Question KVM Advice

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wanderica

Senior member
Oct 2, 2005
224
52
101
Hi everyone. I'm hoping someone out there has some good advice for an issue I will (soon) have. In a week, I will be trading in 25 years of Lab Tech experience for an IT analyst position in the same field and with the same company. And it's remote! My employer will be providing me with a laptop, docking station, dual 24" 1080p monitors, keyboard, mouse, and headset. This is all great news, but ...

The issue:

I already have a nice office setup with my gaming / personal rig driving a 120 Hz 3440 x 1440 ultrawide and a wall mounted 40" 4K Samsung TV as a secondary monitor capable of 4K60. It's a nice setup, and frankly, I simply don't have the room (nor the desire!) to find a place for 2 24" 1080p Dell monitors. There are enough inputs on both monitors that I could simply run the displays through a second input as a workaround. HDMI would work fine for the work computer, after all. Multiple of the same peripheral input devices doesn't excite me though. I like my desk real estate! I was thinking a KVM switch might be the more elegant solution, but I'm not sure to be honest. Does anyone have any experience in this area that can recommend a product? I don't want to lose my main rig's capabilities for example by limiting refresh rate due to the switch or create input lag (if that's even a thing with KVMs) from mouse / keyboard. I'm sure I'm overthinking this and the solution is simple, but some of these switches get expensive! I don't want to buy the wrong one. Any other solutions or ideas are welcome as well. Thanks!

Edit:

I've done some shopping around and have landed on these two options:


-This is only 4K60. Will it allow 1440p Ultrawide at 120 Hz?



-This should drive the resolutions just fine only at a much higher price point.
 
Last edited:
M

mv2devnull

Golden Member
Apr 13, 2010
1,498
144
106
I have seen some people use KVM switch only for the K&M and hook up each machine to the display (V) directly. Main reason was that video sources were different (DVI and HDMI) and converting/passing both through KVM was not an option. The downside is that one has to select display source from monitor and input with KVM. Upside is that connection to monitor is as good as ever. I don't know whether there are "USB switches"; such would be sufficient for that use.

I've also seen (Logitech?) wireless keyboard&mouse that had three USB-plugs for bluetooth. I.e. One K&M that could talk to three machines (and selection is on the K&M). Alas, those are wireless ... if that makes a difference.
 
W

wanderica

Senior member
Oct 2, 2005
224
52
101
mv2devnull said:
I have seen some people use KVM switch only for the K&M and hook up each machine to the display (V) directly. Main reason was that video sources were different (DVI and HDMI) and converting/passing both through KVM was not an option. The downside is that one has to select display source from monitor and input with KVM. Upside is that connection to monitor is as good as ever. I don't know whether there are "USB switches"; such would be sufficient for that use.

I've also seen (Logitech?) wireless keyboard&mouse that had three USB-plugs for bluetooth. I.e. One K&M that could talk to three machines (and selection is on the K&M). Alas, those are wireless ... if that makes a difference.
Click to expand...
I was just reading about that. A good USB switch should be a lot cheaper, and let me swap my DAC (which controls all audio output and input) and my webcam. Manually switching the monitor inputs wouldn't be the worst solution as it would let me use both PCs at once if I wanted to run netflix while working on work tasks. Good suggestion. Thanks
 
In2Photos

In2Photos

Golden Member
Mar 21, 2007
1,629
1,651
136
wanderica said:
Hi everyone. I'm hoping someone out there has some good advice for an issue I will (soon) have. In a week, I will be trading in 25 years of Lab Tech experience for an IT analyst position in the same field and with the same company. And it's remote! My employer will be providing me with a laptop, docking station, dual 24" 1080p monitors, keyboard, mouse, and headset. This is all great news, but ...

The issue:

I already have a nice office setup with my gaming / personal rig driving a 120 Hz 3440 x 1440 ultrawide and a wall mounted 40" 4K Samsung TV as a secondary monitor capable of 4K60. It's a nice setup, and frankly, I simply don't have the room (nor the desire!) to find a place for 2 24" 1080p Dell monitors. There are enough inputs on both monitors that I could simply run the displays through a second input as a workaround. HDMI would work fine for the work computer, after all. Multiple of the same peripheral input devices doesn't excite me though. I like my desk real estate! I was thinking a KVM switch might be the more elegant solution, but I'm not sure to be honest. Does anyone have any experience in this area that can recommend a product? I don't want to lose my main rig's capabilities for example by limiting refresh rate due to the switch or create input lag (if that's even a thing with KVMs) from mouse / keyboard. I'm sure I'm overthinking this and the solution is simple, but some of these switches get expensive! I don't want to buy the wrong one. Any other solutions or ideas are welcome as well. Thanks!

Edit:

I've done some shopping around and have landed on these two options:


-This is only 4K60. Will it allow 1440p Ultrawide at 120 Hz?



-This should drive the resolutions just fine only at a much higher price point.
Click to expand...
Here is my setup which I feel works pretty well that I responded to another post.
In2Photos said:
Here's my setup which is similar to what you are after. I don't believe a single device will do what you want (I couldn't find one when I did mine).

Home Desktop
Work laptop (Dell XPS 15) with docking station
3 monitors, keyboard and mouse
USB switch

I have the Dell docking station connected via thunderbolt to the laptop. It connects to each monitor via HDMI. A single USB to the USB switch.

Desktop connects to each monitor via DP. Single USB to the USB switch.

USB switch connects to both the keyboard and mouse. I simply click the button to transfer the keyboard and mouse to each computer and use the input button on the monitors to change between the two computers.

Here is the USB switch. UGREEN USB 3.0 Sharing Switch... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N6GD9JO?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
And any USB dock should work as long as it has the connections you need.
Click to expand...
 
Brainonska511

Brainonska511

Lifer
Dec 10, 2005
24,105
6,910
136
I use a basic 4-port USB switch from IOgear for my keyboard/mouse. My monitors have enough inputs on their own: DisplayPort from primary to desktop, then DisplayPorts from both monitors to my laptop's dock. I've basically been using a setup like this for 5 years and it works great.
 
W

wanderica

Senior member
Oct 2, 2005
224
52
101
Thanks for the input everyone. I think I'll save some cash and go with a USB switch. A full on KVM switch seems more trouble and expense than it's worth.
 
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kschendel

kschendel

Senior member
Aug 1, 2018
265
193
116
The USB switch is probably the right choice for you.

I've used a variety of hacks depending on hardware. At one point I had two monitors, a DVI/USB KVM switch, and a USB switch, running 5 computers. 4 of the computers had DVI output, one had only HDMI. One monitor was DVI only and one was HDMI. The USB switch swapped between the HDMI computer and the KVM switch, and the KVM switch swapped among the other 4 computers.

(Ultimately I managed to rationalize all that, and now I have one 8-port KVM switch, one HDMI monitor, and 7 controlled machines.)
 
Chapbass

Chapbass

Diamond Member
May 31, 2004
3,148
89
91
Just chiming in, I actually use a USB switch (ugreen, like posted above), but also a 2 port DP switch. Its 2 buttons to toggle back and forth instead of 1, but so cheap and works great. My issue was my monitor only has a single DP in.

If I wanted to do multiple monitors (on my list, long story), I'd have to get more switches, woudl be annoying but not terrible.
 
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