To find out what sort of devilry had fried his gear, Leung then analysed the cable with a breakout board and a multimeter. What he found was really quite shocking: “it appears that they completely miswired the cable. The GND pin on the Type-A plug is tied to the Vbus pins on the Type-C plug. The Vbus pin on the Type-A plug is tied to GND on the Type-C plug.”
And that’s not all! Later, after posting about his woes on Google+, Leung found a battery of further issues:
…
2) 10 kΩ resistor instead of 56 kΩ resistor used.
3) resistor hooked up as a Pull-down instead of a pull-up
4) Wire is COMPLETELY missing SuperSpeed wires. It is NOT actually a USB 3.1 cable, even though it has a blue connector on the A side and SuperSpeed logos.
If the miswiring was the only issue with the cable then Surjtech could plausibly defend this as a one-off manufacturing fault. Considering the three other compounding issues, though, it sounds like Surjtech just doesn’t know how to make a USB cable.
And finally, for a few more laughs, I dug up the original Surjtech cable product page from the Google cache. Check out this paragraph:
Well-made with High Quality: Best quality cable in the market – aluminium alloy connector & high density braided nylon net for long-term use The combination of sturdy construction with a flexible jacket and USB 3.1 Type C connector with molded strain relief provides a cable with reliable performance and long life.
If only Surjtech had put as much thought into the actual electronics as the moulded strain relief…
Leung says he will be “contacting Surjtech directly,” presumably with the hope of getting a new Pixel laptop so that he can continue his USB Type-C cable reviews.