Horribly busy but will catch up on my review reading - promise!
Horribly busy but will catch up on my review reading - promise!
Member since:22.10.2006
Reviews:90
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It's surprising how many people have more than one PC at home although even more surprising is that many of them each have their own screen, keyboard and mouse.
In many cases this makes perfect sense but sometimes, you know you'll only ever use one or the other - perhaps one is your general PC and the other your music workstation. In these situations you can save a lot of space and money by investing in a KVM switch. KVM stands for Keyboard, Video and Mouse and allows you to use one keyboard, mouse and screen shared between two PCs.
This particular unit from Belkin is unusual in that it comes with all the leads permanently attached instead of being supplied as a separate cabling set.
Wiring it Up
Installation is simply a matter of taking each of the two main cables and plugging the sets of leads in to each PC. The Belkin KVM has USB connections for the keyboard and mouse although Belkin do a range of KVM's so you can probably find a PS/2 equivelent if you have that sort of mouse/keyboard. The PS/2 models also include PS/2->USB adaptors so you'll also need those if you have a USB mouse and PS/2 keyboard. This particular model has no support for audio so if you need to also have your microphone and speakers switch from PC to PC, look elsewhere.
The monitor, keyboard and mouse are then connected to the KVM to complete the set up. One bugbear is that like the vast majority of KVMs, this Belkin unit has cables going in one end and out the other making it difficult to place on a desktop without having cables hanging out everywhere. However, there is no reason why you can't just tuck it out the way out of sight as it has no parts you'd normally need to access. The leads were of a generous length allowing some room to manoeuvre on PC placement.
Features
As noted, the Belkin supports two PCs. The video side uses a VGA connector and supports resolutions of up to 2048x1536 @65Hz.
Switching between PCs is done via an easily remembered keyboard sequence. I would however have like to have had a manual button on the device itself in case the keystroke sequence interfered with anything. Also, if the current PC locks up, you can't switch to the other without rebooting the locked one which can be a pain - again, a manual switch would help here.
The top of the Belkin features a pair of LEDs to show which PC is currently selected.
If you need to keep an eye on both PCs, you can enable autoscan mode which toggles back and forth between the PCs every eight seconds. A quick press of the space bar stops autoscanning and lets you use the currently selected PC.
The Belkin claims support for scrolling mice but I did find sometimes one PC would start up without recognising this facility if it wasn't the currently selected one when booting up and in extreme cases, wouldn't recognise the keyboard and mouse at all. Previous KVM's I've used send the PC fake 'There's a keyboard and mouse here' messages when not selected and it seems this unit does not, which is a pity.
Conclusion
The Belkin 2 port KVM is a well built unit that works nicely and provides a great way to save desk space and the cost of a second monitor, keyboard and mouse. The long leads are useful and despite the niggles with scrolling mice and the lack of manual switch. I'd say this unit is worth considering at this price if you can live with those shortcomings. The fact that it comes with a 3 year warranty is a further plus point.
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still a bit wary of belkin after the trouble (and bad press) I had with the router I had. Interesting to read though. I wonder though with PC's becoming more powerful that it hasn't been done to have two users on different keyboards and different monitors but using the same PC?
(not for high end applications though)
Coloneljohn 01.04.2007 11:20
Good one. Sounds like a useful bit of kit, even with niggles. John
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