Review on IOGEAR 4 Port Switch Cables GCS1764 by Jose Schweigert

I bought an Iogear 4 port DVI switch to use with 3 Macs and a PC. I was thrilled to be able to use all of my DVI based computers with my beautiful 20 inch Apple display. Unfortunately, due to a stupid decision by Iogear, the Switch doesn't work the way we'd like. want it. If you have DVI connections, the display sends a special ID to the computer so the computer knows exactly what it's connected to. That's cool, and it's a standard feature of DVI displays. "Inactive" computers is NOT the ID of a display that is still connected to the switch's console port! All "inactive" computers are given a new ID, which they mistake for a VGA display. That's a stupid move. The fact that the display changes every time you disconnect from the computer forces the computer to reconfigure itself for the new display, and in short, it's tedious. Since this switch only has DVI connectors, I expected Iogear to work better with DVI. When you connect a Windows XP PC, it works fine. When you connect Mac laptops it works fine but the second screen keeps changing as above. When you plug in a Mac Pro Tower, you're under a hose. I was able to get my Mac Pro Tower to work well with the Switch by inserting a Gefen DVI Detective between the Mac and Switch. If you're having trouble, you can take a look at this. But if you haven't already, consider the Gefen KVM switch as an alternative.