Home page » Displays

Search Displays:

Refine search for Displays

This KVM is the Daddy of all KVMs – it's a seriously cool piece of kit, but unfortunately flawed in several ways. At £118.09 minus cables, it's pretty expensive too. With cables starting at £14.86 per PC, it soon racks up, especially if you are running all four PCs that this KVM supports.

The most unusual feature on this KVM, is the support for dual displays. If you are in to graphics, web design, video editing or anything that is desktop real estate heavy, there is a high chance you are using two displays. Although switching could be achieved using a standard KVM, it would of course require two of them and you'd need the variety that allows for manually switching as you couldn't route the keyboard through both. Hardly elegant and not the most practical.

Each displays can run at 2,048 x 1,536 resolution, which is about as high as you'll get on a decent CRT and more than enough for most LCDs. This particular model is only D-Sub, but there are DVI versions available should you be using a flat panel. Instead of PS/2, this KVM supports a USB keyboard and mouse with a dedicated port for each. There are also two other USB ports for switching devices such as floppy disk drives, printers, scanners etc. If you wanted to, you could plug in a hub and daisy chain as many devices as you liked.


It also supports audio and microphone switching, which has almost become a standard on modern KVMs. This model requires external power to work effectively, and a power block is provided. A strange parallel port to RJ45 cable is provided, which allows flash upgrading to support new devices and fix any issues.

Switching between the four PCs can be done in the same way as the cheaper model, by double tapping the scroll lock key and then using the arrow keys, or a specific number.

The first issue I had, was with keyboard support (or lack of). The first keyboard I used wouldn't work with the #~ key and the \| key. The second keyboard I tried wouldn't work with the |\ key. This is due to the overly complex way the firmware works, in trying to intercept the key presses for the scroll lock. The final keyboard I tried, just didn't work at all and caused the KVM to repeatedly beep. It lets out the same beep when you switch from PC to PC, which could be considered irritating – especially as there is no off switch for this.

While the KVM was repeatedly beeping at me and everyone in the office was scowling at me, I soon realised that there was no way of actually turning off the KVM. Even when the power block was unplugged, it still got its power from the computers it was plugged in to. In order to remove power to the KVM, I had to unplug all four computers. In hind-sight, I think it gets its power from the USB ports, so I could have gotten away with just unplugging the USB ports. But a hard reset switch would have been nice, in case something goes wrong.

Next was the issue with keyboard/mouse emulation. One of the beauties of a KVM is that I can set one PC to reboot while I'm working on the other. Yet consistently, booting in to Windows or one of several bootable CDs would end up with me having no mouse or keyboard being detected. Maintaining that machine as the focus solved the issue, suggesting that its emulation is far from perfect – if working at all. Occasionally, machines would just refuse to let the keyboard work after switching away from it, although the mouse would. USB keyboard support is decidedly poor anyway, with Windows XP installs often refusing to work – routed through a KVM or not. Frankly I'd sooner be using PS/2, especially as most keyboards and mice come with USB to PS/2 convertors.

Add your comment

© 2003-2008 TrustedReviews | About Us | Contact Us | Legal | Privacy | RSS