Purchasing third-party, but uncertified charging accessories for your MacBook can spell disaster in the long run. You might be able to save some money, but it can cost you dearly when you have an expensive machine that’s been damaged extensively. Luckily, one MacBook managed to survive when one user decided to purchase third-party USB-C cables from AliExpress carrying a price of $2 each. The Redditor explains what happened below.
“Like the title says, please avoid buying cheap fast charge USB C cables. Unlike regular USB cables, Those cables use much higher voltage and can seriously damage your devices!
I have bought two lightning to USB C cables for about 2$ each. The cables look and feel really good and similar to what Apple would have deliver. The cables worked well for a couple of months until today. Connected my Apple pencil (gen 1) to my mac using a lightning to USB C cable and immediately the cable's controller started to smoke and almost got itself on fire. The aftermath looks like this. I can still feel the burnt smell in the room!
Luckily, the Macbook disabled all usb ports to prevent any damage to the Mac (You can see the error in the image above). The pencil was also not damaged. Needless to say, that all other cheap USB C cables went to the trash together with the damaged one.
So lesson learned. Don't mess with cheap fast charge USB C PD cables. Buy only certified cables.”
Fortunately, for him, the MacBook managed to disable all USB ports, as you can see in the image above. That’s a real neat feature to have to prevent irreparable damage to your machine, but it isn’t confirmed if any or all Windows 10 machines ship with this safety addition. After all, using uncertified third-party cables or chargers may also destroy the motherboard, requiring an entire replacement of not just the board, but the components attached to it such as NVMe storage drives, Wi-Fi card, and others.
Do you think this little incident will encourage you to stop purchasing low-quality uncertified chargers and cables? Let us know down in the comments.
News Source: Reddit
