[PLUG] 2-System (KVM) Switches

Ken Stephens kens at cad2cam.com
Thu Jan 19 00:44:54 UTC 2012


Wayne E. Van Loon Sr. wrote:
> chris (fool) mccraw wrote:
>> On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 15:34, Chaz Sliger<chaz at bctonline.com>  wrote:
>>
>>> Has anyone had good experiences with any of the small 2-4 system kvm
>>> switches?
>>>
>>> I've tried several and they all seem to suck pretty bad.  The latest was a
>>> Belkin SOHO.
>>>
>>> I'm trying to set up a config where 1 screen/keyboard/mouse is used for a
>>> home desktop system and a work laptop.
>>>
> I recently utilized a KVM switch in a distributed computing environment.
> I tried a zonenet before a settling on a ioGear 4-port USB / VGA.
>
> The ioGear was very compact and didn't take up a lot of space.
> It was USB powered, so it didn't need 110 VAC power.
> It has a cord and small button to step round-robin between hosts.
>
> On power-up, it automatically selects the host on it's first port,
> regardless of which host powered up. The video cards I was using had
> VGA, DVI and HDMI outputs but only drove an output (VGA / DVI / HDMI) if
> it sensed the presence of a flat panel / monitor. If a host was not
> selected by the KVM at boot, no video, so the hosts had to be booted in
> sequence. It would have been nice if the ioGear would have been able to
> reflect the monitor simultaneously to all hosts, but other than that, it
> worked fine.
>
> I briefly looked at KVMs that utilize catx cables between the switch and
> hosts. The ones I looked at utilize a Server Interface Module at each
> host. They were expensive and would not support 1920 x 1080 graphics
> that I needed.
>
> YMMV.
>
> Wayne
>
>
>
Is there a reason to use a hardware KVM switch.  I am using Synergy to 
control my
three systems with one keyboard and mouse.  This application gives me 
the ability
to copy and paste from and to any system.  Very handy. You do have 
multiple monitors
but I like the larger real estate for my applications.

-- 
Ken Stephens SV Aventura Portland, OR



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