Tom's Hardware KVM Roundup

nexex writes: "Tom's Hardware has a new article with a review of several KVM switches. I have considering buying a KVM switch as I seem to collect/use more & more computers, I feel left with little choice :) While I have several friends who have taken the plunge, they have all spent wildly different amounts on them. Granted price plays a great factor on the features you get, but how do you know which one is not going to end up letting you down? If you end up with el cheapo, you will most certainly end up regretting it, as this device will be carrying the signals of your primary input and output to your systems."

Comments

IOGear and USB support

[Osty]

I've been using the IOGear 2-port KVM switch reviewed in the article for several months now, and I have to say I love it. I use it to share between XP and Linux, and neither machine has ever had a problem with the USB devices. I did run into a slight problem with the video causing snow and jitters in X11 (no problems at all in XP), but adjusting the modeline (dumped via xvidtune, changed the polarity of the hsync) made the problems disappear. For anybody who wants to get away from PS/2 systems, or uses Macs, I really do recommend IOGear.

The only thing I could wish for is the OSD/hotkey support of IOGear's 4-port model, but I can live without that. Also, Tom's price was a bit high. I bought mine for roughly $100 at a local computer store.

I used one of these

[vsync64]

At my previous employer I had one of these to switch between my laptop (Sony Vaio Z505, mmm) and my tower (HP Kayak, bleh). I'm almost positive it was the GCS124U, but it didn't have the OSD stuff they mentioned in the review. I remember that the one thing which annoyed me about the KVM was that there was no way to jump past the 2 empty slots, and there wasn't any way to switch via a keystroke or anything but the Big Button. Then again, I was running Slackware, so maybe it required some sort of special software. Other than that, it was a really solid unit, and I highly recommend it.

You can see my setup right before they laid us all off. And of course they kept the KVM and the shiny laptop... :(

Inova

[NoInfo]

The guys at Inova have a KVM switch not reviewed in this article. In addition, they claim that it doesn't just switch the KeyboardVideoMouse, but all your silly devices. There's a small, pleased review of it here.

Apex

[Scrag]

I use 8-port Apex KVM switches at work, and they have some nice features; they also have a few flaws. These KVM switches arent the cheap ones found in this review, but if your looking for higher end equipment I might be able to give some useful nformation.

The switches are only KVM, no sound, no USB. To change screens, you press the print screen key. It brings up a menu, and you can choose between any of your machines. The machines can all be named, so you know exactly what machine you are going to. Another nice feature is that you can chain them together for more than just 8 machines on the switch. My only real complaint is that sometimes the menu doesnt get erased when you switch machines, so you have to bring it up again and get rid of it. I havent had any problems with screen resolutions, keyboards or mice. Definitely worth looking into for a setup with more machines than two.

Exploit the monitor's A/B switch?

[crucini]

Background: Good KVM's are expensive. Cheap KVM's are awful. Many monitors now have a built-in high quality A/B switch. Many KVM users spend 95% of time on a workstation, and occasionally have to flip to a "headless" box to make a BIOS change or something.

Why not buy a cheap KVM, attach a cheap keyboard to it, and plug it into input B on the monitor? Then most of the time you have high quality video from the workstation to input A. When using the KVM, you probably don't care about quality. Of course, there is the danger of typing on the wrong keyboard.

Personally, I just use the monitor A/B both at home and at work. The B cable goes on whatever box I'm fixing/setting up at the moment. Once the box has networking, there is no need for KVM.

Re:Too much $$.

[snake_dad]

Have you tried tight VNC??

Re:Belkins are good

[iCEBaLM]

Only negative I've found is that I need to have the Win2k box selected while it boots, otherwise the wheel mouse isn't detected... the rest of the mouse works, just not the wheel.

Control Panel -> Mouse -> Hardware -> Properties -> Advanced Settings

Change "Wheel Detection" to "Assume wheel is present".

-- iCEBaLM