Home office redesign: multi-OS personal use KVM suggestions?

[AZRedhawk44]

I've re-worked my home office in a new way and I really like it. 

I used to have one desk for my personal computer, out in a back corner of the living room, and then one bedroom dedicated to my work office.  I just shifted a bunch of furniture around last night and integrated both workspaces into one mega-awesome super control station from which I can dominate the entire cosmos.

But, I need a KVM that doesn't suck.

Ever had a KVM that sucks?  Yeah, I don't want one of those, ever again.  Curse you, Belkin!

(I had this array of daisy chained 8 and 16-port Omniviews at my previous job that was a royal POS.  Never detected or negotiated PS2 properly unless a server was the active port during boot-up.  Then, the only way to rectify the problem was to down the server and make sure it was the active port during boot.  Argh!  Epic fail.)

I have 2 towers I need to share a 24" monitor.
USB mouse (MS Optical mouse)
I have a PS2 keyboard right now, but it's getting old and used up... I'll probably get a new USB keyboard.
One tower has a DVI-output video card.
One tower has a D-SUB 15-pin output video card.
I'd like for both towers to also switch audio output.

I have 3 total towers in my house...
1. My "big" box which gets upgraded every 2 years or so.
2. My "DVR" box which seems to be my 2 year old "big" box.
3. The "spare."

The two in my office that are joining my work laptop are my "big" box and my "spare."

I'm getting close to rebuilding the "big" box again (CPU/mobo/video/hd) which will then have me rolling those parts into the DVR box, the DVR parts going to the "spare" and the "spare" parts going into the closet rat stash of old computer parts.

The big caveat I see is the differences in video output between the towers.  That will be resolved once I start part-swapping, so I need to default to a KVM that caters to DVI rather than D-SUB. 

Anyone have experience with a good KVM in a mixed video environment like that?  I can't remember which "direction" the DVI-DSUB converters work.  Can I convert a DSUB AGP video output to a DVI cable?  Or are those intended to convert a DSUB-input monitor to accept a DVI video board signal?

Also, host OS's will be heterogeneous. Ideally it swaps between input based only on a button on the KVM switch itself, rather than keystrokes on the keyboard.

[AJ Dual]

Avocent or Minicom... but be prepared to pay.

And too bad you didn't ask, they've got lots of IP KVM solutions too, so you could have left all those PC's where they were. 

[mtnbkr]

Avocent is nice.  I've used them before in a datacenter environment.

10 years ago, the network enabled Avocent was well over $1k for just a few ports.

Chris

[AZRedhawk44]

Nah, nothing that fancy guys.

We're just talking about a 2 to 4 port home use KVM, no need for IP-KVM capabilities.

I just want one that works correctly and doesn't drop out of connection with the computer when you switch between them.  I'm allotting $150, tops, for this project.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817399061

Seems a lot of this stuff is hit-and-miss, and what is a 5-star product for 1 user turns into a craptastic pile of junk for another due to differences in video signal standards.

[AJ Dual]

Seems a lot of this stuff is hit-and-miss, and what is a 5-star product for 1 user turns into a craptastic pile of junk for another due to differences in video signal standards.

I think you've honestly answered your own question here.

When it comes to the desktop 2-4 system stuff, Belkin, whom you loathe (for good, if anecdotal, reasons) seems to snatch up the most good reviews. [shrug] Of course, I think it probably has something to do with market saturation, rather than actual quality. But therein lies the rub.

I think aggressive testing, trying out a matrix of any/all screen resolutions and USB combinations, and not discarding the boxes until you're satisfied is going to be your answer here.

[41magsnub]

We have had great luck with the Belkin Omniview Pro3's we've installed over the years at different locations.  There is a mix of USB and PS2 on everything.  I remember the old Belkins and we had the same issues you describe..  very annoying.

[BryanP]

I finally gave up on cheap KVM's and just make do with RDP and/or VNC as needed.

[AJ Dual]

I finally gave up on cheap KVM's and just make do with RDP and/or VNC as needed.

It's good enough for most things, but if there's video/graphics involved, not so much.

[Ben]

I've had good luck with an Iogear KVM with DVI.

[CNYCacher]

You could get another monitor and run Synergy.  It's software that lets you move the mouse across the monitor border from one computer to the other.  The keyboard goes with the mouse.  So you have one keyboard and one mouse hooked up to one of your computers.  The other computers (which need their own monitors) just have the synergy client running.  you tell synergy what your monitor layout is. "I am on big box and i have the monitor for dvrbox on the right of this monitor, and my laptop is to the left"  Then when you move your mouse off the right side of the screen, synergy causes the mouse to disappear and reappear on the left edge of dvrbox's screen.  Keyboard input gets sent to whichever screen has the mouse.  it's all very slick.

[AJ Dual]

You could get another monitor and run Synergy.  It's software that lets you move the mouse across the monitor border from one computer to the other.  The keyboard goes with the mouse.  So you have one keyboard and one mouse hooked up to one of your computers.  The other computers (which need their own monitors) just have the synergy client running.  you tell synergy what your monitor layout is. "I am on big box and i have the monitor for dvrbox on the right of this monitor, and my laptop is to the left"  Then when you move your mouse off the right side of the screen, synergy causes the mouse to disappear and reappear on the left edge of dvrbox's screen.  Keyboard input gets sent to whichever screen has the mouse.  it's all very slick.

Oooh. I totally forgot about Synergy.

Uh... word to the wise. Don't install Synergy on two machines that are on different subnets (with different levels of trust) even if they are sitting right next to each other. Sometimes other people in IT might take a dim view of it... 

[CNYCacher]

Oooh. I totally forgot about Synergy.

Uh... word to the wise. Don't install Synergy on two machines that are on different subnets (with different levels of trust) even if they are sitting right next to each other. Sometimes other people in IT might take a dim view of it... 

ROFL. 

It's been a while since I used it, but isn't the clipboard shared as well?  Like you can highlight, copy on one screen, move the mouse over to the other screen and then paste?  Hell of a feature to have between two computers on different trust levels.

Oh wait.  I am thinking of x2x and the highlight/middleclick automatic copy/paste feature of X.  Synergy was made as a successor to x2x though, so I wouldn't be surprised if it had this.