Customer Reviews

IOGEAR 2-Port MiniView Micro USB PLUS KVM Switch with Audio and Cables GCS632U

5 star:		(125)
4 star:		(56)
3 star:		(26)
2 star:		(36)
1 star:		(45)

 

 

Despite the mixed reviews here, I decided to gamble and take a chance on the Iogear GCS632U since I've had previous success with their switches. However, I immediately ran into problems with my mouse and keyboard. (Video looked great.) When I contacted Iogear support via their online form, they sent the following blurb back to me. I'm pasting it here so those of you who are still making a purchasing decision can have this information in addition to the incomplete product description provided above:

"Please ensure that you are using a native wired mouse and keyboard as wireless devices or any types of converters/adapters are NOT supported and will not work. Also docking stations or port replicator will interfere with proper KVM functionality and special keys on multimedia keyboards are not supported and will not work."

The instruction manual on the IOGEAR web site finally solved my problem - the "USB" ports on the device aren't actually USB ports. They take a USB plug, but they don't pass the entire signal - they replicate keyboard and mouse ports, and don't allow combinations to pass all data. Skip this switch if your mouse and keyboard are on one USB cable, or you are using a wireless mouse/keyboard combo. It wouldn't even work with a wireless keyboard plugged into the KEYBOARD port and a wired mouse plugged into the MOUSE port. That's right, separate ports - should have tipped me off!

Like most other reviewers, I could not get decent performance from the audio part of this KVM. But to finally get a good performing KVM that works with a USB console is worth the price and skip the audio. Good KVMs with PS2 consoles have been around for years, but USB console KVMS that don't cost you any mouse or keyboard functionality have been hard to come by. Many in fact describe themselves as a "USB KVM", but only the connections to the host PCs are USB; the actually keyboard and mouse have to be PS2, or you have to use a USB to PS2 adapter, which is where the functionality in the USB keyboard and/or mouse gets lost.

This compact unit finally does the trick and lives up to the expectations one would have of a genuine "USB KVM".

Thanks IOGEAR. This is certainly on my Product-Of-The-Year list for 2004!

I bought a MiniView Micro USB Plus 2 port KVM (GCS632U) to go with my Logitech Cordless MX Duo. I plugged in a single USB cable from the Logitech into the KVM's keyboard USB port. I left the mouse port empty since the Logitech's keyboard and mouse both use the USB port. I connected the cables to my computers, and fired them up. My computer that never had the Logitech Mouseware software installed recognized and worked perfectly. My other machine that ironically had the software previously installed, needed to have it reinstalled. After that minor hiccup, which is completely unrelated to the KVM, I had everything working flawlessy. All the special keys worked on my machine with the Logitech keyboard and mouse software installed. The other machine doesn't need the special features so I never installed the software. Anyway, what the Belkin USB (F1DS102U F1DS104U) KVM couldn't give me for $100, IOGEAR gave me for $69.99 :) Repeating keys work as they should and switching machines is so fast sometimes I can't tell if I switched. I also like the fact that the unit doesn't beep! Thanks IOGEAR for telling the truth about your products.

Hey, I recently purchased a GCS632U after hearing it's one of the best. I wanted to use it to switch between a Mac Mini and my Windows XP Service Pack 2 machine. I use a Logitech Elite keyboard which others have found works fine and a Logitech MX500 wired mouse.

Installation seemed easy and it worked perfect on the Mac, but on the Windows XP machine the mouse will move a bit when I try to move it then stutter. Usually when I tap a key like "u" or something, it'll keep pressing "u" until a different key is pressed. I verified this by managing to open notepad and then testing keys.

I saw a few other people on the internet have had the same problem, none that I saw fixed the problem. I'm pretty sure some of the people with the problem didn't have Service Pack 2.

I think this product would be perfect if I could get it working so I'm still trying to get it going. If I can get it working I'll post the solution and up the rating to a 5 star. Audio doesn't matter to me because I want the audio always connected to the XP machine.

EDIT:

Returned the Unit! Full debrief:

I spent hours trying to get this product to work with Windows XP Service Pack 2 with no avail. I'm a computer tech so trust me, I tried everything. Bios update, drivers for everything, standard drivers for mouse/keyboard, motherboard drivers. Even the stuff that wouldn't make sense.

My problem was with my Windows XP SP2 PC the mouse would skip around (lag, freeze, whatever you want to call it) then completely stop for a few seconds and repeat. Whenever I pressed a key on the keyboard it would keep pressing that key until another key was pressed. I could open up notepad (takes a long time with the mouse all messed up) and then press "r" and it would fill the notepad with "r"s.

I contacted IoGear and while their technical support was efficient and friendly, we finally came to the conclusion that it wasn't going to work. I tested the unit on different computers including my imac mini and it worked great.

After talking to previous owners of this product who had the same problem I did (never found anyone who fixed the problem, some of the people had the exact same problem with Windows XP with no service packs) I eventually I bought a Starview 2-Port KVM Switch Kit with Cables (PC/Mac) and everything works great. When switching to the imac mini there is about a 0.5 second delay and when switching to windows there is a 2 second delay, can't complain. Also all 5 buttons and the scrollwheel work on the Starview. I would recommend anyone having a problem with the IOGEAR GCS632U to try the Starview if you don't mind pressing a button on the unit to switch.

I'll still give this product 2/5 because I'm guessing if I had an older version of windows or two macs, etc. that this product would have worked just great. But I can't give a decent score when it wasted so much of my time and doesn't even work properly with the #1 operating system with many people.

UPDATED:

Turns out that most of my issues came from a PS2 to USB adapter that didn't work well. I was using a standard keyboard that plugs into the dedicated keyboard port on the back of the PC, with a PS2 to USB adapter.

Switching to a USB keyboard resolved all of the issues I describe below.

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On a *daily* basis, it will stop recognizing the the hotkeys to switch between PC's, requiring I unplug the keyboard and mouse from the unit and then plug them back in to get the hotkeys to work again.

Also, highlighting text, then typing to replace it generally ends up with very random results as the highlighted text is usually not replaced and your cursor jumps somewhere else in the document. Occasionally, for no discernable reason, your cursor will just start racing away from where you were just typing.

If you're willing to get up and unplug/plug cables once or twice a day and lose some of the type-and-replace convenience, this works fine. But the idea behind these gadgets is to increase convenience, not reduce it.

I recently bought one of these units. It's very easy to install and switching ports is simple - double tap the ScrLk key is one method. What I don't like is that it works off USB power and it doesn't have a reset button on the unit. At least once per day my keyboard locks up. When I boot on my multi-boot system, I can't scroll down the boot choices w/o it freezing. I have to unplug the keyboard, plug it directly into the computer, boot to the desired OS then reconnect everything. At other times, the unit just freezes during a computer session. I have to unplug both USB feeds to it in order to do a hard reset. The keyboard reset doesn't work in this situation. This is very annoying.

Per a Q&A on Iogear's website, my USB connection may not be supplying sufficient power for the unit so it is very sensitive to noise. To me, this says they didn't do a good job in designing the unit. They should have added an external power supply - at least as an option.

When the unit works, most of the day, I like it.

I had my eye on this KVM switch because I saw on the Logitech.com forum that this product worked with the wireless MX Duo keyboard/mouse combo. Now that I have this switch, I can tell you that it works with the MX Duo as a previous reviewer stated, including all extra buttons on the keyboard and mouse. I'm running the video at a resolution of 1024x768 and all is well.
As for the audio, it wasn't nearly as bad as I expected it to be based on previous reviews. I suppose it did sound a little thin, but I would've had to be paying close attention to notice. And anyway, I didn't buy this for the audio, because I'd rather have audio from both computers at all times instead of having the audio switch along with the video. For this reason, I don't even use the audio feature of this KVM.

UPDATE: 1/2/06
I got tired of the MX Duo and ditched it in favor of the new (as if this writing) MS Ergo Keyboard 4000 and the MS Intellimoues Optical. (After using the crappy Logitech MX700 mouse for about a year, I REALLY missed my Intellimouse.) The Intellimouse works great with all buttons functional (though the left thumb button does tend to 'stick' every once in a blue moon).
When I hooked up the Ergo 4000 keyboard to my PC (without the KVM), I was dismayed to find that it didn't work during the bootup sequence. But when I hooked it up the KVM, it actually worked as it is supposed to. So in this case, the keyboard worked better connected to the KVM than it did natively .. go figure :) The only caveat is that when you switch from one machine to another using the 4000 keyboard on this KVM, the 'device connect/disconnect' sound goes off in WIndows XP (and maybe other versions too), so if you switch back and forth often, you'll want to disable these two sounds in the Windows control panel.

This product did everything it said it would and well. It was simple to set up, with no drivers or anything else to install. I used a Logitech wireless mouse and keyboard combo connected to a windows pc and a linux box. The wireless combo has only one USB connection and worked when connected to either connector on the KVM. I recently purchased this product for $34.

After reading reviews, I have to say that I was a tad worried, but this KVM had a better average rating than the others, so I bought it for use at work and I've been very pleased with it. Just FYI, I'm using it on two Dell GX620s, one with WinXP SP2, and the other with SUSE Linux. Switching between the two is no problem. So far, so good!