Thunderbolt is not just for monitors

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BEN’S WORKSHOP By Ben Myers When will Windows computer makers embrace Thunderbolt? This is not an idle question, but the answers are quite complicated
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windbg, fisher75, sudo, Cybertooth, Casey S, DLivesInTexas, WSABQGeo

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As I understand it, both Thunderbolt and USB-C ports can provide significant power to single external devices. How do these ports deal with electrical shorts? Older USB motherboard ports I’ve seen have surface-mount fuses that are impossible for the end-user to repair/replace, but you can always add another USB PCI card. Is that still the case with modern laptops which only have docking stations as a replacement option for a fried port?

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Significant, but up to a limit, not that high.  Both can provide enough power to SSDs, but not enough for a spinning hard drive or a Thunderbolt RAID array, both of which require their own power supplies.

It is not clear how Thunderbolt deals with electrical shorts, although the perfectly symmetric modern connector and port go a long way to reducing the frequency of shorts.  By comparison, how often how you run into older USB ports in a laptop or desktop, because the owner was careless, and simply smashed a USB connector into a port upside down?  I have seen too many of these.

AFAIK, a docking station and a USB hub are the solutions for working around a destroyed USB port, providing that there is still one USB port working correctly.  I recently bought a large number of tiny USB3 hubs that were surplus from a company.  Now I can offer an inexpensive hub to extend a single port to handle four USB connections.

There is no point whatsoever in trying to repair a broken USB port on either desktop or laptop, unless the laptop design just happens to have an easily replaced interior part with the USB port and maybe some other function.  These possibilities are rare in my experience.

 

 

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rbailin

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It’s pretty darn interesting that even though TB5/USB4 v2 have been out for some time now that the Copilot+ PC specs haven’t yet been updated to include them. Monitor support is an increasingly important area, to be sure, but it’s also important to provide high-speed data channels for USB-attached NVMe SSDs. They, too, can benefit from faster connections especially for large AI datasets and models, videos, databases, and — my personal fave — image backups for Windows.

-Ed-

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Interesting and certainly surprising.  My guess unsupported by actual facts is that Intel’s recent years of turmoil have distracted them from promoting Thunderbolt.

Because most tower computers have a fair amount of internal real estate, it’s probably more cost-effective to mount an NVMe SSD on a card, but more work to do so.  Gee!  Open up the chassis and use a screwdriver!

Some PCI-e cards handle two or more NVMe SSDs. I have used them and they work well, even in a pair of 24/7 servers that serve up VMs.  Heat dissipation can become an issue with the larger capacity SSDs, whether inside a computer or attached externally via Thunderbolt or USB.  Thermal pads help dissipate the heat.

Mounting SSDs inside a Wintel computer reduces the need of many users for Thunderbolt-mounted SSDs.

 

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rbailin

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” Thunderbolt is absent in the AMD-powered laptops I have touched, but my sample size is small.”

Someone feel free to clarify/correct me if necessary, but my understanding is that although you will find USB 4 ports on AMD systems that may/may not be Thunderbolt capable, you will not find them labeled or certified as such because doing so would require paying a royalty payment to Intel for the chipsets.

 

 

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The way I remember it, Intel wouldn’t let AMD use Thunderbolt in its early years of existence.  They kept it exclusive, probably hoping to hurt AMD sales.  I believe that this refusal really hurt Thunderbolt, in that it didn’t become a universal port, the way that USB did.  Plus, the $50 active cables that were required to use it certainly didn’t help it gain popularity. 

 

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Cybertooth

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Makes perfect sense.  So once again, Intel hurt itself with a decision that backfired, keeping Thunderbolt from becoming more widely deployed on Windows computer.  As such, it is a standard, but…

On the other hand, Apple did not ever hesitate to use Thunderbolt chips in its kit.

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Hi, thanks for the article. I’ve recently purchased some NUCs for home and was delighted to find they support Thunderbolt. The Intel NUC11 Pro Kit I bought for my wife a little while back supports Thunderbolt 4, as does a NUC12 Pro kit I bought later for my TV entertainment system. Intel NUC support has now transferred to ASUS and I’m typing this on an ASUS NUC14PRO+ Kit (“AI Ready”). It has “2 x Thunderbolt 4 Type-C w/ DisplayPort 1.4” on the rear panel, and yes, I’ve tested them to displays. So I’m pleased to see that Thunderbolt is becoming more common.

I do have these NUCS (all on Win 11 24H2 now) powered through UPS to save the data from brownouts which the laptops they replaced were somewhat immune from. But the laptop batteries were swelling badly (out of warranty and no original parts available) and after I replaced one battery from a web source then the replacement battery started swelling even more within a year, so there’s that.

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