This post on HN yesterday fixed my problems of the last 5-7 days. I use a TB 2 Hub hooked up to a 2018 MBP to 2 4k monitors, a USB mic, etc.
And I've noticed the hub got really unstable whenever the CPU fans would go wild. Looks like it was the controller overheating due to the shitty thermals that Jony Ive's Apple seems to keep pushing out. (Still the Apple of today).
Now that I've switched my ports in a different config, so far I've had no crashes in the last 2 days.
I swear, I wish I didn't love macOS so much (or wasn't so heavily invested in it), or I'd happily ditch it for a really powerful thermally cooled desktop and use that as my machine. WSL makes this more palatable, but the unparalleled retina support on macOS, my 15 years of using it, and just habits built up, keeps me from leaving. (I felt the same way when I first moved from windows to macOS, but it was in my early 20s and I had lots of time to play with the OS)
"I swear, I wish I didn't love macOS so much (or wasn't so heavily invested in it), or I'd happily ditch it for a really powerful thermally cooled desktop and use that as my machine."
I was you at this time about two years ago. Exact same thing. Fed up with Apple hardware bullshit, and with their pricing. With Apple in general. I had a sick iMac (as sick as an iMac can be, I mean). Loved and was invested in OSX. But something tipped the scales. Can't remember what specifically, but I said "fuck it" and put the machine on Craigslist. Got a buyer immediately, and lost very little money on a three year old machine. Took the cash, plus a little more, and built a PC. A liquid cooled PC. An egregious, so-ugly-it's-kinda-neat monster with tubes and a radiator and fans and the whole deal. I run Windows 10 Pro and Ubuntu. Neither is perfect for me. Windows especially can be maddening. My personal pet peeve is the lack of powerful device search -- in OSX, I could use Spotlight or better yet Alfred to look inside PDFs, for example. SOL on that in W10.
But it was worth it. My AMD-powered PC smokes anything in my Zip code, I'm pretty sure, and it's more than enough for my work needs (and my work does actually put the thing through its paces.)
I miss OSX, but not enough to go back.
A Spotlight like feature is coming in the next update to Windows 10 I believe. Totally agree on PDFs though, Windows doesn’t even have a solution as decent as Preview on MacOS. The default for PDFs is internet explorer for gods sake.
And curious, do you dual boot Ubuntu, or do you use WSL? My biggest gripe with Windows is the insufferable terminal. But WSL fixes that, and WSL 2.0 is going to have full platform Docker support as well.
Now that Apple insists on proprietary chips, has horrible thermal throttling, got rid of the MagSafe charger, and regressed on keyboard experience, I can’t say I’ll buy another MacBook if my current one dies.