
Nintendo Switch consoles keep frying - Tomte
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/08/heres-why-nintendo-switch-consoles-keep-frying/
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verroq
Ars literally copy pasted the reddit thread, the quality of writing is almost
blogspam at this point.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/ckaiiv/an_e...](https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/ckaiiv/an_engineers_pov_on_the_3rd_party_dock_switch/)

~~~
majewsky
So what? My RSS subscriptions don't include random subreddits, but they _do_
include Ars Technica, so their reporting absolutely provided value to me. It
is literally the job description of journalists to sift through noise and
filter out the signal so I don't have to do it myself.

(Having said that, it probably would have been sufficient to write a way
shorter article that just points readers to the Reddit post instead of copy-
pasting it. But I suppose that some corporate overlord won't let them do
that.)

(And it would also have been more appropriate for this HN submission to link
to the Reddit post directly.)

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jchw
Seems like the widespread adoption of USB-C has been a bit of a mixed bag. The
sheer combinatorial explosion of combined cables, accessories and devices has
created a lot of surprises for manufacturers. I really like having one cable
standard that can do so much, but I hope situations like this become rarer
over time.

~~~
ronsor
It doesn't really help.

Before you could tell what a cable and port could do by it's shape and
connector. The wrong cable just wouldn't fit.

With USB-C it's a toss up as to whether this will work or release the magic
smoke.

~~~
jchw
Bit of an exaggeration. I have yet to hit any device failures as an excessive
user of USB-C. Worst I’ve had is devices that don’t support Thunderbolt or
chargers/cables that don’t support USB-PD. The latter is usually a minor
degradation.

I am aware that some faulty cables killed devices, but never ran across or
even feared running across them.

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swiley
So these cheap docks are putting 9v on a pin that’s really only ever supposed
to be 5v?

It doesn’t matter what the standard looks like that’s just bad.

~~~
Fr0styMatt88
It makes me wonder - did the manufacturers of these docks even really test
them thoroughly?

It seems that given the explanation, the faults should be more reproducible
though, so who knows.

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proee
The switch should include a simple series resistor of a few hundred ohm to
protect this pin against over-voltage.

~~~
bsder
How about it should have been an actual USB-C port instead of the horribly
broken bodge than Nintendo designed?

USB-C PD 2.0 has quite good specifications that take into account the
different failure modes and misbehavior that can occur.

~~~
phamilton
It is an actual USB-C port on the Switch. The dock on the other hand has the
non-standard part: a USB-C male connector that doesn't fit snug.

Basically, using a dock is equivalent to plugging a cable that resembles USB-C
but isn't actually USB-C.

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dpkonofa
So just use the dock that comes with the Switch and you're fine? I don't see
what the issue is...

~~~
amluto
The dock that comes with the switch is big, fragile, and unreliable.

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cassianoleal
You forgot insanely expensive for what it is.

~~~
thaumasiotes
Eh, the expensive dock that works seems like a bargain compared to the cheap
dock that destroys your docked device.

The obvious question is, if you can make a cheap dock that doesn't destroy the
Switch, why make one that does instead?

And if you can't, how is that evidence that the working dock is "too
expensive"?

~~~
im3w1l
> The obvious question is, if you can make a cheap dock that doesn't destroy
> the Switch, why make one that does instead?

Probably because it needs to go through a few iterations of failure and
learning from failure.

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jstewartmobile
A blessing in disguise!

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aasasd
> _there is a datasheet for Rohm Semiconductor 's M92T30. The literal smoking
> gun here is the maximum voltage rating on the Configuration Channel pin_

Here we see a curious attempt at using ‘literal’ to cancel out the figurative
meaning... Aaaaaand it failed spectacularly.

