
Macbook Pro frying USB peripherals - United857
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8223635
======
bb88
First thought is that probably a SMD component has shorted itself out.
Unfortunately that's default behavior for many SMD components -- short circuit
instead of an open circuit.

If the power adapter supplies 20V (which sounds like it might), then any
components which might have shorted them selves out could be passing 20V to
the other usb power line right next to it.

The other side of the machine probably has another USB controller, which
likely explains why it's fine.

So, in short, I don't think this is a problem with USB-C, just a bad luck of
the draw that you got a failed component along the way.

Edited to add:

Louis Rossmann's macbook repair Youtube channel is pretty good at discussing
why things fail for a mac.
[https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl2mFZoRqjw_ELax4Yisf6w](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl2mFZoRqjw_ELax4Yisf6w)

~~~
konschubert
What is SMD?

~~~
nasalgoat
He probably means SMT - surface mount technology.

~~~
dsr_
SMT is the technology; individual devices are SMDs, or "surface-mounts" or
"surface-mounted".

Beyond terminology, SMD are much harder for an individual hobbyist to
desolder, replace and resolder than through-mount, but they are easier for
pick-and-place machines to deal with.

If you're prototyping a simple device, you can start with a breadboard -- no
soldering. Then you can get a circuit board printed to your spec and use the
same components, for low-volume work. If you need high-precision placement,
you will probably need to transition to surface-mount.

~~~
jonhendry18
"Beyond terminology, SMD are much harder for an individual hobbyist to
desolder, replace and resolder than through-mount, but they are easier for
pick-and-place machines to deal with."

And SMD are smaller, allowing smaller circuit boards and smaller devices.

------
Kelbit
As an electrical engineer - I think incidents like these are a pretty solid
argument for incorporating overvoltage protection into 5V USB peripherals.

Even something as simple as a zener clamp with a polyfuse to make a dead-
simple crowbar circuit will save a device and won't contribute a whole lot to
BOM cost.

~~~
joshvm
It's a bit odd, most older Macbooks have current limiting ICs on the USB
ports. I've found this out when tinkering with devboards and accidentally
shorting things. In fact most motherboards have some kind of protection for
overcurrent conditions.

But USB-C isn't limited to 5V, power delivery is at 20V. That might explain
what's going on here (since the user reports 20V on the output) - it thinks
that the peripheral is a power hungry device and it's trying to charge it.
That's a problem, but it could be that the peripheral is poorly designed and
is mistakenly asking for power that it can't actually handle.

Edit: in this case the peripheral seems to be the Macbook charger... and
plugging it in causes 20V on all the other outputs with only a dongle plugged
in. Oops. Yeah not good.

I wonder what happens if you actually load the port? Perhaps it'll drop down
to 5V? Or maybe it'll fry things.

That said, my comment above still applies: USB-C relies on _both_ devices to
be compliant with the spec. Otherwise you can get into situations where one
device fries the other, or tries to charge things it shouldn't, etc.

~~~
nameless912
> most older Macbooks have current limiting ICs on the USB ports.

And thank goodness for this, early in engineering school I was doing a project
on an arduino and because I was young and stupid I kept accidentally shorting
power to ground. Killed at least 5 or 6 ATMega328's but the MacBook just
helpfully chirped that I was drawing too much power and it was shutting off
the port. Saved my ass at least a dozen times over.

~~~
elsonrodriguez
This feature has been on motherboards going back to the 90s. I remember that
some DSL modem was notorious for requiring a reboot of the computer because
the USB ports stopped working.

The reality was that the modem was drawing too much power and the motherboard
just disabled every port on the bus.

------
lotyrin
Oof. What a minefield USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 seem to be, still.

My coworkers had a situation where a certain combination of chargers and hubs
plus bad luck (intermittent issue) fried some devices. That really shouldn't
be possible. I'm quite happy to still have a mid-2015 MBP with its USB-A and
MagSafe but it's only a matter of time before I get issued a machine without
them (and probably no physical ESC key either)...

~~~
horsawlarway
My experience with the new USB-C only macbook pro has been a complete and
utter disaster.

I had one machine fail within the first month: all usb-c ports stopped
responding. You can't charge it, you can't reset the SMC because it requires
the charger to be plugged in (through a usb-c port... which isn't working!
hurrah!), you can't dump anything from it to external media. Basically a
paperweight. Returned to Apple.

The second machine is still up, but the "hub" that apple gives you the honor
of paying 75 dollars for to get any subset of reasonable ports won't properly
handle external displays and a usb-3.0 hub unless I plug them in in a very
specific order.

I have to do that _every_ time I unplug the machine to go somewhere else. It
won't accept the charger through the hub anymore, so I have to plug in
multiple cords anyways. It won't handle multiple displays through the hub, so
I have to plug in 3 connections.

Not gonna lie, I was very excited by the usb-c push early on since it
consolidates all my chargers to a single cable.

On my XPS it works fine. There's only one port, but everything works as
expected, it charges, it handles thunderbolt.

Apple screwed the pooch in a huge way with their latest macbook models.
shittiest computer I've used in a long time.

I genuinely believe that apple's implementation of USB-C in their products is
just crappy, since I've used other machines and docks without issue.

Throw on top that the battery life while running a VM on the thing is
literally 1% drain per minute (I wish I was joking...) and I'd recommend
literally anything other than the new 15 inch touchbar macbooks.

They're shitty machines for developers. Honestly, they're shitty machines for
anyone, but they're particularly painful for anyone trying to work on them.

~~~
bb88
> On my XPS it works fine. There's only one port, but everything works as
> expected, it charges, it handles thunderbolt.

Yes, I was disappointed by the fact my XPS only had one USB-C port, but on the
other hand, it also has a standard charger port as well, which means I'm not
bound by USB-C alone.

~~~
dangrossman
I recently bought the current generation XPS 13 (9370), and it now has 3 USB-C
ports, two on one side and one on the other. You can charge on all 3 of them.
Just being able to plug in the charging cord on either side of the device is
immensely convenient, and reassuring because the single USB-C port was the
first thing that failed on my last XPS 13 (9350).

~~~
robbyt
Amazing how Dell is phasing in the new port, rather than just replacing all of
the old ports with the new (immature) standard.

~~~
bb88
Yeah, I was disappointed about it at first, but now, I think Yeah, it's really
good they decided to do what they did.

Most of my devices are still USB 3 standard, the only things I have which are
usb-c are the phones.

------
mataug
This happened to my work computer. Fortunately instead of frying the
peripheral the port fried itself and now the furthermost port doesn't work.

I took it to my company's IT and they told me that apple laptops which around
20% of the workforce use, causes 80% of the problems.

He jokingly mentioned that if my company stops using apple computers he'd
probably be out of a job.

~~~
znpy
I honestly believe you, but earlier this was posted: "IBM says it is 3X more
expensive to manage PCs than Macs" (
[https://www.computerworld.com/article/3131906/apple-
mac/ibm-...](https://www.computerworld.com/article/3131906/apple-mac/ibm-says-
macs-are-even-cheaper-to-run-than-it-thought.html) )

(btw, I don't think it's true)

~~~
justherefortart
Maybe they shouldn't have sold off the Thinkpad line then. :-/

------
krisoft
My work computer developed the same problem (MacBook Pro 15-inch, 2017). If
the battery wasn't 100% charged and it was plugged into a charger, the mac
reliably fried usb-c ethernet-dongles.

I took it to an Apple Authorized service provider and they called me, and said
that the computer is just fine. To add insult to injury they even sent me a
screenshot of a big green "passed" message.

------
jmfurlott
This happened to my machine! It fried almost all my peripherals including
causing my USB keyboard to spark and smoke (ruining a $300 HHKB). After a
bunch of frustration and a long week, Apple just replaced the logic board, but
I am afraid the problem will return. I recommend bringing your computer in on
any sight of weird shocks or sounds before all your data is fried.

~~~
dm319
Did they pay for your HHKB?

------
smnscu
(slightly off-topic) Am I the only one who notices the static(?) happening
when Macbooks are plugged in? Symptom 1, brushing your hand against the
aluminium feels weird, this doesn't happen when you remove the charging cable.
Symptom 2, back when I used wired headphones I could clearly distinguish the
static noise when the system was plugged in, it would go away if I touched the
laptop or, again, remove the charging cable.

edit: I'm in Tunisia right now, and every socket here seems to have the 3rd
prong thingie which I can only assume it's the ground connection. So I can
confirm petronic's account, no symptoms here whatsoever.

~~~
benkuhn
I have this problem often when I’m in Africa. Sometimes the case shocks me
very lightly as well. I’ve always assumed it’s a problem with lack of
grounding and/or dirty power. (Had it with non-macs as well)

~~~
decasia
Yes, I'm in South Africa right now and this issue is very frequent. It helps
some to use the two-prong plug on the charger instead of the three-prong plug.
(If anyone can explain why that works, I'd love to know.)

------
chx
USB C PD is a negotiated protocol, the controlling chipset is not supposed to
set VBUS to above 5V unless the sink explicitly asks for it. Unlike what
people are saying here, it's not a matter of a simple component shorting out,
the USB C controller must have a firmware error for this.

That's the theory. In practice, really, wtf is going on there, I have thought
laptops didn't implement USB PD as a power source at all?? Why would the VBUS
of different ports be connected together?

------
alpb
Can confirm this. The new MBP with TouchBar has fried my USB Type-A Yubikey. I
was ignoring the signs that it was getting quite warm, then one day it
completely died.

~~~
barnstorm
I've melted two minis! I now use the larger yubi and just plug it in EVERY
TIME I need to use it.

------
pkrefta
Few days ago I've bought previous generation Retina 15,4 with funny faces from
sellers at my local Apple store :)

Great keyboard, dependable battery, Magsafe, ESC and other goodies :)

And I couldn't be happier - no crappy keyboard, no donglemagendon and other
crap :)

~~~
LyndsySimon
I just sold my mid-2015 rMBP on Craigslist, but I won’t be moving to the new
one.

I tried the new ones, Windows 10 tablet hybrids, iPad, iPad Pro, and Android
tablets. I settled on an iPad with a Bluetooth keyboard and LTE - I wouldn’t
have been able to do that had I not discovered Blink Terminal (an iOS MOSH/SSH
client) and do most of my “real” work in the shell. Otherwise, I’d probably
have ended up with an X1 Carbon running ArchLinux. I may still end up with a
Carbon, but so far I’ve not been able to rationalize the expense.

~~~
hiram112
What did you sell it for?

I just _bought_ a new 2015 rMBP (2.2 GHZ, 16GB, 256) for $1750 off Ebay in
order to avoid the issues everyone else is having.

Yesterday it was on sale for about $1500 at BestBuy...doh

~~~
gargravarr
An office near me (we're moving into the same building) recently cleared out a
lot of old hardware. I found 2 rMBPs among the 'broken' pile. One didn't boot,
the other did boot but had a smashed screen. I took both, swapped the screens,
and now have one perfectly working 2014 mid-range rMBP (2.5GHz, 16GB, 256GB,
GT750) /for free/. Could not believe my luck! Easily fast enough to keep up
with the current machines.

One man's trash ^_^

------
mirrow
This happened to my work machine too! The notebook is top of the line MacBook
Pro 15, 2017. It fried at least four USB-C to ethernet adapters. It is not
isolated accident, at least two other people on my team had the same problem.
Our notebooks came from the same batch (MacBooks were issued at the same day).

------
navidfarhadi
Maybe Apple will offer a $29 bumper to install around the rim of your
2016/2017 MBP that just blocks the port since you are most likely using it
"the wrong way" /s

I'm interested to see a few other people test this out though to see what
happens. I'd test it myself but unfortunately I don't have access to a
2016/2017 MBP. Hopefully it isn't a widespread issue.

------
jit_hacker
I would love to see the look on the face of the guy at the Apple Store when OP
pulls out the multimeter. No disrespect, but in my experience they're good at
handling common issues and terrible when you have something unique.

~~~
Rjevski
Yep, I laughed when the only response on that forum thread was “take it to the
Apple Store”.

I doubt anyone in there would even know how much voltage should an USB port
deliver.

I guess he can prove his point by asking the Apple people to plug their iPhone
into the laptop and watch the thing catch fire.

------
ChuckMcM
Ouch! Pass through power mode for the lose. Next I would wonder if it were
symmetric, which is to say if you plug the charger into the left furthermost
plug, do any other plugs show up with 19V on them ?

I'm guessing someone "assumed" you would always plug the charger into the port
closest to where the mag safe connector used to be.

------
barnstorm
I have the two port version for work and it has MELTED two yubi keys. Certain
combinations of doc, hub and charger results in audio failures and video
tearing/blinking on secondary screens.

It's a joke.

------
peterburkimsher
If it makes it any better, there's a comic about this from almost 10 years
ago.

[http://bradcolbow.com/archive/view/the_brads_impossible/](http://bradcolbow.com/archive/view/the_brads_impossible/)

~~~
lucb1e
Oh wow, the Brads. I loved those! I think I am still subscribed to the RSS
feed, but haven't seen new ones in a while :(

------
jakobov
You need to buy an extra dongle to regulate the voltage properly. Apple sells
one for $29.99

~~~
corrigible
Without a monthly subscription? What a bargain!

------
bwilliams
This explains why two of my keyboards were randomly fried using the new
macbooks.

Between this and the keyboard, these machines are disasters.

------
jaimehrubiks
My MacBook Air mid 2013 also fries peripherals via USB when idle or rebooting
(even when unplugged from dc), happened twice.

~~~
jacquesm
That's a good warning, thank you.

------
chimeracoder
This happened to me too, back in January. It managed to fry two different U2F
devices as well as a cable, which were plugged into different ports. One of
the devices got so hot before I noticed it that it actually melted the plastic
on the U2F device itself.

Fortunately, it was my work laptop, and my company was able to replace it, but
at best it's inconvenient to have to replace a machine, and it's kind of
frightening to suddenly smell burning plastic in your home.

------
saagarjha
Is this an isolated failure, or something wrong with _all_ MacBook Pros?

~~~
3JPLW
Given that this was posted back in January and nobody else has chimed in with
a "my computer too" or "oh my goodness that's how my peripherals all died"
post, I'm guessing it's an isolated failure.

~~~
asdsa5325
This thread is filled with people complaining about the same thing

~~~
3JPLW
Yes, it is now. When I posted every single comment in this thread was FUD-dy,
but it wasn't yet clear how common of a thing this was.

There's more evidence now, so I'm updating my prior.

------
tcfunk
anecdata:

I actually noticed a popping sound recently when plugging in a USB receiver
for my wireless mouse via a USB-C adapter. The adapter was already plugged in,
and then I plugged the receiver into the adapter.

Since that happened, I've been putting the receiver into the adapter first,
and then plugging in the USB-C adapter second, and haven't heard it happen
since.

------
mad_vill
"I would definitely take this MacBook to an Apple Store as this problem
doesn't seem to be user-fixable."

~~~
techgeekaj
I'm surprised nobody trolled and said the classic "have you tried turning it
on and off again?"

~~~
robbyt
Oh, and make sure to reset the PRAM

~~~
cerberusss
And reset the SMC, too.

~~~
LocalH
Don’t forget to fix permissions.

------
hnaccy
Guess I'll stick with 2015 macbook for as long as possible.

~~~
cerberusss
My experience with my 2016 MBP is great. But sticking with your 2015 model is
a good idea regardless. CPU speeds haven't really advanced since 2015, the
screen is basically the same, etc. The only thing is USB-C/Thunderbolt. I love
it, but I probably wouldn't upgrade my laptop for that.

------
glup
Really too bad we called another incident Donglegate already.

------
vokep
Had this same thing happen recently and came across this post. Wish I had
thought of putting it on HN!

------
ionised
My MacBook Pro 2017 provided by work is doing the exact same thing.

I had issues connecting multiple displays which eventually led to not being
able to get a third display working at all, and finally anything connected to
two of the USB-C ports would start getting very hot and emitting a burning
smell.

Combined with the problems I've had with the keyboard on this thing, and
problems getting mice to work without hideous acceleration or sensitivity
issues, this might possibly be the worst development machine I've ever used.

------
zitterbewegung
I had an issue with my Macbook Pro 2017 where they said there was a voltage
issue. It made it so that the graphics card when being shut down would have
artifacts.

------
andrewmcwatters
I feel good about waiting through this generation of MBP.

~~~
georgebarnett
I’ve just been forced by circumstance to get a new laptop at work and it’s a
13” MBP. Not happy.

------
baddox
This reminds me of an incident that was entirely my fault where I was using a
USB dongle that allows you to use standard RC aircraft transmitters (joystick
controllers) as input devices for software flight simulators and I somehow
ended up sending a 3S RC battery (11 volts) through it to my computer
monitor’s USB port, completely frying the monitor.

------
dghughes
Something like that happened to me with my 17 inch Macbook Pro back in 2011
(?). I plugged in a USB stick there was a flash and then a big pop sound. The
laptop went black and wouldn't power on for a few minutes. After a while it
powered on and all seemed OK lasting until last fall when its video card died.

------
ratsimihah
Haven't really found a solution here, mostly complaint.

The closest I found last night was

> You need to buy an extra dongle to regulate the voltage properly

But I'm not sure which dongle it's referring to.

So what is the solution if any?

* Bring the MBP to an Apple Store? * Buy a dongle? * Don't use the USB ports ever again?

------
kmfrk
I have a dongle for USB(-A) that provides only charging and no data transfers.

Is there a reverse option where you can buy a dongle that intercepts this
madness with overvoltage protection or whatever?

------
notadoc
The current MacBook Pro can't be scrapped soon enough. What a mess.

Frankly if Apple just updated the old trusty 2015 MacBook Pro model to have
32gb RAM and a faster CPU, I'd be thrilled.

~~~
Bud
Which they can't. Intel CPUs don't support 32 GB RAM yet.

~~~
TheGorramBatman
False. If you check Intel ARK, you can see, for example, the i7-2860QM has a
max RAM of 32 GB (and this is a processor from 2011). Heck, the i7-8809G
supports 64 GB.

~~~
Bud
We're speaking of mobile CPUs and LPDDR4, here. In other words, viable designs
for laptops with good battery life that don't weigh 8 pounds.

------
gzu
I have a 2017 non touch 13 and get a fuzzy pixelated screen for a few seconds
after I open the lid after it’s been asleep all day/night. Don’t know if
that’s common.

~~~
Mister_Snuggles
2017 13" with a touchbar, I get something similar under the same conditions.
My guess is that the display is showing garbage that's in the framebuffer for
a second before the OS can render the GUI.

~~~
gzu
I guessed something with FileVault causing a gpu issue when waking from sleep.
Nothing else is wrong that I’m aware of. I couldn’t find any answers or even
questions on forums (or search well enough).

------
fcarraldo
Can confirm, I fried an HP Omen Accelerator eGPU unit and the left port on my
MBP. Luckily, HP repaired the eGPU and the warranty covered the MBP.

------
netproteus
I had exactly this problem with my MBP, took it back to apple and they ended
up replacing the whole logic board and 2 IO boards under warranty.

------
magoon
Have you tried an SMC reset? It isn’t impossible that this is a software or
configuration bug.

------
drcode
Jonathan Ive: "We need 100% of MacBook users to use my beautiful butterfly
keyboard, regardless of the dust that screws up the key mechanism."

Tim Cook: "That's not possible- they can always just plug in a USB keyboard."

Jonathan Ive: "Is there nothing we can do to stop them from doing that?"

~~~
Reedx
Why is that such a problem with this keyboard anyway?

My B button is sticking after just 2 months! I've been using Macbook Airs and
Pros for about 8 years and never once had any issue with any of them until
this one.

~~~
cerberusss
Get a can of compressed air and follow this procedure:
[https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205662](https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT205662)

This helped my 2016 MBP, but also helped a friend with an older 2014 model.

~~~
nottorp
That only makes sense if you have no memory... why would they have to post
that unless the keyboard is crap? I use pre-emoji macbooks outdoors all the
time and they keyboards are still fine.

------
maskedinvader
ouch, my wife has the non touch macbook pro 2016, I should warn her

ah well never mind, she doesnt really have any usb c peripherals.

~~~
pavlov
The test setup shown uses a USB-C to USB adapter, so it would fry any non-
USB-C device connected through an adapter.

------
DonHopkins
My Macbook Pro fries itself.

------
dnautics
we experienced this in our office as well.

------
op00to
I don't see this on mine. Something wrong with this dude's specific machine.

~~~
deong
Well yeah. I don't think anyone is under the impression that Apple made a
laptop that, by design, fries peripherals when it's charging.

~~~
pilsetnieks
It's #1 on the first page. It would be understandable if this was a widespread
issue but it being a single case, someone must really hate Apple.

~~~
tomxor
> it being a single case, someone must really hate Apple.

A question on Apple's own forum demonstrating a clearly dangerous hardware
flaw is hating Apple? ..they really can do no wrong.

Also notice the "I have this question too" button which has been pressed 26
times.

~~~
pilsetnieks
I meant that more about pushing an unverified post on a user forum with no
proof to #1 spot.

~~~
tomxor
unverified? it's just voltage not intel ME.

------
sadappleuser
I recently purchased a macbook from apple. After one day I found out the mic
did not work, when I received my first facetime call on the laptop. Since I
was using the laptop for some projects I was not able to give it immediately
back. I called apple support on chat, the person made me install update and
restart mac, consuming 2 hours for no reason. Then I decided to goto the
store. At the store they made me wait for 2 hours. Then I was able to present
my new macbook without a functional mic. At the store I had the worst
experience, the person basically took my laptop for 30 minutes, came back and
said I spilled water, they did a test and handed me a 700$ bill to fix it!
This was beyond me. I told the person, that I just bought it and it is hard
for me to challenge a test that I don't know. It is possible I a drop spilled
when I was drinking water/coffee on my laptop. I have a macbook pro, also it
works great I have spilled some water on it, usual wear and tear, I don't have
a problem with it. However the person was very adamant that I was lying and I
better pay the fees or not waster their time.

Very confused about my situation, I contacted apple on chat again, and told
them about my experience at the store. The chat person called their manager,
who again threatened me saying that if I want to challenge their diagnostic
test I can, otherwise I should stop contacting them. I have no knowledge about
how to find out about this test, what it is, does it consider normal usage
conditions of laptops or anything like that. If anyone has had similar
experience or knows about this diagnostic test do share, I don't want to pay
700$ extra on a macbook

~~~
clu3l355
I had a similar experience with an authorised repair place - my keyboard went
on the blink (as has been reportedly recently with all the touchbar MBPs. Upon
opening it they found a coffee stain from where I had spilt coffee on it
months before. Their response "we can't fix it sorry, Apple wouldn't allow
it"...

~~~
xenonite
same thing here for a MBA. Repair cost: at least 1000EUR assuming the display
is not affected.

