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Is there a way to know the specifications of your cables? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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Hi everyone!

Over the years, I’ve started having big collection of cables or dongles.

Mostly USB-C, USB-A to Micro USB, USB A to C, USB C to A, HDMI..

I was wondering how I could know their specifications as nothing is written on them. Maybe through a Linux program telling me how fast they can transfer data.

I was wondering also if there was a way to know how much power was sent to a device when these cables are used to power one. For instance, I’ve noticed that my Steam Deck battery was draining when playing games with 15TDP and being charged with an iPhone charger.

I don’t know if it’s useful, but here are my computers: Steam Deck running Steam OS, Surface Go 1 running Fedora Silverblue, MacBook Pro 2012 running PopOs.

I don’t want to buy anything to be able to measure how much data or power these cables can send😇

Thanks in advance for your help.

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[–] 6 points 1 month ago* (4 children)

To get the know the true spec you need special measuring devices. No software can tell you the true spec without knowing the actual inside of the cable. You can do a few test to get a rough estimate though. But that means testing all the capabilities and see what it does. Could be using the cables way out of spec that way however.

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  • [–] [S] 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)
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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    I'd try to stay away from isolated projects on GitHub that only have a single maintainer, to avoid the risk of installing malware. You could check the https://aur.archlinux.org/ to see if any of those have been uploaded here and if there are any comments on the package. If there are none but you still would like to install, check out this guide to learn how to vet the "installer".

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago

    There are cheap USB cable testers that will tell you what pins are connected and what speed the e marker chip reports. Actually measuring the bandwidth of the cable requires some expensive test equipment though.

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