Plugging in USB devices/cables

[fnordx.livejournal.com]

I've got a quick poll for you all, mostly just to satisfy my curiosity. It's about plugging in USB cables. When you go to plug in a USB cable to a/your computer, how often, percentage wise, does each of these happen?

[Poll #1579587]

Comments

[metao.livejournal.com]

The third one, practically 100% of the time.

[licon.livejournal.com]

Yep.

[otterknit.livejournal.com]

There is no choice for 0.

[vaxhacker.livejournal.com]

Also, the question says "percentage wise" but our choices range 1-10% for all of them. I suppose we're taking it for granted that 90-99% of the time we either can't locate the plug or socket, rewire it into a USB variant of EtherKiller, or some other random event?

[cheezemeister-x.livejournal.com]

Or you could just append a zero to each of the numbers in your head and then answer the questions.

Though there would still be no option for 0%.....

[kgasso.livejournal.com]

Where's the option for "I ram the device in upside-down as hard as I can until the plastic orientation key in the USB port bends, then call my friend's sysadmin husband when my device doesn't work?"

Yes, I'm the guy who got to "fix" that one and explain it to the user.

[jecook]

GAH- I recall working on an emachine many moons ago where some anus ranger completely destroyed the USB port by plugging the cable in upside down. and the damn thing only had two ports to begin with (one front, one rear).

Fortunately for them, I happened to have a USB card salvaged from some other dead machine.

[penguin-attie.livejournal.com]

My old powerbook titanium has a slightly loose port, so it's just as easy to plug in the wrong way than right. Plugging it in the wrong way around cuts off power to the whole computer (I have no clue what happens in there). Needless to say, I learned to always check the direction of USB ports before trying to plug anything in.

[agmlego.livejournal.com]

It probably has short-circuit protection that you are tripping. Had a Dell Optiplex that we shorted out the front USB accidentally, powered off and refused to turn back on until we cleared the short.

[penguin-attie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, sounds like that. Good thing too, it still works fine after this happened to me god knows how many times.

[jennielf.livejournal.com]

those tiBooks may look like crap now, but if the hinges last, they were pretty well built.

[historychick49.livejournal.com]

One of my undergrad profs did that with his PS/2 keyboard. He didn't want to get down on the floor and match them up visually, so he just jammed the plug in there and twisted it around for a while. Ended up breaking off the plastic rectangle thingy in the plug, and mashing the prongs flat in a spiral pattern.

[polarbee.livejournal.com]

*shudder* That just reminded me of a brief employee we had at an old job. He tried to install a CPU without checking the orientation, smashed it down a few times, wiggled, smashed, and probably would have kept going if i hadn't wrenched it away from him. SO many pins, all bent and twisted. *sniff*

[supermouse.livejournal.com]

I pity his lovers.

[historychick49.livejournal.com]

*snerk*

[spooforbrains.livejournal.com]

Missing option: I miss completely, plug it into the ethernet port, and then fiddle about in the OS trying to figure out why my mouse isn't working.

This has happened to me more than once.

[goatavatar.livejournal.com]

same here and i find it pretty wild that usb fits into ethernet almost perfectly size-wise

[marydell.livejournal.com]

I do this too.

[penguin-attie.livejournal.com]

This always happens to me with firewire 800 cables.

[pyxiwulf.livejournal.com]

I do this with my iphone cord all the time. I always turn the cord the right ways up because I'm paranoid to mess up the port, but the ethernet is right next to the USB and it gets missed often.

[indigo-max.livejournal.com]

I do that a lot on my laptop :)

Max...

[silveryrose.livejournal.com]

That's why I love the laptop I have now. There's a VGA port between the USB ports and the Ethernet port.

Somehow I managed to short out the ethernet port on a previous laptop with a USB cable while both devices were powered down.

[yanni85.livejournal.com]

It also fits pretty well into an HDMI port.

[melstav]

As mentioned previously, no option exists that's obvious for "this never happens".

The only times I generally have issues with the usb cable are:

1) I'm trying to plug the cable in blind, eg into a port on the back of the computer (desktop or laptop) or

2) The port does not adhere to the section on "Orientation" in the USB sepecification. Yes, the specification does say which of the four sides of the port should be oriented "up" with regard to the product, not the PCB. It also says that the USB logo should be on the "up" side of the connector on the cable. And ONLY on the up side of the connector.


Oh, and you also missed "The USB cable goes in just fine, and then I spend time trying to figure out why it doesn't work, only to realize that I inserted the connector into the ethernet jack instead of the USB port."

[azurelunatic]

And bless them for specifying so. My automatic USB-insertion routine includes looking for the logo and remembering which way up the port is on this particular thing I'm plugging it into.

[jamoche]

After working on a feature for our product involving its behavior when a USB device is first plugged in, I have gotten pretty good at spotting the seam on the actual connector; it's seam side down. On most of the cheap flaky things I've tested, there is no logo. I've seen more than one flash drive that's completely symmetrical in every aspect except the metal seam. They also tend to ignore the specification in other more annoying ways.

[captpackrat.livejournal.com]

The "trident goes up" thingie works great... unless the port is vertical instead of horizontal, then "up" goes out the window.

[codeman38.livejournal.com]

Or if the plug for the device doesn't have the logo on either side. One of the flash drives I have has the company logo on both sides, and the USB logo on neither.

[kayfox.livejournal.com]

Or its a Dell SFF on its side.

Or the damn GX280 "mini" towers.

[reanimated.livejournal.com]

lol! i feel vindicated.

[azurelunatic]

The bulk of my USB woes come from one device, a TomTom satnav with a recessed mini(?) (it's not micro, and not standard) USB port. I unfailingly insert the cable with the correct orientation, but unless I line it up with nigh unto laser-guided precision, the cable does not go in. Of course, this is worst when sitting down in a dark car and plugging it in to the charger/leash...

[black-spot.livejournal.com]

None of my usb stick have up written on them. Always third time lucky if I'm under a desk and just banged my head because they're all round the back - yep old computers.