10 out of 10 people found this review helpful.
So far, so good!
Date of Review: Dec 12, 2004
The Bottom Line: This KVM works well, video quality is good, and it'll save you from ergonomic-related problems!
Recently, my wife has complained of arm pain from working. She works from our home office, and uses a laptop most of the time on her desk. She also has a standard desktop, and switching between the two has become a pain. Her desktop keyboard sits on top of the desk with a mouse on the side, and her laptop has a secondary keyboard connected to it, and its keyboard and mouse are on the keyboard tray below the desk.
This causes a couple of problems. First of all, it gets confusing at times which keyboard and mouse control which computer. Most importantly, this is an ergonomic nightmare! As you may know, your keyboard should rest at a height that allows your arms to be at a right angle and your forearms to be parallel to the floor. The top of the monitor should be at about eye level as well. In my wife's case, the desktop keyboard and mouse were too high, but the monitor was at the right height. The laptop's keyboard and mouse were at the right height, but the monitor was off to the side and also too low!
Obviously, the solution to this problem was to buy a KVM, but I wanted to get a USB model that was inexpensive. I've had bad experiences with PS/2 models from Linksys in the past, so I figured that I'd do some research here on epinions first.
The model I had decided to go with was the Iogear GCS52U because of a few good reviews here. Unfortunately, none of the local computer stores had it. Last night, I went to the local Best Buy to get some Christmas presents, and the only USB KVM they had from Iogear was the GCS632U. I didn't remember reading anything about this model at the time, so I figured that I'd just pick it up. For $60, it was worth a shot since the "lower" model GCS52U received decent marks.
As soon as I got home, I unpackaged the KVM and started to hook it up. The unit itself is molded out of some rubbery material and seems pretty durable. There are 2 LEDs on it, and they indicate which of the two PCs are currently being used. One thing I was really pleased about was the included cables. They are actually molded into the main box, and include a standard DB15 VGA connector, audio jack, and USB plug for each computer. On the input side, there are two USB receptacles (one for the mouse, and one for the keyboard) and one DB15 VGA connector. I'm not sure how useful the LED indicators are, because you can't see them when the main unit ends up on the floor behind the desk!
The first time I hooked up the two computers, I just removed the two USB plugs from her desktop and plugged them into the inputs on the KVM. I then plugged the output cables into their respective PCs. The keyboard worked great, but the mouse didn't work at all. In addition, pressing Scroll Lock twice didn't toggle between the two systems! After tracing through the connections, I realized that the mouse was plugged into the back of her keyboard (a Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro), and the other USB plug I had connected was actually the hub built into her monitor! Whoops!
I then removed the USB hub's plug, and replaced it with the mouse. Didn't work -- I still couldn't switch between PCs. I then power cycled both systems just for the heck of it -- still didn't work.
At this point, I was a little confused, so I went and reversed the plugs on the inputs to the KVM... lo and behold, now both the mouse and keyboard worked at the same time! I then tried to toggle, and it worked!
This whole experience was a little confusing for me, since the USB hub worked in the initial configuration (our flash card reader was operational through the KVM), and the keyboard's hub didn't work. However, this is a minor point for me. I just wanted the keyboard and mouse to be shared between the two systems.
My wife doesn't care much about the audio switching. She actually prefers to have the laptop's audio come from the laptop, and the desktop audio come from her monitor. However, I did test the audio switching briefly, and it worked out well.
Video quality seems good so far. She only works at 1280x1024, and the unit is rated to go to higher resolutions, but we won't know how it works at those resolutions until I give her a hand-me-down (my Viewsonic VP201s). When switching from one PC to the other, the video shifts slightly, but I think this is due to her monitor's inability to auto-adjust when it detects a different video input signal.
Overall, I'm extremely pleased with this USB KVM switch. For the money, it's hard to beat, and I'm particularly pleased that the cables are included. As long as you don't accidentally destroy a cable, this unit should serve you well. I'll update this review later as time goes on, if she encounters any weird problems. If you don't find an update, then it's safe to assume that it's still running strong!
**************** UPDATED 12/18/04 ****************
The KVM has still been working great for my wife, so I figured that it was time for me to pick up one as well. Fortunately, my dad never used the docking station for his Thinkpad T42, so he gave it to me to use with my T40. I hooked up everything, and it worked the first time. However, I did want to mention one interesting point. I don't use a mouse, but instead use a device called the iGesture from FingerWorks. I should save the details for a separate review, so let me just say that the iGesture has a Scroll Lock key, which is the key that's used to switch from one PC to the other. Well, it doesn't work with this KVM for some reason. Fortunately, I can still use the Scroll Lock key on my keyboard, so it's ok. FingerWorks used to make a keyboard called the Retro (which I use at work) that only has the Scroll Lock key on the gesture pad, but doesn't have a normal Scroll Lock key, so that particular keyboard may not work with this KVM.
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