Advice needed connecting Laptop + PC to 2 monitors

Level1 Store KVM Helpdesk
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Hi everyone,

I need your advice. My wife just got a new Surface 5 from work which she wants to use in her office together with her PC and 2 monitors. Ideally she should be able to just dock her laptop / plug in one cable and be able to use the 2 monitors that are usually connected to the PC.
I have a hard time figuring out how this would to make this work. I have read the KVM guides, but the limited outputs on the PC & Laptop make it hard to know if this use-case would actually work. For my own setup I’m willing to experiment, but for my wife’s setup it should just work.

The hardware:
PC with GTX 970, 1x DP1.2, 1x HDMI 2.0 output
Monitor 1: Asus PG279Q (1440p 165Hz): 1x DP1.2, 1x HDMI 1.4 inputs
Monitor 2: Lenovo G27-20 (1080p 144Hz): 1x DP1.2, 1x HDMI 1.4 inputs
Laptop: Surface 5: 1x USB-C with USB 4.0/Thunderbolt™ 4 output

The PC and Monitor 2 are hand-me-downs from my gaming PC. The mixed DP / HDMI port on the GTX970 has alwas been a PITA to use with dual monitors and is getting on in years.

I was kinda hoping that I could somehow daisy-chain these things together, but that doesn’t seem to be an option.
Then I started looking at the KVM options, but it’s unclear to me if the Surface 5 would be able to drive 2 monitors over the USB-C port.

Closest I could get the config was using the Level 1 Tech Combo USB-C Power Delivery & DisplayPort 1.4 KVM - Dual Monitor.

  • The Surface 5 would be connected USB-C to USB-C
  • The PC annoyingly would need to be connected with a DP to USB-C combiner AND a HDMI to DP cable.

Would this actually work though?

  1. Is the one USB-C to USB-C cable enough to power both monitors? The product page implies you need two separate inputs. So I would need to split the USB-C into USB-C + DP somehow?
  2. All the info on using the USB-C combiner mentions DP1.4. In this case the output and monitor are both DP1.2.

All of this seems like an awful lot of hardware, am I missing a simpler solution?
I can’t do anything about the Surface 5, that’s work issued.
For the PC I could put my RTX3080 in her PC if I really have to which should have ample connections (3x DP1.4a and 3x HDMI 2).
As for the monitors: it would be a shame to get rid of them, but maybe that’s the only way to get a daisy-chain solution … but how would that work nice with the PC?

Advice very welcome. Thanks!

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Sorry you haven’t been replied to yet!

Don’t get this one for this use case. Get the DisplayPort KVM. Trust me lol

It’s true that 2 monitors over 1 wire is a bandwidth issue, however, I see her monitors would be 1440p & 1080p. This should be fine. I would be much more cautious if you were trying 4k.

Make sure you have this firmware update:

Here’s my recommended setup:

surface and PC
surface and PC1080Ă—1080 24.4 KB

Alas, it is rather difficult. BUT not impossible. Don’t get a cable, get an adapter.

Let me explain:
HDMI has 1 less pin than DisplayPort. You need what’s called an “active” adapter that requires power. Anything else is going to be a pain.

This is the Club3D active HDMI to DP adapter I’m referring to. It should work for you:
https://www.amazon.com/Club-3D-DisplayPort-Video-Adapter/dp/B085YBR936?th=1

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Awesome, thank you so much. This was exactly the advice I was looking for!

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