KVM Switches
 

I plan to purchase new P4 in the near future. Of course I plan to leave my current P4 (mainly because of GIMPS). I'm looking for a way to have both PCs and only one monitor (and preferably one keyboard and mouse). KVM switches seems the only solution for that. Am I right?

I don't know much about them and what to look when purchasing one. Can anybody help with some info? What to look, what is the reasonable price for them etc.?

Or is there any other solution besides KVM switches?

Thanks.

A KVM system to share one video, keyboard and mouse, with cables, starts at about $40 or less.

How about using RealVNC instead, if you plan to share your P4 on the same network?

Luigi

I picked up one of [URL=http://www.iogear.com/products/product.php?Item=GCS62]these by IOGear[/URL] for a reasonable price. To switch between machines, just tap the Scroll Lock twice (like double clicking the mouse). It requires no external power plug, it is small and comes with 2 sets of long cables attached. Only problem, you can stack them to add more machines.

[QUOTE]Or is there any other solution besides KVM switches?[/QUOTE]

You could get 2 10/100 network cards and a crossover cable.
Then you can take the video card and hard disk from your old
machine and use them in the new one, quite a savings.

You could run Linux on one of them and then use Putty or Cygwin to SSH into it from the remaining Windows box...

[url]http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/[/url]

[url]http://www.cygwin.com/[/url]

Re: KVM Switches
 

TightVNC and RealVNC are great programs. It is basicly KVM switching over the network(instead of multiple cables). Using this you can move the old computer to anyother place on your network. This is how i keep control of my intel x486 router and Via C3 machines.

I would also go for VNC. I have no experience with RealVNC (i use TightVNC). I think they even share some code. Does anyone know advantages/disadvantages concerniong those two implementations? The reason i initially used TightVNC was the good performance with low bandwidth.

Thanks for suggestions and excellent advices!

I run a home network. Four of my machines are on a KVM switch. The remainder have their own KVM hardware. Two are laptops so the devices are built in and don't clutter up my study with extra cables and devices.

IMO, it doesn't matter much what model of switch is used in a domestic or SOHO situation. You should get something that is a reasonable price. If you're thinking of controlling dozens of machines and, especially, if you want to do so over a phone line or the internet, you need something much more elaborate and many times more expensive.

To those people recommending various screenscrapers such as VNC or remote shells like Putty, they are fine as far as they go. In my experience they don't go far enough. How, for instance, do you use VNC to set BIOS configurations or investigate why a machine hasn't booted to a GUI?


Paul

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by xilman [/i]
[B]... to set BIOS configurations or investigate why a machine hasn't booted to a GUI?[/B][/QUOTE]A serial console cable?

:cat:

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Xyzzy [/i]
[B]A serial console cable?

:cat: [/B][/QUOTE]

How would you setup the BIOS to allow this? What motherboards allow this?

[QUOTE]To those people recommending various screenscrapers such as VNC or remote shells like Putty, they are fine as far as they go. In my experience they don't go far enough. How, for instance, do you use VNC to set BIOS configurations or investigate why a machine hasn't booted to a GUI?[/QUOTE]

Set up just one machine with a video card and a x-windows server, then other machines can use the server gui without needing their own video card. A simple way is just to run programs on the remote machines using 'xon'.

Make sure you have set the bios correctly before you remove the video card. :-)

[QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Angular [/i]
[B]How would you setup the BIOS to allow this? What motherboards allow this? [/B][/QUOTE]Some motherboards allow this... The motherboard in our Opteron server, for example...

That said, it is not a common option...

I'm a little old fashioned I guess, because this is one of the features I look for, and I'm used to all of my older computers allowing serial console access...

But I do keep an old monitor and keyboard around for this purpose, just in case...

BTW, you can get a card that allows KVM/BIOS access over TCP/IP... It is very expensive but very cool...

[url]http://www.minicom.com/kvm_mxip.htm[/url]