IOGEAR 2-Port Dual-Link DVI KVMP Switch with 7.1 Audio and Cables GCS1782

by Iogear

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 13 x 8.5 x 4 inches ; 5.1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B0016BCIXE
• California residents: Click here for Proposition 65 warning.
• Item model number: GCS1782
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: August 22, 2003

Product Description

Size Name: 2 Port

2 x 1 - 2 x DVI Monitor, 2 x Type B - KVM Switch

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars a nice high end switch ...sorta., June 6, 2008

By 

J. Darknell "MutantPixel" (San Jose, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: IOGEAR 2-Port Dual-Link DVI KVMP Switch with 7.1 Audio and Cables GCS1782 (Personal Computers)

I purchased this switch to go between my video editing system and my 3D animation computer with a 30" monitor. It works great, and also switches the audio BUT I was stunned to find out that a high end $300 KVM switch that supports Dual-link DVI, 7.1 audio, and USB 2.0 did NOT support the extra buttons on my keyboard and mouse. I use them quite a bit, to mute the speakers, adjust volume, navigate windows etc, a call to iogear tech support says they only support standard 102 key keyboards, and a basic wheel mouse, wtf?? My $15 iogear KVM allowed the keyboard and mouse buttons. Anyway, I plugged in the mouse and keyboard to the 2 USB ports and bam, they worked great; solved my issue, but I did intend to hook my printer up to that port, so my next trick is to see if it will accept a USB hub. Mac users with their simpler mouses and keyboards will not likely have this issue.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Really nice KVM; works with Apple 30", February 10, 2009

By 

Mitch Haile (San Jose, CA and Boston, MA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: IOGEAR 2-Port Dual-Link DVI KVMP Switch with 7.1 Audio and Cables GCS1782 (Personal Computers)

I have a lot of monitors on my desk, but in particular I wanted to switch one of my Apple 30" monitors between my MacBook Pro and my Mac Pro.

This switch handles it.

The switch itself is quite heavily and robustly constructed--the case is metal and nicely built. It can handle the weight of the DVI cables hanging off it just fine.

I am using a Kinesis Freestyle Mac keyboard and this switch works great with it. My $12 Logitech mouse works fine with it too. I haven't really tried other USB devices/hubs yet.

I had to read the manual a bit to figure out how to change the default hot-key from scroll-lock to ctrl, but now that I have done that, the switch lets me switch from one computer to the other by simply hitting ctrl-ctrl-enter. Very nice.

There's absolutely none of the "old school" KVM issues here; after all, DVI is digital. But if you're worried about dual-link DVI issues, I don't think you have to worry about this with this switch--2560x1600 comes out just fine. I haven't tried other resolutions since I never change to other resolutions.

The other nice thing is that the switch includes all cables you'll need for hooking up sound, USB, DVI. I am not using the sound cables, but if I was, I'd need an extension cord for the audio to connect to the headphones port on the laptop. So keep this in mind if your ports are far away from each other. Speaking of cables, the Cinema display "breakout" cable is a bit of a pain to cable into this box--I had to put the power brick for the monitor near the KVM. This probably isn't too much of a problem though--now that the KVM is setup, I can probably just put it on the floor along with the power brick.

The switch is expensive, but worth it if you need dual-link DVI. As others have mentioned, you can selectively switch audio/USB/display without changing the others--for me, that isn't interesting. The front of the KVM offers a bit of feedback as to which connections are switched where, but on-screen display of this would be nicer (though far costlier to inject into the video stream, I would think). As a compromise, better LED indications on the KVM would be nice--illuminated icons would be much better for low light environments.

Overall, it's a great bargain and does what it's supposed to do--at a fraction of the cost and space of another monitor.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very Good Switch, April 22, 2008

By 

Evan Miller "Hedonist and All Around Geek" (Cincinnati, Ohio USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: IOGEAR 2-Port Dual-Link DVI KVMP Switch with 7.1 Audio and Cables GCS1782 (Personal Computers)

I had done a lot of research on KVM switches to find one to buy to link my two PCs together. Every review I read showed myriad problems with DVI KVMs, the most frequent problems being: a) no USB 2.0 support, 2) low levels of resolution on the DVI ports, iii) loss of USB peripherals requiring a power cycle of the switch, 0100) lack of proper resolution if a PC was booted with the focus on that PC.

I'm happy to report that I have no such problems with this switch. I did have some problems with the mouse dropping off, but I switched the mouse from the mouse connection to the USB peripheral connection and now it works fine and doesn't drop off. When switching PCs it has to re-establish the drivers, but it happens quickly and seamlessly. The only time it being an issue is when my Vista PC was in hibernation, it won't re-establish the mouse until after I sign back in. A small issue, but easily overcome through judicial use of the keyboard (I press enter to choose my profile and then the mouse works).

The switch supports USB 2.0. It had the added advantage that when I plugged my mouse into the front peripheral port it recognized and loaded the drivers for that specific mouse (a Logitech G3/MX 518), although when plugged into the pass through all the buttons it worked fine. The DVI supports up to 1920 x 1200 resolution. Also, it has the ability to remember your monitor's possible resolutions so if you boot a PC while the focus is on another PC the resolution will come up just fine (this function is not automatic though, you have to turn it on after hooking your monitor up and powering it up. Read your manual!).

All in all this switch has worked great so far. it has the ability to have the firmware flashed, but it worked fine out of the box and I have not had a need to do so yet. It's a plus that the switch supports 7.1 sound as well. I guess I'll have to upgrade to that next. :)

the reason i gave it 4 stars and not 5 was for the small problem with the mouse control being lost. It is easily re-established as opposed to some other switch reviews I have seen, however, that means it doesn't work perfectly. Perhaps a firmware flash would fix that. I do not have a fancy gaming keyboard either, so if you do your mileage may vary on how well the keyboard connection works with the keyboard's extra functions.

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