[geeks] KVM revisited

[Chad McAuley]

On 10/2/07, Charles Shannon Hendrix <shannon at widomaker.com> wrote:
> I asked about KVM a few days ago, and have more questions:
>
> Someone recommended IOGear.  The reviews I've read say they won't work
> with nVidia motherboard USB, which is what I have, and that a promised
> firmware update for the problem is 1.5 years late and counting.
>
> Lot's of people report they have issues with all kinds of cards.
>
> The big one though is that for the unit detect your video resolution,
> you must boot the machine into the desired video mode when the unit
> has focus.
>
> Does that mean you cannot switch resolutions?  What if you boot Windows
> at 1600x1200, and then play a game at 1280x960?  Will the KVM not work
> then?  That seems a really serious limitation.
>
> Are all KVMs like that? I frequently switch resolutions on one machine,
> probably almost never will on another one. If that won't work, I can't
> really use a KVM for that machine, which defeats the purpose of getting
> one.
>
> Any recommendations besides IOGear?

I can't say I've ever seen a VGA KVM exhibit that behavior; were those
comments specifically referring to their DVI KVMs?

I picked up the IOGear USB/VGA KVM that was recommended to me in that
thread and haven't seen any resolution switching issues.  I can boot
windows and then switch resolutions (keeping the windows PC in focus)
and it doesn't miss a beat.  I don't recall for sure, but I think i've
also launched a game, switched over to my LInux PC while the game
loads to check something (so the resolution switch occurs when the
Windows PC is not in focus) and then switched back without any
problems.