Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 01:30:39 -0400 From: "Yeasah Pell" <yeasah@apocalypse.org> To: "freebsd-stable" <freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: OT: Belkin KVM (Re: moused, psm0, and Logitech) Message-ID: <011f01c2103f$f50191a0$042010ac@godel> References: <B928CBB7.D9C3%freebsd@damnhippie.dyndns.org>
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> Odd that you should call Belkin "cheap and generic". When people ask me for > a KVM recommendation I always say "stay away from that cheap generic crap, > buy Belkin if you want to avoid fuzzy video at high rez." My apologies in advance for straying off topic... I make similar recommendations with respect to Belkin and KVMs, but I feel I should comment on the quality of their USB KVM switches that they now make. Having purchased one of the first models they made that supported USB, and more recently a just-released USB model, I have to say both are excellent in all regards save one -- the USB keyboard implementation is terrible. In this case, terrible means: 1) Frequent stuck keys. (depending on usage patterns) 2) In an attempt to limit the effect of stuck keys, ALL keys will stop repeating after a few seconds (e.g. a key release scan code will be sent regardless of the fact you are still pressing the key) 3) Only the bare minimum of scan codes are passed -- no "special" keys are supported, and thus cannot be used no matter what. I am told (by Belkin tech support) that the main source of the trouble is that they actually convert the keyboard data from USB to PS/2, process it for the hotkey switching, and then convert it back to USB. I am also told that despite the fact that their newer switches are firmware updatable, none of this functionality can be changed with firmware updates. Both of those claims boggle my mind. Despite these problems, I still feel that the Belkin switches are a good value -- I'm especially pleased with the newer switches they make that have a 400MHz video bandwidth. Very impressive video handling. But I wish somebody had told me a bit about the keyboard implementation *before* I bought a bunch of USB KVMs from them. :-) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
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