good news: i bought a very good USB cable tester on aliexpress :)

[dojoe@chaos.social]

@whitequark but now you know!

Linky? :3

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

USB tester in question (about $10): https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005007910415726.html

it does exactly one thing but it does it very well

[gadgetoid@fosstodon.org]

@whitequark by far my worst cable experience was the slow creeping dread going from "oh I didn't know this cable had an blinking LED in it?" to "oh wait, it doesn't..."

[dravyptak@mastodon.ml]

@whitequark did they really place the battery wrong side up

[alina@girldick.gay]

@whitequark oh that seems neat

[possiblymax@hachyderm.io]

@whitequark Ooh neat! Recently started cleaning up my cable box, might be a good idea to grab one of these on the cheap.

Happy to click through an affiliate link if you have one (assuming this isn't).

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@dravyptak yuppp

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@PossiblyMax I do not (I don't think aliexpress even has affiliate links?)

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@PossiblyMax oh they do apparently

[dravyptak@mastodon.ml]

@whitequark wonder why, maybe the faceted surface looks prettier to the designer's eye

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@PossiblyMax they're reviewing my registration, thanks for the idea!

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@dravyptak the + side of the battery has the battery vendor's brand on it i think

[mwbrown@hachyderm.io]

@whitequark somehow every sudden death of a usb cable never seems to help me remember they're basically consumables

[whitequark@social.treehouse.systems]

@PossiblyMax try this: https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_c36rgoPZ

[ignaloidas@not.acu.lt]

@niconiconi@mk.absturztau.be @whitequark@social.treehouse.systems for 2.0 cables, would kinda make sense, kinda doubt that you'd get meaningful results for faster cables

[equinox@chaos.social]

@ignaloidas @niconiconi you can always get a negative result, if it's shit at 900MHz it certainly won't work for 5G, 10G or even >=20G USB/TB

[ignaloidas@not.acu.lt]

@equinox@chaos.social @niconiconi@mk.absturztau.be somewhat yes, but that should clearly fail to work at 5G, so there's not much more that a VNA fixture would indicate than trying to use said cable would

[equinox@chaos.social]

@ignaloidas @niconiconi well, it's in contrast to not having any clue at all since often enough "it just doesn't work", so knowing it's the cable's fault still helps

[tyzbit@toot.now]

@whitequark i got the same one and a different one at the same time to compare. my only small complaint is it's not possible to test some very short cables just by themselves, so now you have to find a perfect extension cable. the other one works well too, just a whole lot less connectors obviously. i do like how compact it is though, even if the other one is still quite small.

i still kinda wanna get one of the fancier ones that give you protocol and feature info besides just pins but this already enabled me to massively clean up and organize my USB cable drawers. it felt great, like when i organized my ethernet cable stash and threw out anything below cat6.

[jernej__s@infosec.exchange]

@whitequark I've got the same one, but I also just bought a newer version with LCD display that also shows eMarker readings.