Does anybody else have a work PC and their gaming PC on the same desk? Looking to streamline things

Caporegime
Joined
18 Oct 2002
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West Yorks
So at present i have a work laptop on one side, gaming PC on the other. In the middle is my monitor, with a keyboard and mouse.

The keyboard and mouse currently gets moved from one PC to another when i switch between work mode and home mode. I have both PCs connected to the monitor and just use input select on the monitor to change modes.

Is there anything smarter around than having a USB hub and just changing which machine the hub is plugged into ?

I could do a KVM, but my monitor is a high resolution fast refresh rate one so needs to be display port not HDMI and i'd need it to have HDMI as well as display port as my work laptop doesn't have displayport. I could get an adapter I suppose, but displayport KVMs look horrendously expensive just to accomodate me being lazy and not watching to move a USB hub around and switching the display input manually.

Anybody out there using anything I've not thought of ?
 
Caporegime
OP
Joined
18 Oct 2002
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33,392
Location
West Yorks
RDP into the laptop.

I'd never even considered that. Knew somebody on here would have thought of something I had't. Not sure if our VPN would mess with it or not. Off to give it a try :)

Cheap 2nd kb and mouse? Should get both for about 20 quid all in.

No chance of using the main rig for work and pleasure?

I already 2 sets of keyboard and mice and it just makes the desk look messy, and plus it's the faff of moving them about. I'd rather just take the effort of moving a USB hub around. As for using my own, not a chance i'm afraid. I work for an IT services company in the healthcare field, so i'm regularly accessing systems that with the correct permissions could be used to access patient data. As a result security is very tight so no official bring your own supported. I could do it unsupported, but if anything were to happen and I was found out, it's not worth my job.

Thanks for trying to help though :)
 
Caporegime
OP
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
33,392
Location
West Yorks
good news, it works great!

bad news. Apart from voice calls. Do you install your company's chosen voice communication platform on your own PC and swap between that and your RDP window, or is there some way of choosing which device is in use. When on RDP audio playback in teams is fine but my mic is showing as no mic and i've no option to choose either the mic on my work or on gaming PC.
 
Associate
Joined
19 Jul 2015
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483
I've not had much luck with audio over RDP. I have various VOIP apps installed on my PC instead. Slightly annoying that that means I can't completely isolate work stuff, but it's good enough.
 
Pet Northerner
Don
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29 Jul 2006
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8,025
Location
Newcastle, UK
good news, it works great!

bad news. Apart from voice calls. Do you install your company's chosen voice communication platform on your own PC and swap between that and your RDP window, or is there some way of choosing which device is in use. When on RDP audio playback in teams is fine but my mic is showing as no mic and i've no option to choose either the mic on my work or on gaming PC.

I personally have teams on my pc for the couple of voice calls I have to deal with. I just log off when I'm done for the day and shutting off my VPN.
 
Soldato
Joined
20 Oct 2002
Posts
17,854
Location
London
I had a cheap HDMI/USB switcher which works fine. But now I upgraded my monitor and PC for gaming (thanks work subsidy :D) I'm in a similar position with wanting to use displayport etc. for high refresh rates. So I just use DP for my gaming PC, and HDMI in from my work Macbook. But honestly, I dont swap between them much during the day, just at the end of the day or weekends.

I also have a 3.5mm splitter going into my sub/speaker setup so that feeds audio from whichever I'm using.

Can't imagine work would let me RDP into my Macbook etc.
 
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