I have a 1.4 Display Port KVM Switch - Single Monitor - Two Computer and I’ve been struggling with it dropping signal when pushing 1440p or 4k signal to a Gigabyte M32U monitor during PC gaming sessions. It happens intermittently but often enough to be untenable: the screen will black out sporadically for 1-5 second stints. I can sometimes go for minutes without it happening and other times it’s off and on constantly.
I never have issues on the other side where it’s pushing 4k signal via MacBookPro → TS4 → KVM.
Things I’ve tried to rule out other issues:
Switched to all new Club3D cables (no effect)
Turning off G-Sync/FreeSync on the PC (no effect)
Switching my PC/Mac between first and second port (still only occurs on PC)
Everytime it happens if I yank the KVM out of the loop it resolves the issue. With a cable going right from the PC to the monitor everything is fine.
It’s useless diagnostically to test each cable individually since the kvm tries to be invisible and what the monitor sees is like as if it’s one long cable.
Are these 3 foot club3d cables? If so might be interference. Try to add some cheap ferrite beads to the mix
Ah interference / cable length is an interesting theory. My monitor is on an arm and my PC is off my desk so it’s a 2m (~6ft) cable to the KVM and 3m (~10ft) to the PC. I had thought Club3D cables would be fine at that length but maybe not. Will play around with shorter cables and/or ferrite cores and report back.
All copper cabling will degrade your signal over time. Some are better than others because the copper is thicker.
To combat this, as a general rule of thumb I think Wendell recommends the total length to be no more than 10ft.
I would encourage you to read that section of our FAQ for a better explanation:
A way to sort of circumvent this is with fiber optic cabling. That can be a little expensive, but it would get rid of the signal degradation issue. You’ll be able to keep your setup where it is instead of buying shorter cables and rearranging:
If anything, buy 1x of these fiber optic cables to replace your very long 10 foot cord. That might be enough to solve your issue, since the drop is occurring intermittently when you’re using the PC connected with that long cable.
I’m very happy to report that a temp setup with a shorter cable is working with no signal drops . I’ll explore that fiber optic cable as a way to get my setup back to how I had it.
This has been top notch support - I really appreciate the help y’all!
I’ve been having similar issues. I was previously configured as 1m+3m club3D cables, and then got a fiber cable to replace the 3m cable. still had some issues with that configuration, so I plugged the fiber directly and had one display drop. Is my poor old 1080 on the way out or are there other options to fix this?
Try going back to the copper cables after the firmware? Sometimes the fibbr cables pick up interference more readily. Also try different dp putputs on your gpu. They vary more than you might think
I got it working by switching my main monitor. I had recently gotten the Dell G2724D when it was on sale, so now my older s2719 is a side display. I upgraded all of my long cables to be fiber since my amazon return window was still open on the other cables.
. I’ll explore that fiber optic cable as a way to get my setup back to how I had it.
glad it’s working for ya