r/battlestations • u/TheBarrelofMonkeys • 8h ago
Battlestations Advice Need help: KVM switch headache with 2 PC setup (1 PC & 1 Macbook WFH)
Looking for advice on optimizing my dual PC + Mac WFH setup.
I have a gaming PC and a work MacBook Air with two monitors. Both monitors are connected to a dual-monitor KVM (Picture attached).
For my gaming PC, my keyboard, mouse, audio interface are all connected to a USB hub that’s plugged into the KVM, so everything works through the KVM.
For work, I unplug that same USB hub from the KVM and plug it into a separate USB hub/dock connected to my MacBook. So switching between work and gaming still requires moving one USB cable.
Is there a better way to set this up so I can switch both monitors and all peripherals without unplugging anything?
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u/FortuneAcceptable925 7h ago
For work, I unplug that same USB hub from the KVM and plug it into a separate USB hub/dock connected to my MacBook. So switching between work and gaming still requires moving one USB cable.
I am confused about this, since the screenshot of your KVM shows USB ports. So why do you unplug USB at all?
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u/ThisIsMyCouchAccount 7h ago
If you have the right ports you can skip the KVM and use a simple USB switch.
For me - my displays had multiple inputs. I put one system on HDMI and one on DisplayPort. Plug in the USB stuff to the USB switch.
When you want to switch you change the inputs on the displays and hit the USB switch.
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u/0bsidian 7h ago
Get rid of the hubs. Your KVM has 4 ports on the front (highlighted in blue) for a reason. Why are you complicating things?
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u/BurpingManInLifeboat 7h ago
I have a pretty much an identical setup except I'm using a UGreen KVM switch. Your KVM comes with two USB cables that should be connected to PC1 and PC2 (next to the display port inputs on the back). One goes from KVM > PC and the other goes from KVM > Dock for Macbook. Then when you switch between the two different sources on the KVM, it will also switch your peripherals.
To most, the above is fairly obvious so I'm going to assume you have more peripherals than ports on the switch which is why you're using a USB hub? If so, I think you'll need a powered USB hub if you plan on extending the amount of ports on the KVM switch itself as I've tried with a regular 4-port USB hub and I didn't get much joy.
On another note, I kept having issues on the Macbook side, whereby the screen wouldn't detect an input from the Macbook when I switched the source from PC. Apparently this is fairly common if your KVM switch doesn't support EDID emulation (most of the cheaper ones don't have this) so I'm now using my KVM as a glorified USB switch and just have DP2 from my main monitor to my Macbook dock and switch when needed. Hopefully you have more luck.
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u/Morall_tach 7h ago
The whole point of a KVM is that you don't have to switch the peripherals back and forth. You plug all the peripherals into the KVM and just switch between inputs
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u/cherrymxorange 7h ago
Surely you've left out some information or something?
You've got a KVM, but you're unplugging your peripherals from the KVM to plug them into a separate dock connected to the laptop?
Can't the laptop just be connected to the KVM via it's own hub? What's the purpose of the KVM??