I was looking for a new USB-c hub and came across this article. It’s an interesting write-up of what is on the inside of some popular options

  • InverseParallax@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Thank you, I love exactly these kind of dives. Realtek makes absolute trash, they just happen to make affordable trash. The DP to HDMI chip was interesting, given most of these dongles provide hdmi I assumed the main usb-c hub actually did HDMI protocol translation internally, or I think alt-mode has proper hdmi support?

    I go through these pretty quick too, they don’t last long, I had good luck with the Startech dkt31chpdl and an anker which is an upgraded version of the one you “liked”.

    Overall I’ve found they mostly die, I have a Lention that seems to be chugging along, as well as 2 Lionwei’s that haven’t given me trouble yet, but mostly I’ve found Caldigit thunderbolt does the job reliably and for more than 6 months at a time.

    • ShortFuse@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Alt-Mode HDMI stopped at 1.4b. Everything now is DisplayPort Alt-Mode to HDMI. The translation is simple enough it can be done passively and components can fit inside the connector, meaning it looks like a simple cable.

      Drawbacks are you can’t get GSync, Freesync, or VRR. Also Nvidia’s drivers only output 2.0 Audio over DisplayPort, so no surround sound.

    • ██████████@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      On YouTube I see guys make custom connectors for old ass computers with extinct connectors. Also as a child I made TV antennas out of paper clips. Cheap is king baby