Excellent Switch

this switch is available for £50+ at other retailers. With cables included this is a very good deal. Very easy to connect and get it working. Hot key switch key works very well so you can tuck away this tiny unit out of sight. Cables are a bit long and bulky. Video quality is very good and mouse scroll key works fine. Very good unit for home use.

Makes life a little easier ! !.

Being a PC Technician having a belkin omniview 4-port Dual Head KVM switch makes life a little easier as it's very often I have a pc tower bought to me for a complete reinstall of Windows XP etc and this provide simple and easy access up to 4 pc's without the need for extra monitors and keyboards etc, but and there is a but or should I say a few buts number 1 but why didnt belkin make the KVM switch USB 2.0 speed as it only USB 1.0 speed which is annoying if you wanted to attach an external hard drive etc the file transfer would be slow, 2 why oh why instead of have a direct USB port for the keyboard and mouse just have 4 general USB ports as when you attach an Microsoft Digital Media Pro keyboard to the USB keyboard interface you lose all keyboard features and functions that came with the keyboard but there is a work around plug the USB Keyboard into an general USB slot and then all features are then enable with the keyboard, there is no problem with a Microsoft mouse features when plugging into the USB mouse port on the KVM switch, 3 the constant beeps is annoying when not using the keyboard port but this can be resolved by upgrading the KVM switch firmware which disables this features so you don't have to use the USB keyboard port, 4 parallel ports are outdated by todays standards and new PC's don't come with a parallel port so why oh why did belkin have the firmware upgrade cable with a parallel connector on an USB would be more ideal so to resolve that problem you have to track down an old PC Tower that has an parallel port like I did and then upgrade the firmware or buy an PCI upgrade card if they exist as I've never bought one overall its a great machine which makes life easier for myself and comes with a 5 year warranty which is great but it would be great to see in the future an firmware upgrade that not only makes the KVM switch USB speed 2.0 and to allow the keyboard USB port to use the Microsoft keyboard features and also make an firmware update cable with USB on, a good machine that could become great ! !.

Superficially OK but too irritating to live with.

I recently bought one of these 4-port Belkin KVMs as I had expanded my home office to three PCs with a fourth on the way. I thought this would be a good way to avoid all those extra keyboards, mice and monitors. I had been using a 2-port KVM of a different make which switched instantly and reliably between PCs with a double press of Scroll-Lock.

The Belkin is a chunky box which sits on your desktop, within reach. It has front connections for keyboard and mouse, and rear connections for the monitor and 3 connections (keyboard, monitor, mouse) for each of 4 PCs. It's a PS/2-only device with no USB connectivity (although my USB mouse seems to work well enough through a USB-to-PS/2 adapter).

Installation of the Belkin was simplicity itself. Just plug in all the cables to the clear, colour-coded sockets and away you go. No power supply is necessary for a single KVM. Switching between PCs is achieved by pressing the button on the KVM to cycle to the next PC or by hitting Scroll-Lock twice follwed by a digit (1 to 4)for which PC you want to use.

At first it seemed to work OK but over the next few hours and days, some annoying features emerged:

1. The beep! It can't be turned off and it sounds an unpleasant high-pitched blip every time you press the KVM's button and twice if you use the hotkey sequence. In a home office it's intrusive but in a shared office it would quickly annoy the heck out of your co-workers.

2. The mouse pointer freezes for 2 to 3 seconds after switching, before you can move it again. Not a great length of time but it reduces my productivity and increases my frustration. My previous KVM didn't have to do this, so why does the Belkin? Its manual bleats about having to re-acquire mouse co-ordination or something equally vague and unsatisfying.

3. It often ignores the hotkey sequence on the first attempt. Maybe this is why Belkin added that bleedin' beep to tell you that it had (not) seen Scroll-Lock twice. But by the time you realise that you didn't hear the beep, your fingers have moved on and pressed a digit key, which probably then ends up typed into whatever document you have open. Several of my documents have ended up with an errant"1" or"2" hidden away in them ...

4. Sometimes after switching, it changes the state of the F-Lock and Caps-Lock. Given that F-Lock is necessary for the hotkey sequence to work, turning it off sneakily seems rather underhand! On my keyboard at least (which is, however, a standard and genuine Microsoft keyboard) the Caps-Lock light is often lit up after a switch. Capital letters themselves aren't on and it takes 2 presses of Caps-Lock to turn the light off. Why?

5. Sometimes after switching, a PC"loses" the mouse or keyboard. You can recover keyboard loss by unplugging and re-plugging the keyboard, but since there is no mouse recovery feature as on other KVMs, mouse loss can only be recovered by rebooting the affected PC. This is perhaps the most aggravating thing of all as it can be a real productivity-killer and always seems to happen at the worst possible moment.

6. After switching, the KVM seems to issue a mouse-button event to the attached PC. This is sometimes a"back" click on my 5-button mouse and sometimes a roll of the mouse wheel. Again, this may be only my mouse, but it's another standard, genuine and ubiquitous Microsoft Intellimouse product. In practice, it can change the page you are viewing to the previous one or effect a scroll if that's what your mouse's wheel does. This is the second time I have typed this whole review as I switched to another PC after typing the first draft, and the KVM did a back-button click as I returned here, going to the previous page and destroying my words! Grrrrrr!

7. When pressing the button on the KVM to cycle through the PCs, it will happily switch to unused ports. Many KVMs ignore unused ports to avoid having to cycle through them to get back to a working one. The Belkin insists on visiting all 4 ports in turn and even introduces a 2 second delay before you can move on to one that works.

These faults add up to a device which should be simple and transparent to live with, but which is most definitely not. I have now ordered a different make of KVM after carefully studying its online manual.

Anyone want to buy a little-used Belkin before it goes in the bin? ;-)

Rubbish!

I agree with the other reviews, this is useless piece of junk. I have just about managed to squeeze all the cables in, but I'm not using the two extra USB sockets just the keyboard and mouse, and neither am I using the audio. It would not work with my Logitech wireless keyboard and 90% of the time does not connect the keyboard to the computer on port 1 if the laptop I have on port 2 isn't connected and turned on, even then it's 50:50.

I've also noticed the dropping of characters when typing fast, although with my typing this isn't too big a problem!

Not bad, just a few issues

Had this for a few days now. The build quality is solid but for me there are a few issues in its usage:

1. When setting it up i didnt follow the instructions properly (hey what bloke does, right?) when first connecting it to my desktop. As a result my keyboard (Logitech Internet NAvigator SE) does not work at all when it is plugged into the designated port after windows has loaded (it works ok when loading the bios). However, it works correctly when i switch to my other (laptop) pc (yes i followed the instructions on this one).

As a workaround, I plugged it into one of the auxillary ports and it works on both machines which brings me to my second issue:

2. When switching between machines the f-Lock mode on the keyboard turns itself off. This is very annoying if you are a keyboard shortcut person. Perhapse this wont happen if i had set it up properly.

On the mouse side of things my mouse (Logitech Mx-510) works flawlessly and all buttons work correctly.

All in all, this is a solid kvm but I reccomentd that anyone thinking of buying it try should try one out first. Especially those with multimedia keyboards.

Cables is cables is cables is cables...

What can you say about cables? Well, these particular ones are well made and do the job. Tidy, presentable with a clean and tight fitting connection when plugged in. Extended finger screws on the monitor cable make them easy to tighten or loosen compared to"basic" monitor cables.

The big PLUS factor on these particular cables? I recently paid £19.99 each for two sets to go with my 4-port Belkin KVM switch, from a major high-street chain... and now I find them for less than HALF that price, here on Amazon.

SOLD! I'll take two more to give me the full compliment I require.

Does not function!

This device does not do anything but beep constantly. After following the manufacturer's included instructions to the letter, the device will not switch between computers consistently. When it DOES switch, it will almost always lose the keyboard or mouse. The device chirps every couple of seconds, even when the computers are turned off. This chirping noise is so annoying and constant, that even if the device DID work, one could never use it without going insane. Save your hard earned money and buy something else instead. Belkin really screwed this one up..