Received my dual displayport KVM recently; just installed yesterday. Overall, this is a huge step up from what I was using before (IOGEAR GCS1104); cabling is way simpler and cleaner. And it’s dual monitor!
I have a Windows 10 gaming PC, two work laptops that are connected. Objective is to be able to switch a single pair of DP-capable monitors between those devices. One of the laptops is giving me trouble, haven’t been able to get both DP and HDMI output simultaneously – so I’m getting a MST hub to drive both monitors from the DP output.
Build quality of the KVM is great. However, I am a bit frustrated though because of a problem that I have always had, but I guess I was expecting to be improved with this switch: when switching between devices, a DP monitor disconnect triggers the OS to remove the monitor entirely, which causes apps to get consolidated to the main display. In Mac OSX, there is a similar behavior – all of the apps scattered across the external displays all land on the laptop’s internal display, making that desktop hopelessly cluttered.
For multitasking it’s nice to be able to quickly switch to the laptop keyboard for a quick IM or email response, but keep going on whatever I’m developing on the primary keyboard/mouse/displays. Previously I was accomplishing a similar task with the old KVM, which used DVI – I just had to fiddle with inputs directly on the monitor. Now everything is clean/simple via the KVM, but my apps get scattered all over the place. (So I cannot find the IM or email on the Mac!)
I have seen some limited discussion on the topic of DP and the behavior in Windows that causes apps to move around; I’ve turned off DDC/CI (only one of the monitors allows this unfortunately), and fiddled with Custom Resolution Utility (CRU); neither seemed to influence the behavior. And even if this worked, no idea what the solution would be for OSX.
I guess I was expecting the KVM to “magically” manage this somehow? (Intelligent EDID Engine is mentioned in the features.) Is there any known OS-agnostic solution for this?
Displays
Acer XB71HU - DisplayPort/G-SYNC
Asus VE278Q - DisplayPort (ancient but it works!)
Devices
Nvidia Geforce RTX 2080 Ti - DisplayPort x 2
MacBook Pro/CalDdigit TS3 Plus - DisplayPort, USB-C (adapter)
Dell Latitude E7470 - Mini DisplayPort, HDMI
Thanks for the great products and forum!
– John