Using USB to Separate Computer and Keyboard/Mouse?

Klaus Thorn asks: "As a member of a technical team that plans a radio station with several audio-editing cabins I'm thinking about separating the noisy heat-producing computer from the cabin using one VGA cable and one USB cable. The computer is in the computer storage room. In the cabin there is (besides LCD) an USB hub with keyboard, mouse, soundcard and CDR-drive. Has anyone tried this? I need to know whether this all-USB-solution is clean and stable or a bunch of problems. I need to know what distance I can put between cabin and computer-storage room. Let's assume USB 2.0 and amplifying USB cables and Windows XP."

"One more detail: When the admin changes some hardware in the computer store room he does not want to run to the cabin to push a button. He could plug out the USB cable and plug in another USB cable that is connected to mouse and keyboard in the same room. After he's finished he could exchange the usb cables again (to the one leading to the cabin). This is only sensible if the computer will accept all four USB devices without driver reinstall and reboot. Anyone tried this or can predict wether this will work?"

Comments

Check first

[segvio]

Look up specs on USB audio devices. Many (and I mean MANY) will not work at all on USB (power or unpowered) hubs and require a direct USB connection.

Try it yourself

[Rick the Red]

Not to be flip, but why not try it yourself? Surely you have a Windows PC with at least one USB port, so give it a go. From personal experience when I unplug most USB devices Windows gives a warning that I should have told it first, but Windows doesn't crash. You might also try two keyboards (one in each of two USB ports) to see if you don't need to unplug the remote keyboard to use a local one (I'm sure you can find PCs with two USB ports and use one for local, the other for remote).

As for how far you can go, I would think VGA is your limiting factor, not USB.

Re:Try it yourself

[sweetooth]

You can use multiple usb keyboards on a pc. Or you could use a USB keyboard and a PS/2 keyboard at the same time. I've done all of the above with no problem. I believe the max extension on a VGA cable is 25ft and USB is 15' without signal boosting. If you want to spend a bunch of money you can get a KVM extender style setup which lets you extend the keyboard, mouse, video, and audio up to 250ft over CAT5.

usb

[Anonymous Coward]

USB is nice in that multiple peripherals can all use the same port, but it just plain sucks for a variety of reasons

1. It's a master/slave relationship, rather than p2p
   
2. Bandwidth is limited.
   
3. the irq/dma conflicts make people yearn for the simplicity of editting dos/windows ini files
   

USB is good for keyboards and mice (only because hot-plugging is allowed), and simple low-bandwidth usage. However, USB drives (especially cdr) is asking for trouble.

It's a shame firewire isn't more prevalent. It's a better solution for higher i/o peripherals.

Have you considered Firewire?

[TorgoGuy]

The Firewire spec allows for much longer cables than USB. A bought two 32ft firewire cables that were guaranteed to operate at that distance (www.granitedigital.com) and put a firewire hub to connect the two together. That gave me 64 feet of distance.

I have done CD/DVD burning, printing, and scanning, with no problems over this 64ft distance.

I used a refurb Cybex extender for the keyboard, video and mouse over one CAT5 cable.

Try diskless with VNC

[Craig Maloney]

Diskless with VNC might get you where you want to be. You can reduce the noise from drives and fans, and you'll be able to control the main machine(s) from the audio rooms.