[GTALUG] war story: KVM [was keyboard failure leads to sustained mayhem]

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh at mimosa.com>

| - I have another KVM that is normally sold for ~$500 that does a lot
|   right: support dual-link DVI, does pass DDC to all computers.  I
|   paid $100, so that was a great choice.  Even so, it gets a bit
|   confused by some mice.

This KVM is an IOGEAR GCS1784.

<http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817399043CVF>

Some of the reviewers on the newegg site mention keyboard and mouse
problems.  The KVM emulates the keyboard and mouse for each of the
computers so switching will be seamless.  This means that the real
mouse and keyboard have to be pretty generic or bad things happen.

I could not get any of my wireless-keyboard-and-mouse sets to work.
In each case, the mouse could not move down but only up.  Sometimes at
a disproportionate rate.  I could not get a wired keyboard and
wireless mouse to work.  So now I have a wired keyboard and mouse.

Apparently I could have gotten them to work (without the benefit of
emulation) by plugging them into the auxiliary USB connector of the
KVM.  It is switched, but each computer sees the device as being
plugged and unplugged whenever the switch switches away or towards the
computer.

Here are the weasel words that IOGEAR uses to explain this problem:
<http://iogear.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1071/related/1>