Do people use KVMs nowadays?

jez9999 · 21 Dec 2023 at 13:41

I have a relatively high-level question: are people using KVMs nowadays? Right now, I'm using this thing:

2x4 DVI-HD Audio/Video Matrix KVMP™ Switch - CM0264, ATEN Desktop KVM Switches

Control Two DVI Computers and Two HD Computers/Devices from One Dual Display Console The CM0264 2x4 DVI-HD Audio/Video Matrix KVMP™ Switch Dual Display Console supports one DVI display and one HD | CM0264 | ATEN United Kingdom

www.aten.com

I bought it like 10 years ago and it's starting to get rather dodgy, with the video cutting out quite often, so I started looking for replacements and, well... I'm pretty disappointed. Yeah, there are KVM solutions out there, but the affordable ones seem to be very limited compared to what I have now. They're generally for switching one monitor between multiple machines, or with a dual monitor setup, switching *all* monitors at once. This thing I have now lets me route each HDMI/DVI input individually to whatever output monitor I want, so I can have my left monitor displaying an input from PC1 and my right monitor displaying an input from PC2; I can even have 3 or 4 devices connected. Basically I can just treat each video input separately and not worry about whether it's two inputs forming a dual-screen display, or one input forming the entire display.

Do people just not have multi-PC setups at home nowadays? Do they dedicate one monitor to each PC? Why is it still so hard to find a decent affordable KVM? I did find some ones that seemed to be more sophisticated and possibly do what I want like this:

ADDERView PRO Dual Screen DVI-I USB KVM

www.kvm-switches-online.com

But the price jumps up insanely to about $1000 (from maybe $100 before?)

jez9999 · 23 Dec 2023 at 18:22

Trouble is, it looks like the monitors with KVM built in still only switch between 2 devices. I usually have at least 3 setup, my main machine, my work laptop, and my older Linux box. How come you guys only have one main PC? What do you do with all the old PCs you're left with when you get an upgraded system? lol

jez9999 · 23 Dec 2023 at 18:34

Mine would be scrap metal, they're usually 5 or 10 years old by the time I don't want to continue using them.

jez9999 · 23 Dec 2023 at 20:49

Replacing the motherboard basically is a full upgrade. The RAM, graphics card and potentially even the case and PSU have to go along with it. Hard drive too if the old one's form factor's no longer supported. That's why I usually just consider a mobo replacement as a necessary full upgrade. And yeah, that does tend to leave me with a secondary machine I want to switch to with a KVM. Grrrr, why can't they be more popular?

jez9999 · 1 Jan 2024 at 16:41

I really like the KVM option to be able to switch at least one of my 2 main monitors between my main Windows system, secondary Linux system, and also my work laptop (extend to second monitor) - that's a must.

jez9999 · 1 Jan 2024 at 17:42

And I'm guessing you don't use dual monitors?

jez9999 · 12 Mar 2024 at 21:43

Upon further research, several things have come to my attention that I figured were worth noting:

1) The terminology used for the ability to switch multiple video inputs to multiple outputs independently tends to be "matrix", whether it's video-only or also incorporates USB/audio switching.
2) In the above terminology, the first number is typically number of inputs and the second is number of outputs. A 6x2 matrix would be designed for 6 video inputs, and 2 monitor outputs.
3) It might well be better and more cost-efficient for me to use 2 completely separate matrix devices, one just for DVI or HDMI switching (like https://www.amazon.co.uk/HDMI-Matri...mzn1.fos.d7e5a2de-8759-4da3-993c-d11b6e3d217f ) and one for the USB switching. I personally don't care about the audio switching.