[david.brackman01_732]

Dear, 
I´m a product manager @Barco, can you please send an email to [email protected] so I can try to further help you.
 
Thank you
 
David

[radiologistkahraman_799]

Quote from fw

I am trying to connect two PACS workstations to the same set of Barco NIO 3421 monitors and a regular side monitors. The Barcos have one DP and one DVI input and neither of my workstations supports DVI. Soo, short of wearing out the DP plug by switching the connector back and forth anytime I switch between hospitals, I am looking for a KVM (or just monitor switch) that can handle 3 Display Port inputs and two PCs. I dont necessarily need to switch the peripherals, I can accomodate two keyboards and input devices. I don’t need support for dolby surround sound or a farkled up keyboard

Rooting around on the internet tubes, the reviews for DP 1.4 capable KVMs are somewhere between ‘horse-dung’ and ‘there’s $400 down the drain’.

Anyone have a recommendation for a reliable monitor switch that does ‘EDID’* and is able to handle 2-4 DP 1.4 signals ?

* [size=”1″]pretends that the monitor is still there after you switch workstations so windows doesn’t rearrange everything.[/size]

 
Did you make any headway on this?

[ruszja]

Quote from TurboEcho

Did you make any headway on this?

 
Nothing yet.
 
Not sure I need DP 1.4
 
I’ll probably just buy another UpLift desk, lol.

[kelvinsofine]

I spent a lot of time tinkering with this exact issue since COVID for our group and finally arrived at what I considered an acceptable solution earlier this year.  As you noted, you need EDID emulation to prevent the workstations from forgetting the monitor configuration when the KVM is switched to the other PC. 
 
I first tried a dual DisplayPort KVM with built-in EDID emulation (ConnectPro I think) to at least switch the expensive diagnostic monitors.  This worked great for about 90% of the switches between stations, but several times per shift the EDID emulation wouldn’t work correctly and I’d be back to restarting PACS when the monitor configuration was lost. 
 
I tried using the DisplayPort EDID emulator dongles you can get on Amazon for like $30, but they didn’t support the specific resolution of the Barco monitors (we have both Coronis and Nio models).
 
What I ended up doing was swapping out the Barco video cards for AMD Radeon Pro cards.  The Barco cards are pretty much just old AMD Radeon Pro/Fire Pro cards that are rebadged and have a custom firmware.  I’ve used the Radeon W5500 and WX3200 models successfully.  Since they’re a generation or two old, you can find the W5500 models on Ebay now for $200-250 new.  The Radeon Pro drivers have an option for EDID emulation that the standard drivers don’t.  Basically, for each workstation you arrange the monitor configuration how you want, click the “Enable EDID emulation” button, and it locks the configuration in place, even if you unplug all the monitors. 
 
I’ve been using a triple monitor DisplayPort 1.2 KVM that you can get on Amazon for about $370.  It’ll switch all three monitors, the keyboard, mouse, and dictation mic at once. There are a lot of variations from the company available.  I’ve been mostly deploying the 3 monitor version, but one of my partners wanted a fourth side monitor, and the 4x DP version also worked.
 
At least for the Barco monitors, you shouldn’t need a DP 1.4 KVM.  I will say, though, I’ve upgraded and shortened the DisplayPort cables from the KVM.  When using generic 6 ft DP cables, a few partners complained of occasional blinking of the diagnostic monitors.  Shortening the cables from the KVM to the Barco monitors from 6 ft to 3 ft and using higher-quality DP 1.4 cables has solved this issue.  I guess the combination of additional total cable length, signal loss between the increased number of connections, and signal loss within the KVM switch itself was enough to occasionally cause issues.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

[ruszja]

Thanks. Very helpful.