. That way any damage can be repaired without re running the cable.

VGA DVI and HDMI all have their major issues, DisplayPort is the clear winner in all aspects.

I have never bend the pins on HDMI connectors. It doesn't even occur to me that it could even happen. I have bent dozens of vga connectors. At least you can bend them back.

You may only have dealt with your own devices. Yes, VGA devices were much harder to accidentally unplug or become loose than HDMI. But they were often far more solidly connected than e.g. the mount on a video card, or the attachment of a laptop motherboard to it's case. So you would find components which had been messed up internally by the use of a VGA connector as a leverage point.

Yep, harder to accidentally unplug is a large negative for a generic cable. There very few applications where it's a good thing, and connecting a computer to a display isn't one of them. IMO, DP in particular shouldn't have the locking mechanism.

But becoming loose without unpluging isn't good either.

There are many times I've tried to insert USB-A wrong since it's rectangular but only has one correct way and sometimes the fit is tight and sometimes it's hard to see the socket (behind a PC, under a monitor, etc...)

USB-C doesn't have this issue. Much better

  > tugging the cable to the side of your PC because your foot got tangled in it.
  > USB C is extremely fragile due to its size and not much can be done to help it.

Zip tie the cable to the case?

Once you accidentally insert the usb c cable into the wrong port and short out your mobo you start Inserting it properly and start fearing it :/

Funny you say that, I can tell from family experience that USB type A ports are quite fragile to a vertical tug as it breaks the internal plastic bar at its base so you're left with a hole full of floating copper pins. It of course requires more than a light tug, but less than you'd think.

The USB-C housing is much more rigid than that of type A, so it should handle this much better. The thinner bar might also handle deflection better by virtue of flexibility.

Also, hardware engineers know that ports are operated by drunk gorillas. Incorrect usage and odd forces are considered when designing a physical interface.

I really wish we’d end up with something like the old MagSafe.

maybe we can get that for USB-D in 2025 after the Apple magsafe patent runs out

Microsoft had a magnetic connector on the Surface laptops so I don’t thing patents are standing in the way.

Even before that, magnetic power connectors were common on kitchen appliances like kettles and fryers.

Can we just stop changing things up in the USB world for a while? USB-C causes me more headaches than the prior USB incarnations do, but changing these things is itself painful enough that I'd rather just put up with what we have now than change yet again.

What is your opinion on magnetic usb c adapters? For about 10€ you get 140W charging and 40Gbps.

Compared to magsafe it is not recessed (though that has not been an issue in my experience), but on the plus side it also does data, video and is universal. Currently using the same type of adapter for my laptop, phone and tablet with the ends on various chargers and docking stations.

I had a number of them from two or three different brands.

They had tendency to cause sparking and I lost at least one phone due to it. The phone was fine but it lost ability to be charged through the phone. And when the battery ran out it became an expensive brick.

Yikes. Haven't had an issue yet with the ones I use. Good to know.

Yup, I lost a chromebook that way. I think magnetic connections are fine for 5V power with no data line, but as soon as you add more connections and try increasing voltage/power you are asking for trouble.

My deep fryer has a magnetic connection for the power cord. That's high voltage and wattage, and works just fine.

Because the only two pins are hot and neutral, which are designed to have high voltage across them.

Put 20 V Vbus on a CC line and see what happens.

That seems more likely to be because that design was bad rather than that the concept is bad.

can't it be repaired?

MagSafe was quite bad tbh. Exposed contacts that easily get contaminated and magnets attracting nearby particles to degrade the connection. At the same time, the disconnect force in the vertical direction is far too small (place the laptop on something soft and the connector tilts), and in the horizontal and perpendicular directions high enough to still yank the laptop.

I do not know if the new MagSafe is an improvement over V1 and v2, but solid connections or non-contact charging are the way to go.

Can't comment on USB-C yet and obviously case point 1, but on my desktop tower (Fractal Design 6, so should be quality) I have for cca 5 years, the frontal USB-A connectors which are used most often, 2 out of 4 are already dead (I'd say maybe 500 insertions altogether, definitely not more). 1 is sort of in between, sometimes works, sometimes doesn't.

I generally know very well how to take care of electronics and those ports never experienced that dreaded 'vertical tug' you describe, at least to my knowledge.

I like this post. No trolling: Did you report the issue to Fractal? I am sure they wish to hear your valuable feedback. They might also offer to replace your case with the latest version!

P.S. I am not a shill for Fractal, but a faithful owner.

Tank you for the advice, I guess too lazy to deal with logistics and customs (living in Switzerland, some stuff trivial in US is... not so trivial in more diverse Europe). On top of not really having desktop working for who knows how long.

Plus planning to build new desktop soon, I'll still probably go with them (Define 7 is my pick so far), I think I had just bad luck since they have quite solid reputation and most other cases are not to my taste or needs.

In my two previous laptops I insisted on having four USB ports because I anticipated that they would wear out eventually and wear out they did - electrically they work, but mechanically half of them barely hold the plug in.

Meanwhile I have a USB-C to USB-A multi-dongle to which I have connected my mouse and keyboard and I move the whole thing between the work and private laptop on a daily basis and despite that after three years only the plug part is showing signs of wear. The socket is fine.

Same goes for the charge port in my phone. Still works as advertised even though I went through a few cables in those six years since I bought it.

> Fractal Design 6, so should be quality

Side note: I too wish this brand guaranteed quality. I have two Fractal Design cases, a Define R6 and an Era. The former is quite good, the latter is crap - panels don't fit. Btw, they cost the same (fucking expensive).

    The insertion cycles are only for proper insertion.

Every time I see comments like this I think of the COVID-19 trolls who insisted that masks were only helpful if "worn correctly".

Proper? Please. Why not just say that the connector suffers from poor design and is difficult to plug correctly. Everything else is humiliating the average user, like my parents, with advanced degrees whom are not STEM.

> Nobody I know is plugging in their keyboard or mouse multiple times a day.

If you securely store a laptop at the end of each workday then you're up to 1 cycle per day minimum. It will be more than that if you're required to secure the laptop during coffee breaks and/or if you work from several places in a work-day.

The quote is specifically talking about desktops not mobile use cases like laptops

So we have industry testing and verification and also your personal opinion.

Whom to trust?

/S

Any sources?