Here’s how to do so.

There are also a few physical cues to look out for when a cable is in your regular rotation.

How Can Bad USB-C Cables Damage Your gear?

The word Windows 11 with a map pin on the right and the default windows 11 wallpaper as background.

The chances of a USB-C cable doing damage to your machine are slim, but it can happen.

With these charging-only USB-C cables, the main difference is how much charging power its capable of.

To the naked eye, all USB-C cables look the same.

Rockbox on an iPod Nano

What Kind of Damage Can Bad USB Cables Cause?

In worst case scenarios, a gadget thats overheating can explode or burst into flames.

A bad cable can cause irreversible damage to your PCs ports or other components.

Laptop on the Windows 11 settings screen coming out of a toggle button.

How Can You Tell If Your USB-C Cable Is Bad?

If a USB-C cable is bad, you shouldn’t be using it, naturally.

But how do you know when it’s not safe to use anymore?

An assortment of USB cables on a table.

Jason Montoya / How-To Geek

Or, the wires could be loose inside even if the cord looks solid from the outside.

That cable may be made with a less-than-stellar material, but otherwise function perfectly.

Youll need to look harder to spot more niche signs that your cables should be tossed.

A frayed USB-C cable with scorch marks from electrical damage.

Nami Uchida / Shutterstock.com

Pay attention to how well your phone charges with certain cables.

Does it charge four times slower than your best cable?

Does it stop charging your phone at a certain percentage?

AVHzY USB Power Meter

The AVHzY USB Power Meter makes it easy to test any USB-C cable to ensure cable integrity and safety. While not everyone needs a dedicated cable tester, if you want to be absolute sure your cables are safe or you have lots of cables to test it’s a worthy investment.

The AVHzY USB Power Meter makes it easy to test any USB-C cable to ensure cable integrity and safety.

Testing the actual data transfer speed of your cable requires time, lab equipment, or both.

Most mainstream smartphone manufacturers make high-quality, reliable cables, but thats not always the case.

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The Baseus Laptop Power bank not only sports 2 USB-C Power Delivery ports to help you fast charge your laptop and other devices, but it has an LED status display that offers an indepth look at the charging stats so you can assess how effectively your cables are functioning.

For example, iPhone cableswhich arent USB-C cables yetare more prone to fraying than cables from Samsung or Google.

Splurging on a quality cable is worth it in exchange for ruining your pricey smartphone.

When you’re looking for a new USB-C, you should definitely consider the cord material.

Anker USB C Cable 100W 10ft, New Nylon USB C to USB C Cable

Anker’s New Nylon line of USB-C cables offers high durability and high-wattage Power Delivery charging.

User reviews are incredibly useful when searching for a reliable USB-C cable.

It’s tough to go wrong with high quality cables like theNew Nylon cables from Anker.

Anker’s New Nylon line of USB-C cables offers high durability and high-wattage Power Delivery charging.

Or, splurge onBelkin’s Thunderbolt 4 USB-C cableto get fast data transfer speeds.