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Does a DVI KVM Solution Exist?
clichekiller asks: "I'm looking for a way to share my Apple 23" LCD between my Dual-G4 and my Athlon PC. I know that I'll need to upgrade my PC video card to one that has a DVI connector on it, but I haven't found a DVI Switch yet. Is there a simple way to share an LCD between two computers? Has anyone managed this between a Mac and a PC? I'd really like to ditch my behemoth 70 lbs. 19" monitor."
... bother to look for them?
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
Belkin makes a version of their Omniview SOHO KVM switches that has DVI ports and USB - perfect for use with a Mac. Unfortunately, I've been unable to get it to work with the Apple 23" flat panel monitor using Apple's DVI-ADC adapter. When the monitor is connected to the Mac through the KVM switch, the Mac (a G5) shuts itself down immediately. I haven't yet figured out why it does this or whether there's a workaround. Belkin tech support says they've never heard of that but couldn't say whether they'd tested the switch with Apple's monitors.
I've had the same monitor as you (23" Widescreen LCD Apple Cinedisplay) for about a year and a half, though I have not owned a mac for ages. The only thing I've been able to find is a $250 adapter/splitter that is much like the existing one you get when you buy the monitor. The problem is, it is just a splitter. You still have to either have a DVI connection on your second machine or a VGA->DVI adapter.
I don't recall where I found the adapter though, since it was about a year ago. I just know that it was too expensive for my taste after I had already spent $500 for my new video card and $2200 for the monitor.
Plug the LCD into the better of the two computers. Make sure both computers are networked together. Set up an X server on both machines. Set it up to switch the displays when you push a certain keystroke.
This is probably a lot easier to set up than what I'm trying to do. I've got a 17" crt and a 17" lcd plugged into a dual head geforce fx. I'm trying to configure X so that I can get one window manager on the left and another window manager on the right. Then I want to use x2x or something to move the mouse and keyboard between the two. Apparently this is very difficult given I have only one video card as opposed to two. If anyone knows how, please tell me.
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The fscking /. editors don't google "DVI KVM" and send the results to the submitter
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
nuff said
I find it hilarious that you didn't read his post thouroughly. If you did you would have seen he wants it for a 23" Apple HD LCD. In other words, he wants to be able to use the native 1920x1200 resolution. If you had checked the ones you found they have a MAX digital resolution of 1600x1200. So who is the idiot now?...
MacOSX, because making *NIX better is a lot better than waiting for Micro$loth to fix Windows
As I recall, there was something about this in the xorg FAQ. You don't need 2 X servers. You just need to set up 2 displays, *without* xinerama. Just follow the standard dual-head configuration thing - it mentions dual-headed cards. Then, start X normally, and your primary display will contain your original window manager. After that, just do DISPLAY=:0.1 icewm & or whatever. Note that you can't push stuff across your desktops other than your cursor, though. -ReK
md5sum -c reality.md5
reality: FAILED
md5sum: WARNING: 1 of 1 computed checksum did NOT match
Why upgrade your video card and buy a KVM when software (VNC et. al.) will suffice?
Of course this solution depends greatly on the intended use, as it is not entirely suited to hardcore gaming, etc.
Dr. Bott makes a pretty inexpensive mechanical DVI+USB switch. Like most of them, it's only good for up to 1280x1024 panels. They used to advertise it as being okay for Cinema displays, but enough people had problems owing to the extra cable length not being tolerated well for the higher signaling rate that they withdrew the claim.
This one would just require a ADC-DVI connector between the PC and the switch.
For more choices, go here and search "kvm adc" or "kvm dvi"
"I forgot my mantra."
"The Apple Cinema HD Display sports a 23-inch (viewable) thin film transistor (TFT) active-matrix liquid crystal display that supports an astonishing 1920 by 1200 pixel resolution. And it comes with an even more astonishing price: $1999."
Care to revise your statement?
http://www.ramelectronics.net/html/DVI_switch.html
Expensive, however....
-psy
DVI KVM Switches
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I ditched KVMs about a year ago. Now I have Xinerama multihead setup (number of heads vary with varying number of monitors, videoadapters and deskspace available), and use X on *nix boxes and vnc to windows boxes.
.. they are a thing of the past .. and perhaps serverroom.
Much easier than KVM-switches.. really
Dude, re-read the article. He mentions nothing about the resolution let alone any searching he had done.
Paul Lenhart writes words!
If you have found DVI KVM switches, but they don't go up to Apple's 23" display, then the correct question to ask is "I have found lots of DVI KVM switches that work at lower resolutions, but none that work with 1920x1200 mode".
If you ask the right question, you'll get good answers. If you ask an idiotic question, you'll get bad answers and people will rightfully complain that you didn't search.
To answer your question, "So who is the idiot now?", it's you and the person who originally asked the question.
If you'd read closer, he also mentions using this in favour of his current 19" monitor set up, which I doubt gets a resolution so high.
So, 1600x1200 on that LCD would look just peachy in comparison to 1280x1024 on the monitor he dislikes.
That being said, the editors don't have the time or energy to memorize the specs of every electronics product every manufacturer sells. On that note... How far is it from tip to grip on the Hakko 900S soldering handle?
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
I've found that VNC, at least the "official" release, can have major performance issues on the server machine. It eats CPU like crazy, and besides that performance hit, it actually slows down certain GUI bound programs.
I had one niche industry program run more than 50% slower - not doubt it was badly or something, but a KVM wouldn't cause such foolishness.
Jonathan
Sorry if my initial posting was not specific enough. This was my first time posting a question.
Yes I'm looking to run at the native resolution, if possible. I keep my PC around to play games on so VNC or other networking solutions won't work.
As far as googling, I did that and only came up with some switches that wouldn't support my resolution. Again I should have been more specific.
I was hoping I wasn't the only person out there who wanted to do this and was looking for some input from others who have tried this to see what solutions work best.
On a side note, I've read your criticisms and have distilled from them the mistakes I made in my initial posting. In the future I will try to post more detailed information.
Sir, there is a dragon outside with an armful of armor. He's inquiring if we offer free refills.
On a side note, I've read your criticisms and have distilled from them the mistakes I made in my initial posting. In the future I will try to post more detailed information.
Shhh! This type of attitude is unacceptable! If you show any kind of weakness or hesitation, they'll tear you to shreds!
'I ain't a liar, baby, and I ain't proud I just want what I'm not allowed.' -- Violent Femmes, 36-24-36
Shhh! This type of attitude is unacceptable! If you show any kind of weakness or hesitation, they'll tear you to shreds!
Ha! Thanks for the laugh. Now if only I wasn't at work at the time.
My intent in that statement was that I ignored the derisive nature of the comments and took out of them the constructive bits.
Sir, there is a dragon outside with an armful of armor. He's inquiring if we offer free refills.
Us Mac users that know what the native res on the 23"hd is knew also that it would be stupid to "want" to use a resolution less than the native. Only a bunch of PeeCee boneheads would want to spend $2K on a monitor only to have the edges of the wide screen black (loosing the 320 pixels of the direrence)-- Bob
MacOSX, because making *NIX better is a lot better than waiting for Micro$loth to fix Windows
This is the same Belkin that has browser redirection to ads built into their soho routers?
And just what is wrong with welcome datacomp ads built into consumer devices?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Well, I might as well post a comment at the root level, as aposed to replying to other peoples comments.
1> this person has a $2000 dollar APPLE High Definition LCD Screen. The NATIVE resolution is 1920x1200. It goes without saying that his PeeCee probably has a graphic card capable of the resolution, if not I'm sure he has enough money to get one (they start at about $100).
2> for all you Google searchers... There are no KVM switches on your search that support anything higher than 1600x1200. I'm sure if he wanted to downgrade to that resolution, he would have never asked this question.
3> for the Suggestions involving VNC, or Remote Desktop, they are good suggestions however they have been found to be a known security issue. UNLESS you run your own home network behind a firewall these should NEVER be used. If you use them without blocking internet connectivity to those ports, you will have every script kiddy in the known universe tapdancing all over your precious machine. IF you are behind a firewall they would be OK provided you secure the LAN and "trust" all the other machines on that LAN.
With all that being said, I have looked into the issue also, I own a Dual 2Gig G5 with a 23" also, along with an alienware and laptop, the VNC/RemoteDesktop works for everything except when I want to play FPS games (or other high refresh rate applications) on the Alienware.
Bob
MacOSX, because making *NIX better is a lot better than waiting for Micro$loth to fix Windows
You can get USB switches for under $10 shipped, and between the two you have a lossless display switch.
If you go the KVM route with DVI, you're limited to lower datarate DVI modes. No 1600x1200 or Apple Cinema display support that I'm aware of. If you go the KVM route with VGA, you still experience significant signal loss unless you get a shorter monitor cable and VERY short cables between the KVM and the PCs.
There may be few DVI switches - but CRT switches are plentiful and cheap.
If you use 3 DVI->CRT Converters and a CRT switch, you should be able to retain the DVI connectivity. It should look a little like this:
System 1*---&|CRT Switch|&----*System 2
&
|
*
Monitor
& = DVI->CRT Adapter
- | = DVI Cable
Switch = CRT Switch
* = DVI In/Out
I'm pretty sure it works - in theory. I claim no responsibility if this fries your monitor/video card(s).
Frink: Nice try floyd, but you were designed for scrubbing, and scrubbing is what you shall do.
In the spirit of the ancient reply "RTFM", I'd like to offer "RTFG", where G of course stands for Google.
It's the editors who take responsibility for completely lame submissions. I wonder about the review process. I'm sure /dev/random plays an important part.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
http://www.gefen.com/kvm/product.jsp?prod_id=1208
Works well. You just need an ADC to DVI converter (which I picked up at the Apple Store). I used this setup to share my 22" cinema display between my PC and my G4.
I avoid those bastards' products at all costs, and if you're a Mac user, you should, too. They're overpriced and, like the parent poster discovered, not as flexible as one would expect-- and of course they don't give a fuck once they've gotten your money. They left a bad taste in my mouth years ago, back in the ADB days-- their KVM solutions for connecting a PS/2 PC and an ADB Mac were a mess of cables and boxes that was impossible to arrange neatly, and the Mac-specific parts featured extortionate pricing.
I've found that the higher-end KVMs are all designed for server rooms, and they were designed with the assumptions that nobody will ever do something like remap their mouse buttons or use a keyboard with special features, because hey, it's for controlling servers. I once bought an IOGear with all kinds of nifty features, but it ignored the media keys on my Microsoft keyboard, defaulted my mouse buttons to left-click, right-context ( a travesty when you're a lefty) and ignored the scroll wheel completely. I immediately returned it.
The KVM I settled on was a manual Dr. Bott VGA & USB switch. No hotkeys, no OSD, nothing fancy at all. It doesn't emulate shit, just acts as a dumb pass-thru for the attached devices. When I switch to my PC, I just have to wait a couple seconds for Windows to detect the mouse and keyboard. OS X seems to notice the peripherals much quicker when I switch back.
I've also bought StarTech KVMs from time to time for clients, and those work okay as well. StarTech does appear to make a DVI KVM that supports 1920x1440, but only analog. The digital max resolution is 1600x1200.
I current have a setup with a couple of Powermac G4 Cubes and a Vaio on a Gefen KVM connected to a 23" cinema display LCD and a Kennsignton wireless mouse.
Works great, they support ADC by providing ADC-to-DVI cables and the main box is DVI/USB/audio.
I have one major complaint - the switch they provides (ie, the UI) is via an IR remote control. Unfortunately it's hideously simple - my TiVo remote is constantly swtiching the KVM if I don't block it. And that's the only UI to the KVM. Otherwise, it's great.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
While this topic is being discussed, maybe people can toss out ideas for this situation:
Analog (no DVI), minimum 4 sytems, maximum 8 systems. USB, dual-user, dual-head, and rackmountable features are a plus.
Exceptional video quality, though, is an absolute must. Minimum 1600x1200x85Hz in *perfect* video quality.
I have a nice Aten, but even with high-dollar cabling, I still get a lot of ghosting and blurring at 1600x1200x85hz. Besides, it's only a 2-system KVM, and I need a few more ports.
Thanks for any ideas anyone has!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
My 17" moniter can run 1600x1200. There is nothing special about it although i use 1280x1024 because text gets hard to read. I can not remember what model it is (and I am on my laptop now) but it is a dell that sold for about $170 or so in 2000.
That being said I do not know what res he runs on his 19" moniter now, or what it is capable of. However, given that he can afford the 23" Apple LCD, I would imagine it can do at least 1600x1200, and also that he has a video card which can run the same.
Your 17" can run 1600x1200? CRT (assuming this from the price)? Damn, mine can only do 1280x1024@60Hz... However, it WAS free (saved from the dumpster - it had a hairline crack in the plastic)
Keep in mind that using a KVM may require you to make compromises you find unacceptable.
I bought and tried a few on my P4, G4, and G5- based setup. Ended up returning *all* of them.
The biggest issues I encountered, in no particular order:
1) degraded video quality. some cables / switches were better than others, but all of them caused some degredation past about 1024x768.
2) virtualization of mouse and keyboard devices. stops any special buttons or keys from working. on most KVMs, this means that your apple media keys might not work and some unusual mice (my kensington optical trackball) may not work at all. This alone was a deal-breaker for me since i use those extra buttons for expose and other functions
3) pc-centric nature of most kvm's. most of them assume you are connecting PCs. KVM hardware may not work or may have issues with non-PC OS' or hardware. The KVMs i tried usually worked ok, but a few presented virtual devices that were not recognized by my Macs or Linux.
Good luck!
Diego
sadly, the ACD23's use apple's own proprietary connector, the ADC and requires a 100dollar adapter (sold by apple and some other companies). The ADC is essentially a DVI connector but with power and USB lines all in one. And because of the proprietary-ness, it'll cost you.
I stand by my initial comment. If you wanted support for a specific resolution, then just add that to your search query. I did, and I found this:
http://www.kvms.com/nav/item.asp?item=7071
What's this? Why it's a 2-Port DVI USB KVM Switch that lists support for 1920x1200 resolution in the specs. Thanks, Google!
if you dont care to use dvi you can always just convert it to vga easily enough, that's what i did with my kvm. the adaptors are cheap and easy to find (and often come with the monitor).
Red Hat is for people who hate Windows, FreeBSD is for people who love Unix.
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Here is a very cool software solution for your problem. It allows you to share mouse/keyboard/monitor with all of your computer systems via your computer network. Essentially you can switch to each system by moving your mouse off of the edge of your 23" monitor. ie.. move mouse to left and you have control of your Linux Box, move mouse to the right and you get back to your Mac or Windows system for that matter. Awesome software that outta be included into the X11 standard for folks that have to administrate several machines on their local network. http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/ Hope it helps !!
DVI specification doesn't really support 1920x1200 either... Apple performed a hack to DVI (data in vblank signal) to get more information packed into the cable.
Given this, there is a good chance DVI switchers actually CAN support 1920x1200 even though they "officially" can't claim they do.
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Search the fine web...
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There is an easy solution and I have it for you.
What you need is the CompuCable Hybrid ADC/DVI KVM switch.
It has an ADC-out port that goes to your Cinema display -- mine is the 22". There is an ADC-in port that comes from the video card on the G4. You plug your USB keyboard and mouse into the back of the Cinema display. Mouse and keyboard signals are passed over ADC to the Mac.
There is also a DVI-in port that accepts signal from your PC video card. Then there is a USB output port that connects to your PC's USB input. This gets mouse and keyboard signals into the PC.
It changes monitor AND mouse AND keyboard from Mac to PC and back with the push of ONE button. It works every time. I'm using my Cinema 22 monitor, swapping between a G4/Panther and a PC/Windows 2000 at 1620x1024 32-bit resolution.
No sweat! Five minutes to set up!
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
Turns out I had this exact issue... I love my Apple Cinema Display 23 incher. Got one for home and one for work. Both hooked up to WinXP boxes (sorry Mac dudes... Apple makes a sweet, and I mean SWEET, LCD slab... but daddy's gotta eat).
. ht ml
Upgrading my work rig, I needed to KVM back and forth with the old one. So I got this puppy:
http://store.yahoo.com/kvm-switch/adcdvi-adc-ab
You hook your PeeCee into it plus the two monitors. It does the DVI to ADC conversion for you... don't need apples dingleberry. Costs about $280.
It also switches the USB of the monitor's hub. Which, in my case, took care of keyboard and monitor. Doesn't seem to be any keyboard equivs of the switch key, but otherwise works okay. If you have one of those Microsoft keyboards iwth the pesky F Lock, be aware that'll reset every time you switch. Ick.
Still, it does it's thing well. And yes, it does the full resolution of the monitor... native 1920x1200.
-- David
David Whatley