Review on 💻 Black IOGEAR 2-Port USB DisplayPort Cable KVM Switch by Tim Wadman

I hooked up one of these things between a Mac Mini and Linux/Win10. While it's essentially functional for my purposes, I hate it and find it difficult to recommend it to anyone. Here are my problems: - The sound path is a joke. This KVM switch puts so much noise into both channels that they are practically unusable. Others have reported this as well, so I don't think it's just my device. I've since removed that switch from my computer's sound paths and hooked them up to a separate two-way amplifier (this one: Orb Audio Mini T V3 Amplifier (Black)). This amp doesn't automatically switch audio between the two computers, you have to do it manually, but the noise is gone and I don't mind manually selecting the channel. --- The Switch is sometimes confused about which computer it is connected to. connected, especially when I wake my computer from sleep mode. In this case, nothing appears on the display and I have to press the select button a few times for the switch to understand what it needs to do. Annoying, but I can put up with hitting the select button a few times before the switch actually works properly. - Which unfortunately is not always the case. In a couple of weeks of using this switch, I had an episode where the computer and KVM completely lost USB communication: after waking up my Mac, the switch gave me a video signal, but didn't transmit any information about the Keyboard Mouse. Whether I unplugged and plugged everything back in and switched between computers, it didn't work. I had to connect another keyboard/mouse to reboot (yes, actually reboot) the Mac to get the two devices to become friends again. I've never had an issue like this with my Mac on either of the two KVM switches it's been connected to in the past, so I now blame the switch and hope the problem doesn't persist. -- The switcher does not manage display IDs between the two systems. So if you use two computers with different resolutions, you will find that the computers resize their windows every time you switch between them. I don't have this problem as both of my computers use the same resolution, but I expect it will be inconvenient for others. I've been using KVM switches for almost 20 years - updated every 3-5 years with the technology evolving - and KVMs seem to become less and less stable over time (as the technology "gets better and better"). Looking at reviews of other DisplayPort KVM switches, problems like this seem to be epidemic, so I suspect that handling these digital signals gracefully is harder than it looks. However, I wonder why no one can do this job properly. Especially with sound. The pure switching of analogue audio signals was solved decades ago. If I find another DisplayPort KVM that's guaranteed to behave the way a KVM should, I'll buy it immediately, even at three times the price. Until then, this KVM switch serves as an affordable temporary solution, and for now I'll put up with its problems, considering that it performs most of its functions with enough reliability to cause only the occasional disappointment.