Customer Reviews

IOGear 4-Port DVI KVMP Switch with Audio and Cables GCS1764

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I have a Dell Dimension 4550, a QuickSilver 2002 PowerMac G4 and a PowerMac G5 Quad I needed to share a 23" 1920x1200 LCD DVI display. After reading the reviews here, I gave it a go, and I like the product a lot. I like that it comes with all the cables you need, whereas some of the more expensive units don't. I had to dig to find that out, and that it adds about $100 to their cost to buy four cable sets separately.

There was one major problem: when the Dell Dimension 4550 was turned on, the keyboard would lag badly or sometimes spit out 20 copies of the last character, regardless of which computer I was using. And when using the Dell, the optical wheel mouse would go dead every minute or two, requiring an unplug & replug (or switching to a Mac, then back to the Dell).

IOGear tech support was very helpful, and it turns out there's an issue with motherboards using nForce4 chipsets and their USB implementation. After a few back-and-forth emails with quick turnaround, IOGear support pointed me to a discussion in an nVidia forum. A lot of people were having the exact same symptoms as I. One quick answer is to buy an inexpensive Micro Innovations USB210P hub and put it between the Dell and the KVM. Amazon sells the hub as of this writing. I originally had links to the support forum and to the hub on Amazon, but review guidelines do not allow URLs. Sorry!

Everyone in the forum who has tried this hub reports success, and it doesn't even need to be powered. Mine will be here in two days. In the meantime I tried two other hubs and a USB card, and they didn't help, which also mirrored other people's experiences. Only a few products are known to fix the problem, and the Micro Innovations USB210P was the easiest to find. The iRocks IR-4300 hub also works.

I honestly think that this would have to be one of the easiest setups I have ever been through for a KVM switch.

And what a pleasant surprise to find that its able to deal with above spec resolutions with no video artifacts.

My setup includes:

Port1: DELL 4600C w/ GeForce4 @ 1600 x 1200
Port2: Mac mini w/ ATI controller @ 1920 x 1200
Port3: Mac Powerbook G4 w/ Radeon 9700 @ 1920 x 1200
Port4: Not used *yet*

Display: Apple Cinema Display 23" native resolution 1920 x 1200

Given the KVM is only rated for 1600 x 1200 dpi, the fact that the Macs can drive the display at higher resolution is simply a bonus. And I'd have to add that the higher resolution comes at no cost to quality or clarity.

If only every product could be unpackaged, plugged in, and simply work.

Sharing a Windows keyboard with the Macs also works rather well ... but that has more to do with OS X than the IOGEAR KVM.

My Setup:
4 x Dell 4700's/Radeon x300
2 x Dell 5150's/Radeon x300

2 of 4 Dell 4700's would work fine, the monitor would never come back after switching. So I bought 2 new Dell 5150's thinking they would work. Plugged them in and after switching back and forth the Dell 19" Ultrasharp 1905 would not restore. I tried a different monitor with the same results.

Contacted their support 3 times and they were miffed and had no answers.

Needless to say I bought an AVOCENT SWITCHVIEW 4-PORT DVI USB KVM SWITCH USB 2.0 HUB W/AUDIO

Worked flawless.

I bought the Iogear 4-port DVI switch to use with 3 Macs and a PC. I was excited about the potential to use all of my DVI-based computers with my nice 20" Apple display. Unfortunately, because of a bone-headed decision on the part of Iogear, the switch doesn't work as well as I would have liked.

When you have DVI connections, the display sends a special ID to the computer, so that the computer knows exactly what it is connected to. That's cool, and it's a standard feature of DVI displays. When this switch switches to another computer, however, the ID that the switch sends to the "inactive" computers is NOT the ID of the display which is still connected to the console port of the switch! The "inactive" computers all get a new ID that they think is a VGA display. This is the bone-headed move.

The fact that the display changes every time you switch away from a computer causes the computer to reconfigure for the new display, and in short, it's a hassle. Considering that this switch has only DVI connections , I would have expected Iogear to have done a better job handling DVI.

If you connect a PC with Windows XP, it will work fine. If you connect Mac laptops, it will work ok, but the 2nd screen will keep switching as described above. If you connect a Mac Pro tower, you're hosed.

I was able to get my Mac Pro tower to play nice with the switch by inserting a Gefen DVI Detective between the Mac and the switch. If you're having trouble, you could look into that. But, if you haven't bought yet, you should look into the Gefen KVM switch as an alternative.

This switch, while good in theory, simply does not work with some systems.

Iogear admits that it's incompatible with Asus motherboards with the nvidea 3 chipset. It is also not compatible with a GigaByte GA-K8U-939 with the ULi M 1689 chipset. With those set ups the computers don't recognize the mouse or the keyboard.

The switch works fine with MSI motherboards with the VIA 8237 chipset.

I've also noticed that while booting any machine in the system that machine must be switched to the monitor or screen sizing and frequency will not come out correctly.

Despite reviews (of the 2port also) indicating some issues with slow DVI switching and buggy keyboard/mouse management and compatibility I decided to go ahead and try this product because there were a few reviews that indicated you could work around these issues. However, I have a good understanding of the mechanics involved here and read the manual thoroughly and still found the issues to be bad enough to make this product unusable with my current setup: a Dual Core G5, an Intel machine running windows, and/or linux and an Apple 23" Cinema Display. But what's of more concern is the fact that after a short period of usage and switching back and forth, it put the G5 into some sort of a race condition-the display wouldn't come back, the fan went into overdrive and wouldn't quit-and I had to force the machine down to prevent CPU damage. If youre using a similar setup to mine, be very careful with this product and make sure you're around while you test it out.

Amongst the bugs in the core functionality, DVI switching can be excruciatingly slow when coming bacl to the G5, though it was snappy going back to the Intel box, which is contrary to what others reported. The way the switch handles keyboard/mouse management made this unusable for me. The G5 would work fine with the keyboard plugged into the usb peripheral connection in the back of the switch, and the mouse chained to the keyboard. The Intel machine would only work with the keyboard/mouse in their respective slots on the front. I am guessing this is because the ports in the back aren't active soon enough for the Intel hardware to find the keyboard/mouse. This might have to do with using GRUB as a boot loader also. Trying to get around this by plugging the keyboard into the keyboard port on the front and chaining the mouse won't work because the mouse HAS to be plugged into the mouse port since the switch is doing some mapping for the CPU. So if you have to go this way, make sure you have a very long mouse cable if your switch is not right next to your keyboard.

The box has great potential, however, I was surprised to find that ANY analog display equipment will not work. From the product web page on iogear's site I see it supports "DVI digital and analog monitor support." However, I've tried several video adapters and talked to iogear technical support on several occasions who assures me it should work fine but can offer me no clues as to why it doesn't. My attempts to talk with second level support were met with a variety of creative excuses.
I would only buy this KVM switch if you don't have ANY legacy equipment. In other words don't use it with computers that have analog displays or PS2 devices. If you're in that position, I envy you.

The IoGear 4 port DVI USB KVM switch serves my needs to have just one console for 3 Macintosh computers and an HDTV tuner. It works very well, with some very minor annoyances:
1: It takes about one second to switch. Not long, but it isn't instantaneous.
2: When the monitor has been asleep or off, there is a little "flicker" in the first 30 seconds. This only happens when it goes through the KVM switch.
3: When booting one of the macs, I need to switch the KVM over to that Mac, or the Mac doesn't detect that my monitor is a high resolution widescreen format. No big problem, and I can instantly switch formats after boot anyway, but it is a minor annoyance.

That said, I am very pleased with the capability, and would purchase this unit again. It saves me tons of desktop space that would have been needed for additional monitors and keyboards.

One other advantage to THIS switch: the unit comes in a small, very SOLID box that is ferrous, allowing me to conveniently mount it under the desktop by simply screwing two super-magnets (found at most hardware stores) under the desktop.

Other than the fact you have to have the computer selected you are booting up (otherwise the resolution gets funky), this product works great!! If you are in the market for a DVI switch, this is hands down the best one out there.

Setup:
Apple Cinema HD Display (1920x1200) with ADC (Apple Device Connector)
Apple ADC to DVI Adapter
IOGear 4-port DVI KVM Switch
Apple PowerPC Dual G5
Apple Intel Duo Mac mini
Apple Intel Solo Mac mini
Keyboard and Mouse are connected to designated USB ports on the front of the KVM switch.
Epson Perfection scanner is connected to peripheral USB port on the display. The USB cable from the ADC adapter is connected to the peripheral USB port on the back of the KVM switch.

The switch works fine with this set up. No major problems have been encountered. Typically a sleeping computer wakes up when the KVM switch is switched to it, but occassionally one must tap the Shift (or other) key. The scanner is detected successfully when one uses the KVM switch to change the peripheral USB port from one computer to another.

Regarding the dual G5 fan occasionally switching into high gear, I had this problem with my dual G5 before I purchased the switch. I don't think the switch has aggravated the problem.

Occasionally a computer will lose communication with the keyboard/mouse, but this problem also sometimes occurred before I added the switch.

I do not use the KVM switch audio ports because they are minijack analog ports and tend to pick up hum and other noise. Too bad they do not provide optical ports.