Summary: I purchased this KVM to share a new Samsung T260HD 26in HDTV/monitor (Christmas present, and excellent!) between an older Dell desktop and a new HP laptop, driving the monitor ...
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Summary: I purchased this KVM to share a new Samsung T260HD 26in HDTV/monitor (Christmas present, and excellent!) between an older Dell desktop and a new HP laptop, driving the monitor at its native resolution of 1920x1200. Both computers work fine with the monitor at this resolution when directly connected. However, put the Belkin SOHO KVM in the middle and the story changes.
For my HP laptop (with Intel GMA graphics) no image is displayed, and the monitor gives a message ?mode not supported?. For my Dell desktop (Radeon 9550 graphics card), as soon as I changed up to the higher resolution, the image would flicker onto the screen for a fraction of a second, every few seconds. Later on (and I have no idea what changed), the image would at least stay on the screen, but with a number of random pixels constantly flickering on and off. Sometimes there would also be a thin white line right across the middle of the screen. Even at 1600x1200 I had pixels flickering, with 1280x1024 being the highest resolution giving a stable image.
I spoke to Belkin tech support, who at least are always easily available for free, answering the phones quickly (and in the past have happily helped me with Belkin router questions, even with a product several years old).
I suspect Belkin have downrated the capabilities of this product, presumably due to this kind of technical problem. The manual that shipped with my KVM (copyrighted 2008) stated a maximum supported resolution of 2560*1600. At the time of writing, the spec sheet at www.belkin.com/PDF/SOHO_final.pdf says the same (I suggested they fix it!); however the online version of the manual states 1920x1200. Belkin tech support also insisted this lower number was the maximum supported resolution ? and even tried to suggest I might be having problems because I was using this device at its maximum capabilities, while denying it ever supported a higher resoultion!
After confirming I?d already gone through all the troubleshooting steps, they agreed the product must be defective, and offered to replace it under their warranty replacement terms, which involve me paying to ship the defective unit back to them. Although this is not unreasonable say with a 9-month old, used but under warranty product, I do not expect to be out of pocket when dealing with a defective, dead-on-arrival item. By this point I?m also losing confidence in the product. So it?s now on its way back for a refund.
Other things to note about this product? The four supplied 6-foot combined DVI/USB cables seem to be excellent quality, if thickness of cable is anything to go by - although as noted elsewhere, the connectors are DVI-I, so won?t fit into DVI-D sockets (search for DVI in Wikipedia if you aren?t sure of the difference). Interestingly, there is a note in red on the belkin.com product page stating ?cables now come included in the box? and I do WONDER if they started to supply their own high-quality cables to try to minimize the technical problems with this box, which could be exacerbated by lower quality cables. Just a thought...
The box itself is very lightweight, and really needs to be heavier not to be dragged off the back of one?s desk by all those heavyweight cables plugged in!
Oh and then there are those weird large, black, round switches on the front, to select the input ports. They are rubber! Press one on one side and the monitor and USB switches to that port; press the other side and the audio switches (so you can listen to a CD playing on one computer while working on the other). Press in the middle and everything switches. They feel very cheap. And rather annoyingly, each switch has two VERY BRIGHT white LEDs to indicate the selected ports. If like me your desk is in the corner of your bedroom, this is very irritating at night. Why some manufacturers are using the newer kind of high light output LEDs intended for flashlights in good old-fashioned indicator LED applications beats me.
For me, the best thing about this product is the supplied cables. A pity, as I did want a working KVM as well!
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