DVI KVM switches, any progress?

[MaxBurn]

I need a plain DVI two workstation switch. Because of the nightmares I have had with USB mice and keyboards with KVM's I want to stay PS/2 because it just works (even in DOS, go figure).

I see a slew of options on the egg, very different than a year ago when I looked last. I even see an ATEN there and I think someone here likes them a lot?

Have they solved the problem of no video on a PC that is powered and the KVM wasn't switched to it?

Recommendations please both good and bad!

 

[Gilbo]

I too am curious if anyone has any recommendations regarding KVM switches. Except I'm looking for USB & DVI rather than DVI & PS2... just to confuse everyone. Sorry I can't help you out Maxburn, I have no experience with any KVM products.

Any brands well-respected? NCIX has this Belkin, but I don't know if that's a reasonable price or even a decent quality unit.

 

[MaxBurn]

Well give it about three weeks and I will likely report back on that Aten, I think thats what I am going to get. Otherwise I am just looking at the reviews on the newegg pages.

 

[ddrueding]

I've recently moved away from KVMs entirely. I spent too much time troubleshooting the KVMs and cables when I should have been fixing the problem on the server that I couldn't get to!

Solution? USB keyboard and mouse, and VGA direct. All hot-pluggable. Of course, I use remote desktop when I can and only resort to this when I need it. BIOS these days support USB->PS2 keyboard emulation anyway.

I realize this isn't answering your question, sorry I can't help.

 

[Tannin]

Aten is a god brand, ditto Belkin. I've used and/or sold quite few KVMs and had very little trouble with the better quality ones. These days we use an inexpensive little thing that I'd have to check the brand of but works well. It is unusual in that it has te cables built-in and is thus much cheaper than the normal sort.

Never needed to do it with DVI, however, and I've always stuck to VGA and PS/2 or (in the case of my big 4-way one) VGA and PS/2 and serial.

 

[MaxBurn]

Happy to report that the Aten CS1762 works perfectly fine. This is a DVI/USB/audio controller. There are some odd quirks that I don't think are related to this device though.

-When powering on a computer the switch MUST be switched to that computer, if you don't it will start up at the adapter default resolution and be unable to change from that OR it won't give you video at all through the DVI port. All I can think is that there is some handshaking between the video card and the monitor at bootup and if that doesn't take place to tell the video card what it is attached to then the video card must revert to defaults, makes sense to me.

-Small lag in mouse/keyboard after switching. Only about a half second but my last switch was nearly instant. I hardly notice it.

-No noticeable degrade in video quality or artifacts or weirdness at all. Lines are razor sharp as DVI should be, way better than going analog to the same monitors. Monitor is well under the listed 1920x1200 resolution though which is more of a DVI-D single link limitation I believe.

-One really odd and bizarre thing. If you only have one computer on and switch to the other port you get a funny green screen with a shadow of the picture thats on the screen for the computer that is on. Looks a little like the matrix! Goes away as soon as you turn that computer on though.

-Compatibility should be pretty good, listed: win, sun, linux and mac.

 

[ddrueding]

Good to hear. Thanks for the mini-review MaxBurn.

 

[Bozo]

For that price it should kiss you good-night and make coffee in the morning. :wink:


Bozo :joker:

 

[MaxBurn]

For that price it should kiss you good-night and make coffee in the morning. :wink:


Bozo :joker:

I think in most places thats less than an hour rental for anything decent.

 

[ddrueding]

That is really not a bad price for a DVI KVM. When I was last looking they were $300+

 

[Onomatopoeic]

You can get decent Inland (brand) DVI+USB KVMs for under US$200.

 

[CougTek]

Any brands well-respected? NCIX has this Belkin, but I don't know if that's a reasonable price or even a decent quality unit.

They have it in stock too, but they only ask 169.28$ for it.

 

[LiamC]

Thread resurrection See what happens when people use search...

Has there been any changes on the KVM front in the three years since this was last discussed?

I too am suffering the SSDrueding malaise of troubleshooting a KVM rather than a PC...

I will need at least one D-Sub input (I've never come across a KVM that mixed DVI and D-Sub, but you never know), but most inputs have DVI. If I have to go for straight D-Sub, so be it.

USB would be nice, but not a deal breaker. But some older PCs really don't like USB keyboards, which is a bugger if you want to get access to the BIOS.

Audio would also be good (bonus)

Value is good (Cheap)

Physical switches are a necessity. I've used one or two with hot keys, and they were temperamental to say the least.

 

[LunarMist]

Thread resurrection See what happens when people use search...

Has there been any changes on the KVM front in the three years since this was last discussed?

I too am suffering the SSDrueding malaise of troubleshooting a KVM rather than a PC...

I will need at least one D-Sub input (I've never come across a KVM that mixed DVI and D-Sub, but you never know), but most inputs have DVI. If I have to go for straight D-Sub, so be it.

USB would be nice, but not a deal breaker. But some older PCs really don't like USB keyboards, which is a bugger if you want to get access to the BIOS.

Audio would also be good (bonus)

Value is good (Cheap)

Physical switches are a necessity. I've used one or two with hot keys, and they were temperamental to say the least.

My Aten has been rock solid. It has physical switches, but I never need to use them. I'm rubbing off the Scroll Lock before

 

[CougTek]

Here, Aten's CS1764A are available for ~200$ with the shipping. 4 ports, DVI/USB/audio. Acceptable price, but there are VGA models that cost only a third of that. So there's still room for improvement.

 

[time]

How many computers do you need to control? Enterprise-class KVMs can often be cascaded.

Aten makes a VGA to DVI converter, which would enable you to use an all-DVI solution. Alternatively, most (but not all) DVI outputs include a VGA signal, so simple adapter plugs would enable you to use them with a VGA switch. If really stuck, just rely on manually switching the monitor source when you select the VGA-only PC; the monitor almost certainly has both VGA and DVI inputs.

Aten makes mixed PS2 and USB switches, where for example you use a USB keyboard to control a PC via a PS2 connector, but at first glance they're harder to find in Australia.

Prices are high for personal use but not for corporate use. CougTek's example is closer to AU$260.

 

[time]

That Aten looks like it handles DVI-A simultaneously with DVI-D, so you wouldn't need the fancy VGA-DVI converter, just a reverse adapter.

If you need to save money, you could try a KVM from PCT; it's about a third of the price and also claims to handle both analog and digital signals through DVI. Could be hard to find in stock, although the inventory data at the wholesaler says they have one left ...

 

[MaxBurn]

Still using the Aten CS1762 I mentioned above, still really like it.

FYI windows 7 fixed this problem below but my XP machine still does it. Basically 7 reinits or redetects the display somehow after i switch so if it wasn't right/native resolution it switches. You get one chance on XP and if you miss it you must reboot.

-When powering on a computer the switch MUST be switched to that computer, if you don't it will start up at the adapter default resolution and be unable to change from that OR it won't give you video at all through the DVI port. All I can think is that there is some handshaking between the video card and the monitor at bootup and if that doesn't take place to tell the video card what it is attached to then the video card must revert to defaults, makes sense to me.

 

[time]

The updated CS1762A/CS1764A version fixes this:

• Video DynaSync™ – exclusive ATEN technology optimizes display resolution and eliminates boot-up display problems
• Video DynaSync™ - stores the console monitor's EDID (Extended Display Identification Data) to optimize display resolution

Aten seems to hold a lot of patents on this sort of stuff. Unless money is an overriding concern, I'd stick with their products.

 

[LiamC]

The Aten has a lot of positive reviews, and I need 4 ports so I might go with that despite the cost. I've used cheapies in the $80 ~$100 mark and they've all had issues. Thanks for the advice people.

 

[MaxBurn]

The updated CS1762A/CS1764A version fixes this:

Aten seems to hold a lot of patents on this sort of stuff. Unless money is an overriding concern, I'd stick with their products.

That's even better. I don't suppose that is a software update?

 

[time]

Amazingly, firmware updates are available, but unfortunately it looks like there was a hardware change.

The pre-A model hasn't had an update since 2006. Sorry, I feel your pain.

 

[LunarMist]

Hmm. Mine does not have an A, but it does not suffer from any of the problems mentioned.

 

[MaxBurn]

Well my work dell E6410 laptop is really having problems now.

This problem never went away. Plus, now that I have the mac on one side of the KVM the dell refuses to show video when I switch to it, I get a second of static then display is searching and a burst of static every fifteen seconds or so. To fix I have to open the lid and wait for something to show on the LCD and then close the lid and it will work again on the KVM and big display.

Thinking about one of these
http://www.amazon.com/ATEN-4-Port-D...TF8&coliid=I2NZC6V3PB1WBY&colid=25J2MBDWCL1RE

Price on this is more attractive but i'm thinking it is too similar to what I have to fix anything?
http://www.amazon.com/ATEN-4-Port-S...UTF8&coliid=IYJTIKZINR6E1&colid=25J2MBDWCL1RE

Also need to connect three computers now, think the new KVM will solve the troubles the dell is having with my old KVM?

Neiter my desktop with HD6950 or the mbp with HD6750 have a problem with this KVM/monitor I have.

 

[ddrueding]

Not that this will help, but I just got rid of my last KVM in my server room. I have a cart with a USB keyboard, USB mouse, and monitor that supports VGA/DVI/HDMI/DP. I just plug them directly into servers as needed. The cabling mess alone made it not worth it, and when the variety of connectors provided with onboard video increased (some are HDMI only now), this became the easier solution. No issues yet.

 

[MaxBurn]

Ironic, I was just explaining to my customer last week when I was away that they really need to get rid of these dlink network switches in their facilities monitoring system, they are known not to be reliable as the wall wart power supplies fail. So of course when I come home the wall wart power supply on my aten was failed. It has always lived on conditioned power and I actually turned the UPS and all electronics off while I was gone like I usually do.

On the above video switching problem I found that if I put the mac into monitor off mode before switching to the dell it would have no problem picking up the KVM monitor. I assigned that to a hot corner and it was a workable solution. Still makes me think there is something happening that the old DVI KVM can't handle which is likely as I am feeding it a HDMI signal with sound etc that does work but I don't think it was designed with that in mind.

Ordered a CS1794, hoping it solves that problem plus I needed a 4 port switch for some time now anyway.

 

[MaxBurn]

Appears that the CS1794 fixed all my problems.

One odd thing that is actually better is that it won't let you select a port that has a computer that isn't turned on, it bounces back to an active computer. No longer do I have to watch what port it is on to make sure the computer sees the monitor etc, very nice.

 

[LunarMist]

So if you have three computers then the KVM would cycle through those three and ignore the unused fourth port?

 

[MaxBurn]

For switches with more than two ports you have to hit a scroll lock twice and then the number of the port that you want to select. You go straight to the one you want.

Unless you are referring to auto scroll which I don't use but I would assume it would skip the unused ports.

 

[Howell]

Does scroll 2x up/down arrow also work? I thought these commands were pretty standard.

 

[MaxBurn]

It doesn't appear that keystroke combination works. I'm aware that there are other keystrokes to switch just a USB or just the sounds or not switch them but I generally don't use them.

After some time with it, the problem with my work computer showed up again. The same workarounds still work though.

 

[LunarMist]

It's time for me to get a new KVM. My Aten CS1762 is still working, but I need a third input. Is the CS1764A still a good choice?

 

[MaxBurn]

Long as it handles the EDID for a computer that is off I would say yes.

 

[Stereodude]

I'm also now looking for a DVI / USB KVM. Has anything changed or is the Aten still the model of choice?

 

[LunarMist]

My 4-bagger is still working just fine.

 

[Howell]

I thought rdp/vnc/synergy was good enough for my 2 computers and 5 monitors.

 

[Mercutio]

I love Terminals. It has a handy tabbed interface for multiple remote RDP/VNC sessions. I usually have a half dozen or so sessions open so it's a generally good deal for keeping my taskbar uncluttered.

 

[ddrueding]

Awesome. Thanks Merc!