This Kills Your Computer - USB Kill

Hey. Do NOT try this at home.
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Chapter Titles:
0:00 What is USB Kill?
2:09 Gateway Laptop
3:26 Dell Rugged Laptop
4:52 Anker USB Charger
6:26 Nintendo Switch Lite
7:33 Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3
9:35 Sony PS5
10:59 iPhone SE
12:31 MacBook Pro
13:45 MacBook Air M2

[@HamSammich88]

Let's go with that follow up video. Curious to see the extent of the damage caused by this device. Thanks Austin.

[@EvilTurkeySlices]

Mostly fuses I'd imagine.

[@powerfulshammy]

It's the battery replace it along with the port you plugged it in those devices will be repaired plug that to a regular PC without the CMOS battery your safe 😂

[@MayaPosch]

Count me in for an autopsy & repair video as well. I suspect some of the ports may come back to life due to thermal fuses resetting, but for e.g. the MacBook M2 I imagine the controller chip for charging got its guts blown out, as that's a common issue with 3rd-party chargers as well. The Switch probably has the charger chip destroyed as well, which just makes you wonder why they don't all have voltage clamp circuitry on the USB lines. The Z-Flip 3 clearly does, while the iPhone only seems to do fuses.

[@lukedavis436]

PS5 will definitely be dead, I've watched a lot of people who try to fix them with broken USB port's and if you're unlucky to cross VCC with the Data + or Data - pins. The data lines run STRAIGHT into the APU

[@MayaPosch]

@@lukedavis436 That's Apple HV-next-to-CPU-signal-lines levels of bad... yeah, in that case there's probably no way that the PS5 will come back without a full APU swap, which means that it's at most a spare parts system.

[@Tronicsfix]

Too bad there's not an electronics repair KZbin channel that you could send this stuff to to see if it could be fixed 😉

[@jaquioxyz]

Kudos!

[@J-S_93]

@Tronicsfix I hope you get better - all the best with your treatments.

[@Electrocus]

I literally just commented that he needs to send you the PS5!

[@Driftme44]

I’ll do the MacBooks

[@andrewbaird753]

YESSSS BRO!!🔥🔥🔥 DO IT Austin I wanna see this collab vid!!! UPVOTE!!

[@BonJoviBeatlesLedZep]

There are dozens of videos that demonstrate just how much Austin loves the Z Flip but this might be the ultimate example. You could hear the concern in his voice, see it in his face, and you could see the sheer joy when it survived

[@Bashiroo]

For the devices that stayed alive but had their ports dead (Especially the macbooks), giving them a restart would be a good idea because sometimes, computers turn off the port entirely when it notices something abnormal, and it turns it back on after a restart. Had experience with having ports screwing up on me like that, definitly my fault but, often times a restart solved it.

[@kodielackner8839]

This exactly, I’ve had users at work short their ports on their MacBooks and a reboot always gets them working again!

[@coolmajor34]

Think they said they tried that

[@cms_samuel]

​@@coolmajor34 timestamp?

[@Rebnobfulroar]

​@@cms_samuelat around 15:40 he said he was gonna restart the mac too in case that fixed it, but it apparently didn't

[@cms_samuel]

@@Rebnobfulroar only verbal, so maybe he didn't actually restart it? Thanks for timestamp

[@C3DPropShop]

OPEN THEM UP. OPEN THEM UP. OPEN THEM UP.

[@freePalestinian1234]

Yes

[@duckgoesquack4514]

And get louis rossmann to help

[@m.shaheeradnan3170]

Yes PLZ

[@epiren]

@@duckgoesquack4514 YES! Louis should be able to look at exactly what gets blown when this thing hits them.

[@AdamAdam-dn4st]

Yes plz

[@RamizHK]

The USB killer was the first ever video I watched on your channel, wasn't expecting nostalgia to hit me so randomly

[@s._81]

same 😂

[@ComixProductions]

Woah yeah same 😂

[@zeynehtesham6341]

Same😮

[@cptviraj]

+1

[@theminecraftnoob9357]

same

[@Keiran01]

Internally both USB C ports on the MacBook Air go to the same header on the motherboard which is probably why both ports stoped working

[@bobbyflaydx4062]

But also the magsafe?

[@Nonya_Concern]

Makes sense

[@morsikpl]

@@bobbyflaydx4062 since USB-C can also provide charging, it can be connected to same circuit as MagSafe for power delivery, so USB Killer load would spread there killing "just" charging capability which we see as "USB-C and MagSafe break". Also, Austin is wrong at the end when trying keyboard saying "there's no data either" - you don't know if there's no data, as there's no power (due to breakage) to power the dongle and said keyboard.

[@Cosmoflips]

Austin: "do not try this at home" dude who went to jail: **tries at school**

[@JimmyCerra]

If there are resettable fuses in those computers/phones, then waiting until the fuses cool down might bring them back to life.

[@Thatonefuckinguy]

You can also replace fuses/capacitors. Assuming you know a lot about soddering.

[@buildyourcomputer]

you need northridge fix equipment though

[@MayaPosch]

MacBooks have the unfortunate habit of having the USB controller chips destroyed when you use third-party chargers, so I imagine the MacBook M2 at least requires that chip to be replaced. Same with the Switch. For other devices (like the first MacBook Pro and Gateway laptop), thermal fuses may kick in, indeed. Would love to see a follow-up & autopsy on these devices to see the actual damage.

[@lukedavis436]

You don't need equipment from just Northridge anything works lol, just make sure it's decent-ish

[@lukedavis436]

​@@MayaPoschthe Switch has 3 chips on the USB side from my knowledge, you have M92T36, BQ and P13USB. If the killer breached all 3 then the Tegra APU is next in line.

[@anubis1800]

Yes! Open it up and use a multimeter. I wanna see what exactly it's killing.

[@commander3327]

I agree, I would love to see what broke.

[@cromulence]

If you're lucky, an inline fuse. At worst, the entire USB controller.

[@amerbazdar7626]

If I'm not wrong the USB killer charges the capacitors inside it up to 220V then sends all that voltage through the data lines on the port. It can fry whatever uses the data lines, those being the RAM, CPU, GPU, SSD and other parts that require data lines.

[@309electronics5]

If lucky its just a fuse or capacitor. If unlucky its the usb controller or the cpu/pch

[@viharkottakota1849]

If you don't know the school where someone used one of these which Austin was talking about, basically this kid used one of these USB killers and he killed about 59 computers and he also killed like around 7 computer monitors and also some other devices. The school was Saint Rose college.

[@Borman18]

Single handedly contributing to the university shutting down Im sure.

[@viharkottakota1849]

@@Borman18 You are correct my friend. According to a few reports: " the college's trustees voted to close the college in June 2024."

[@viharkottakota1849]

This incident led to the finances of the college to go to shit and therefore the closed the college@@Borman18

[@Cyba_IT]

​@@viharkottakota1849really? They shut the college down because of one bad student?

[@viharkottakota1849]

I don't think it was only because of the student. But he may ave contributed to though right?@@Cyba_IT

[@TheZoenGaming]

My Samsung Galaxy Note 5 survived a lightning strike that hit the house. The strike fried an entire circuit in the wall, the outlet on that circuit my phone charger was plugged into, the charger plugged into the Surge Protector, the cable connecting the charger to my phone, but my phone was unscathed. Other things that didn't survive that strike include: The circuit breaker for that circuit in the breaker box, the surge protector powering my PC, a toaster, the in-sink garbage disposal unit, several lamps and lightbulbs that were turned on at the time, and my step-father's iPhone 5 issued to him by the company he works for as well as the lightning charger it was plugged into. I told my step-father that it was ironic that the lighting charger couldn't handle the lightning when my Note 5 was just fine, however, so I was rooting for the Z Flip 3 to win.

[@Intrinsety]

The Z-Flip being the only one to escape unharmed is the twist nobody expected

[@schizofennec]

especially considering they cheap out on the flip models so much

[@cristiab9985]

I've read your comment mid video, and now i'm quite sad

[@ruekurei88]

Should it have been though? Isn't it like the newest product there? MBA M2 was 2022, Switch 2017, PS5 2020, Iphone SE 2022, and I don't know about the other stuff. I was surprised by the charger though, it should have had some kind of surge protection ability I would think. Or maybe the USB port of such devices just weren't shielded like that, unlike a phone, which would have those kinds of protections since it's also a charge port. Which is why the phones survived. Well the iphone SE not as much, but still.

[@adafrost6276]

@@ruekurei88 Z Flip 3 came out in 2021.

[@ShaydTheDragon]

Not really. Newer Samsungs are waterproof and the ports have protection again stuff like this

[@csumme7]

Yes, please open some of them to see what exactly got zapped and if they can be repaired or better too chuck it.

[@linuxsux41]

Newer Macbooks have a protective function where if an issue is detected when charging it will disable charging until the device is restarted. I'm not saying that the M2 Mac for sure survived with no damage but interested if it still wasn't charging after a restart of the system.

[@BonJoviBeatlesLedZep]

I really really want the followup video. Getting to the bottom of this and illustrating what exactly it kills on the board would be great

[@leorojas6390]

9:27 Ken: Suck it, JerryRigEverything. Not durable phone my a**!

[@torondin]

I think a follow up video would be a good idea, partly to see the damage, but to also see if the damage could be something as simple as a blown fuse somewhere, or if you managed to totally fry something.

[@usering4951]

Imagine a manufacturer buying usb killer to test their usb port from usb killer itself😂

[@lilguygamingandmore]

I'm honestly suprised that the Z Flip 3 survived. Just goes to show that some companies are really trying hard to have their devices as protected as possible against such attacks

[@jacobplatt3066]

Yes, samsung is normally the one to pass this test

[@DavidKen878]

What attacks? Devices like this are used to test power surges.

[@joeschmoe5009]

That was crazy to actually see the electric shock on the switch lite! Those were some good arcs right where it was plugged in

[@M8trix21]

I wonder would it kill an Electric Car

[@StuffJason437]

TechRex tried the USB killer in electric car with USB port and it only fried that port and not the hole car.

[@M8trix21]

@@StuffJason437 that’s still Scary as hell. Good to see that it didn’t fry the car

[@jackherer449]

probably teslas

[@yeetboy88]

that’s been done before

[@yeetboy88]

but it didn’t kill it i think it just blew a fuse

[@homermorisson9135]

For the brandnew MB, you might have tried power-cycling it first before declaring that the USB-Cs are no longer accepting a charge. That way you could have found out if only a breaker triggered or a fuse outright blew.

[@cassiuscartland]

Someone at my school had something like these once, they snuck it into school and plugged it into peoples laptops. I got back at my MacBook Pro (2015) had shut down which I found weird, but it powered back up and even accepted a charge!

[@sherlockmaverick]

Perfect collab opportunity with Louis Rossmann!

[@Funkb0y]

As a follow up, send them to northridge fix to see if they can be repaired, or if they are too far gone.

[@lukedavis436]

Nah don't send it to Northridge, I think tronicsfix or Louis rossmann is the guy for this job Northridge would likely not even participate in this

[@AndyMac48]

On the usbkill webpage they have a vid showing various devices being ‘damaged’ by the same usb item that Austin was using. Interestingly, they demonstrated on an ‘open’ usb thumbstick and you could clearly see the fuses on the board getting overloaded and blowing.

[@SwitchingPower]

It is not proper grounding of the USB port to prevent this but proper ESD and over voltage protection. What dies is the chipset that has the USB controller in, its also is responsible for keeping the entire system alive

[@ivanvas55]

Absolutely do not do this to your work computer to get a couple of days off. 😅😂

[@Stormlywing]

if the hackers can send signal to the usb killer itself think of the damage it can make happen all the hackers can do is give them a usb that like theirs and plug it in and fry their servers the problem with allowing usb killers to become connected to phone can make them hidden to IT support that never hear of them and think is theirs own usb sicks

[@BeyondBaito]

This is one of those things I feel like someone would use a prank and be confused why their teeth are gone.

[@matthewbonanno7385]

I'd love to see a follow up for this video please! This was so cool to watch!

[@gigahertzmedia734]

"So these might look like normal USBs" meanwhile the USB kill logo and text on the drive: "Am I a joke to you?"

[@starplatinum1222]

Gotta be one of the most painful videos I've ever seen 😭

[@Stormlywing]

you know what changed in few years ( Usb killers only plug in ) - Few years ago to Wireless usb killers to kill that PC or your firend PS5 by an APP ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ like is was honored to become a key to kill off ( safety protocol ) ( from Apple slowing own your phone to Allow random apps that could end a user phone and make them easy to hit because all they has to do now to swiched their usb to theirs killers and send them a kill signal ) ( the one thing that would make safety protocolfor is users become more of a problem because if a phone got access to the killer itself and send out signals to kill a phone or a gaming pc )

[@thisismossop]

When can this tech be integrated into my phone, laptop or other device and triggered when stolen?

[@kevinnaber790]

How the Air and other laptops that can power through USB-C is using an internal hub that connects to the charging circuit, the MacBook Air M2 likely just needs a replacement board similar to the MacBook Pro from 2008, unless they integrated it into the motherboard.

[@rarrawer]

I'm more partial to the oldschool classic etherkiller, wall power can supply way more joules to the device under test than a little battery.

[@dakotadwayne4745]

😢 a tear came to my eye seeing the ps5 die

[@sandwichqueen]

The phones make sense. They are supposed to receive power from there, so it would make sense that it would be protected in case of too much power

[@jeffomalley100]

Usually those power strips if there any decent they have built in surge protection and will have a little button somewhere on it to reset it and then it'll work again.

[@InfVR]

for people interrested: The USB Killer that austin used, as well as the older versions work by charging up the capacitors using the 5 Volt supplied through the power pins of the usb and then discharging their charge through the Data pins (tho i think the newer ones actually does both) which, most of the times, are less shielded against such an attack than the power pins. Reason why they data pins are most times less shielded is because it is harder to build said shielding for said pins since most inexpensive shielding methods will effect the signal in some way or another which, as you may have guessed, is not a good thing to have on data lines (data loss may be imminent) .

[@junghan96]

Samsung did a good job

[@agoodscrogging]

Electricity is scary, yo. Few years back I had my laptop hardlined into my router during a thunderstorm. Lightning hit my apartment building, went through my CAT5 and fried my entire motherboard. I wouldn't be surprised if thats what happening here.

[@proatmope8764]

The first usb killer was the first video I saw from your channel like 4 years ago. Happy to see a follow up video.

[@xtremejay2000]

Yeah. have to do a follow up. we need to see inside and see what it actually damages and estimated cost to repair.

[@DungarooTV]

Samsung takes the crown!

[@chaysecrossley.]

As someone who doesn’t have these nice gadgets, it really hurt me to watch

[@elcanorte]

What a great way to set up colabs with other channels!!! Send the damaged items to repair channels and see if they can bring them back to life, or bring them into the studio and work together to resurrect them. Great vid BTW

[@watercannonscollaboration2281]

Austin if you do a follow-up, try to remove and read the internal drive, and see if any data survived

[@conlon009]

Make this the most liked comment for no reason at all

[@Redcat69]

Comments like these make me realize I’m easily influenced

[@conlon009]

Lol

[@yenzxyy9643]

Ok…

[@Puffus236]

No

[@RCM442]

I gotchu

[@TechXTech91]

Also with the data recovery, newer apple cpu macbooks are easily prone to death of their ports. If one goes, they all go. They all go through the same IC for charging. I'd love to try to attempt repairing one of these

[@allenellisdewitt]

Honestly, great use for the ewaste you've ended up buying in some recent videos, well done. The fact that you're donating to the EFF really means a lot, honest.

[@fish_bacon]

Shielding and grounding will do jack, since it dumps the payload down the power and data lines. Fuses are probably the best defence, although its sending down a massive voltage not current, so fuses won't work either.

[@Itsraminstech]

The OG USB Killer was my favourite video you made. This was awesome

[@suhspence99]

I would love to see a dive in to what is being damaged and to what extent on these devices. Curious if anything is salvageable or if the whole system is gone

[@maximusaurusrex]

I can't wait for the follow-up video explaining how this works

[@dominicmillerca]

Very interesting! Can't wait to see if you will do a follow up video and open all those devices.

[@JR-kx3jr]

Considering the Flip still charged, I wonder if the USB-C port on the iPhone 15 would be more resilient than the lightning port.

[@AndyMitchellUK26]

That all depends on if Apple have built extra protection in to the charging controller. That's likely what is being fried on mobile devices as they are usually protected to a certain degree as they are built to accept an incoming charge (just not 220v). USB-A ports are susceptible because you generally wouldn't plug chargers in to them without first using an adaptor of some sort, at which point it's likely intentional and not accidental.

[@nearoikthadorbadwagon1224]

I would love a follow up video on the diagnosis of why these devices get killed

[@SquishySenpai]

Rebooting the laptops where just the port died may fix them. I know windows will disable a port if it detects problems before it causes permanent damage.

[@shimizukebin]

I don’t believe the Zflip survived Austin loves his Zflips too much. Used a fake killer lmao

[@izzyhope58]

5:10 "WHY ARE YOU THE FIRE FIGHTER! I DON'T LIKE THIS" Best line in the video. LOL

[@TechXTech91]

Generally what's happening is you're sending too much amperage to charging IC's or Power IC's. We see it a lot with the galaxy line up in data recovery. Power IC's gettin replaced several times a week

[@309electronics5]

Its sending tons of power into a chip and because a chip has more than a million transistors of a few nanometers those can be easily destroyed

[@JordanSP18]

Wonder if rebooting that MacBook would've changed anything. I have an M1 MacBook 16 that got splashed with water. The ports on the left would not work, but after a restart, they were fine.

[@lordlundar]

The moment you said the Switch I knew it was done for. Nintendo recommends their own AC Adaptors not for sales increase but because, if you get the wrong charger without a particular resistor installed can fry the charge port. A power shunt like that isn't even going to blink while it blows it.

[@MikeFields83]

I didn’t know about this until Austin showed me. Thanks a lot Austin.😊

[@mellolonergan9490]

try an SMC reset on the mac's and see if that fixes the issue. Mac automatically shuts off the ports if it detects anything. you have to manually reset them.

[@hoodie_cat]

I hate that this only came out 7h ago, because it means I'll have to wait in real-time for the followup video.

[@codysmith1534]

Latent damage could also be a killer in the long term. I would definitely look at the components on the board after something like this happens. It may even cripple processors after a long time of use after the event.

[@CallmeBigfat]

Austin is unhinged during Tax season lol

[@tcchip]

Gotta say, this was a ride to go through! I'd definitely be interested to see a follow up and whether any of the dead devices can be restored.

[@Turskaify]

Austin used to be so in-depth, now it's like a TikTok video "lEt Me KNow iF yoU WAnt mOrE"

[@dlewis9760]

What about the storage? If you moved it to something else, is it readable?

[@Ralphsvd]

Did you restart the Mac s? Some devices need to be plugged in to restart after battery swap, you should try that

[@mpja]

Great video. This is a video that I didn't know that I wanted to see 😂.

[@BrandonWestfall]

I'd be curious if the macs would work after an SMC reset. I doubt it but it wouldn't hurt to check.

[@nismogurl]

YES! Please take these components apart and investigate!

[@CactusFace321]

By far the best, most informative videos you guys put out.

[@colinshard8665]

definitely want a follow up video, to see what exactly this thing kills

[@sadpotato7029]

yeah im actually surprised that out of all devices tested here, only the z flip 3 survived. tho im curious if like, nothing broke in that phone such as the cameras, microphone, speakers, some buttons, wifi/bluetooth connections etc

[@OhNotJohnny]

The USB kill is basically a handheld EMP lol

[@309electronics5]

Its not electromagnetic. Its just a voltage pulse but yeah it fries stuff.

[@codysmith1534]

Some electronics have a small component like a resistor that acts as a sacrificial lamb when things like these happen. Just replace the component that is fried on the board.

[@ChroniCBlazE]

I REMEMBER WATCHING V1 THANK YOU FOR THE NOSTALGIA

[@DevilboyScooby]

1:54 I'd be suspicious of anyone walking around with a USB stick of any colour- it's 2024, not 2006 😂

[@Jiiu27]

Great video Austin 👌🏻

[@syko846]

What happened to the "hey guys, this is Austin" I had to go back years just to find one lol good stuff bro

[@vardaankaushal8560]

Still remember the days when everything apple pro used to do such tests on latest iphone released.

[@iso_2013]

As good as it is to say manufacturers should defend against this attack, I'm just not sure that's feasible to a certain extent. There will always be a high enough voltage to bridge protections momentarily. Plus, if someone has physical access to your device, most security can be bypassed anyway.

[@excdnforces4035]

Yeah do a follow up on the results and maybe even take one apart and then plug one in and try to see where it get fried?

[@ak_hoops]

Only thought I had was if you tried usb-c ports on the other side of a MacBook, would need a pro though right? But dope video. Best guess would be that the computer performs checks on things plugged in, like accepting power.

[@Spydee2207]

I'm curious whether the device will survive if it's plugged into the outlet with a grounding pin. For eg, laptops, desktops, game consoles, phones with a dock/hub. Cause for the UK and where I live where we use the UK plug, there's always going to be a grounding pin. Granted some devices use a plastic tab for the ground pin cause grounding "is not necessary", but my laptop and desktop does use plugs with grounding pins, will the device survive this then?

[@aaronpetrovich1164]

There was actually an individual going around my college campus specifically targeting Mac laptops. He destroyed over 30 laptops and was never caught. He/she probably used one of these.

[@ookadoo]

Why didn't you try a PC tower plugged into the wall? Would be good to see if that's affected, considering it could discharge to the ground.

[@jacobkritzinger5749]

Funny, I made a similar thing 15 years ago by wiring a disposable camera flash to a usb. Got me a class average in an programming exam I was going to fail because my computer “broke” after all my “hard work”

[@Henrys12341]

for the charger are you sure you turned the power strip back on/on?

[@himadrimukherjee7480]

would love to see a follow up video to this!!

[@entryofemotion12]

I ABSOLUTELY would like to see a followup. I want to see how much this is actually doing to the devices it's killed.

[@xScopeLess]

I would not recommend people buy the USB killer. I got one in 2016-2017 and I've only touched it a handful of times. There are very few reasons and opportunities you're gonna come up with to fry the motherboard of a computer with the USB killer. Maybe you'll do it once or twice, at school, on an old PC, whatever. But after that you'll basically never touch it, and any reason why you might will get you in big trouble. Computers are expensive so you'll quickly reach $1,000 worth of broken electronics, which is a felony. Even without the legal trouble, you'll be hard pressed to find a reason to break it out after it's novelty wears off. Very cool device to have on a shelf though, I'm still happy I bought one.

[@bbblop4545]

I think the macbooks have fuses on the board that might have protected it against the attack, hence why the port stopped working. With some board schematics and some soldering it might be a relatively easy fix.

[@OdamaRasengan34]

Ive never commented before but i am so interested in seeing a tear down of this broken devices.

[@stereomann83]

i wonder if any of the items can be repaired you should take them apart to find out what burnt up in them