Late last Summer I got a new computer to replace the oldest of my two office computers and that meant I had to say good bye to a little device that was so good at its job that I never thought about it. My linksys KVM switch. It was great. Just a double-tap on the scroll lock key and switching was almost instantaneous. It emulated an idle mouse and keyboard well enough that neither computer ever recognized that the mouse and keyboard were missing.
Sadly though, my new Dell had only DVI out, no VGA and also no PS/2 keyboard or mouse connectors – only USB. The new Dell monitor had inputs for many types of video (VGA, DVI, s-video, etc.) so I had to make do with two mice, two keyboards and switching the monitor between its various inputs. What a hassle.
I had trouble finding a replacement KVM switch. It seemed that KVMs that handle DVI are very expensive. But then I discovered that DVI can be converted to VGA with a simple adapter. Then all I needed was a KVM that handled USB and VGA, which is more reasonable.
So I just bought a Belkin Flip and like almost all Belkin products I’ve had, it works but it’s just not quite what I want. Here’s some of my issues:
1 – It’s got a hardware switch to “flip” between the systems rather than a hot-key. They actually promote this cost enhancer as a positive. “no keystrokes to remember”. If you’re switch between systems rarely enough that you forget the hot-key, maybe you didn’t need a KVM switch in the first place.
2 – The computers sense that the keyboard and mouse have been removed. So when you switch you get a couple of bee-boop noises from the computer you’re switching from, indicating that it’s lost a couple of USB connections, along with the boo-beep noises from the system you’re connecting two, indicating that a couple of USB devices were just attached.
3 – and probably related to #2, switching is slow. It’s slow for the video to change and then you have to wait for the system you switched to to recognize that the mouse and keyboard are back.
I’m pretty sure I’ll be replacing this KVM switch with another one eventually – perhaps when linksys has one.