In December I bought a pair of new flat panel monitors. For no real reason, I decided I just had to have digital. I don't do gaming or anything that requires high intensity video. I do imagine that Vista will be way cooler with DVI/Digital monitors than plain old VGA. So you know - the cool factor influenced my purchase decision.
Prior to my fancy setup, I had one VGA monitor and I used a simple and inexpensive KVM switch to share it between my main computer and my test machine. The device is an all-in-one set of cables and tapping the ScrlLk key twice would switch my keyboard, monitor and mouse from one box to the other. The height of laziness. I loved it. There are a few brands. I happen to have this one made by LinkSys.
The monitors cost me about $700 total.
After I struggled through getting my monitors set up - and it was a struggle since my main computer did not have DVI capability, was limited to a PCI slot and this meant I had to purchase an additional card to put in my computer. Just getting to that point of understanding took a lot of time and effort on my part - all new technologies for me. I originally ordered an AGP card then discovered (yes, this is embarrassing) that the AGP doesn't just plug into a PCI slot, you have to have a special slot. So that cost me about an extra $30 in round trip shipping and re-stocking fees since I had opened up all of the packaging.
After I finally learned enough about the differences between AGP, PCI Plus and PCI, I set out to find a PCI card that would allow me to handle dual monitors. That took a while as I kept rejecting cards that had only one port for a monitor. I kept looking for two. But it turns out that it is the card's capability internally, not physically that allows for dual monitors. I finally found what I think is the only card on the planet that is PCI and allows dual monitors. It is made by HP.
That was about another $150. And about 2 week have now passed since I received my monitors.
The it turned out that this card required a super special cable ONLY made by HP. They sold it for about $40, but I finally found it for $17 at an online specialty cable company out of Florida.
A week later, it looked like I had all of the necessary parts. I plugged everything in and was in love with the dual monitor setup on my computer.
But there was still one thing not dealt with yet. My KVM switch would not work with Digital monitors. I had two options. One was to purchase a few VGA/DVI adapters and continue to use my KVM switch, but that would mean losing the digital capabilities on one of the monitors. This also meant I would only share one monitor.
I should also mention that in the meantime, I had acquired a wireless mouse/fingerprint reader combo which requires USB.
So I started on the hunt for a DVI switch. I spent many many (many) hours on the internet on this quest. There is no such thing as an all-in-one simple cable setup. The only way to go is to get a box an also buy two separate cables. If I wanted to share both monitors I was looking at about $750! That was more than my monitors cost.
So I looked and looked and looked and finally (my searching skills getting better as I understood the technology better) discovered that PCConnection had a box for $100. Suddenly this looked like a good price, though my other solution cost abut $40. I looked at the manufacturer's website (www.amconn.com), contacted support to verify that this would really solve my problem and ordered the unit and a cable from PCConnection. It was on back-order, but would have cost another $100 directly from the manufacturer. So I was willing to wait the estimated 10 days. Two months, many emails between PCConnection and AmConn later, the unit arrived. AmConn had not been prepared for a recent rise in demand for this product and there just weren't enough out in the distribution channels. Fair enough. But hooray, I finally got it. The cable had been sitting around for 2 months already.
Within about 5 minutes, I realized I needed not one but TWO cables. So I went back o PCConnection and rolled my eyes when I saw that the shipping for the extra $20 cable would cost $10. There is just something not right about paying 50% of a product's cost for shipping. I emailed the customer service person who had been awesome at checking on the status and keeping me informed over the two months and she was happy to ship me the cable with no shipping charge after my long patient wait for the main unit.
In addition to the monitors, my investment so far has now totalled about $350. About $150 of this is for the switching capability.
My last little snafu was just a mistake on my part, but the AmConn 712, though it allows you to use USB devices, is really setup for PS2 mouse & keyboard. I plugged my new USB mouse into the front of the box (really this is for occasional USB devices like cameras) and it didn't switch over. So I dug around my whole house looking for the USB (F) to PS2 (M) that had come with a mini mouse giveaway at PDC. It was nowhere to be found. Therefore, when Rich and I were in town last night, we went to Radio Shack and Staples. The only way to get one of these dumb little adapters was to buy a USB mouse. Of course, now I see that I could have ordered one for about $3 from PCConnection along with my cable. Arrgh. So I just decided - what the heck, what's another $15 after all of this an bought a USB mouse for the adapter that came in the box. In the end, it turns out that my particular special USB mouse (Microsoft Explorer Wireless Intellimouse that has fingerprint reader and it is the fingerprint reader that plugs into the computer and provides the wireless transmitter for the mouse) does not work with a PS2 adapter (which is why it didn't come with one). The reason the mouse didn't switch over (nor work when it was plugged directly into the 2nd computer, I discovered) was because I had to install the drivers. Duh.
So after all of that effort, I actually finally have this set up!
I have dual monitor display on my main computer but can easily switch one of the monitors (along with the keyboard and then with a special action on the keyboard, the mouse) to be used on my alternate computer. While I am using that, of course, I can't work on the main machine. But I can at least see if emails come in, etc.
I am having a little problem with the keyboard which doesn't like to do anything repetitive (such as hitting the arrow key over and over) and seems to skip occasional keys when I am typing. I will just check the manual about that.
I did write to AmConn, who had expressed surprise at the high demand for these units, and told them that if they could make an all in one cable switch that accommodated DVI and USB, they would be golden because there are going to be more and more people going to Digital. I sure hope they do it. And when they do, look on EBay for my pretty new switch box.
[Note: Check this follow up post for more...]