Yes. I run my PC and my work laptop dock (ThinkPad) using a KVM switch. The KVM supports dual Display ports and 4 USB 3.0 ports. I believe I get a max of 4K at 120Hz for both.
this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2024
23 points (100.0% liked)
No Stupid Questions
35861 readers
1632 users here now
No such thing. Ask away!
!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rules (interactive)
Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.
All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.
Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.
Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.
Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.
Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.
Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.
That's it.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.
Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.
On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.
If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.
Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.
If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.
Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.
Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.
Let everyone have their own content.
Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.
Credits
Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!
The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
I’ve done this before with a laptop and KVM switch. It worked fine. YMMV depending on the dock and switch in question though. The only issue I ran into was needing separate cables for the mouse/keyboard and video from the switch to the dock.
There are software KVMs that should work if you can't get a hardware solution to work. I can't imagine any issues with a hardware KVM and your setup as long as the cables and ports are the proper ones for what you have going on. Most KVMs are plug and play.
This depends. I've found that the cheaper KVM solutions are pretty picky when it comes to supported hardware and standards. While the more expensive/industrial ones are more forgiving.
Yes, I used a hardware KVM with a laptop (Dell with a dock) and a desktop, it makes a lot of wires, but it works. You may need a high end KVM if you want to switch dual-monitor, 4K+ monitor, etc
But having both system at the same time is a must, so at one point I used RDP (windows->linux or linux->windows) from a screen.
But for ~3 years now I'm using a software "KM", meaning my desktop is connected to a monitor, my laptop is connected to the second monitor, and I share the keyboard/mouse (hence KM) in software using InputLeap (formerly Barrier). It is seriously pretty good, when my mouse exit monitor #1, it enters monitor #2, and whatever you type is entered in the system where your mouse cursor is. It is fantastic, I cannot live without this now.
You will probably only see issues if you are using conversion cables, like from HDMI to DP.
I have seen issues with Tripp Lite not detecting video signal on a DP KVM if the device isn't selected during boot, but the issue is resolved once you hit Windows.
I am doing this with my personal and work laptops. I have two dell docking stations and a KVM to switch between the two.
It will work, probably not well. There is a ton of factors to take into account.
1- When switching the KVM input, depending on the KVM, the screens just get disconnected, meaning that the screens get re-detected each time you switch. Sometime it works well,sometimes not. Your laptop may also enter sleep mode since it is closed without screens attached. You may have to open it and press the keyboard if the USB from the KVM and docks are not re-detected.
2- If you use Displayport MST to connect your screens you have to make sure both the dock and KVM will support it.
3- When switching the KVM USB also gets disconnected and reconnected, it can be problematic with your dock, also see end of point 1
I have both high quality (and too expensive) docks and KVM that I took time to research and it works ok most of the time but still glitches. The docks and multiple screens add complexity to the setup and fail points.
If you go this way you will want to take your time and make sure all the pieces work together, I would steer clear of cheap Amazon stuff also.
- KVM : iogear GCS1964
- Docks : 2 WD19S
- Screens: 3 Dell U2415 connected through HDMi