OK. I’ve got a PC laptop in a dock hooked up to dual monitors, a keyboard, and a mouse (the latter two of which are wireless with a USB hub thingy). I want to add a Macbook Pro into the mix (i.e., so I can use both the PC laptop and the Macbook Pro with the same keyboard/monitors/mouse setup). So, I’m thinking KVM switch that supports dual monitors.
The problem is that I’m not sure how to connect the Macbook Pro to the KVM switch in a way that works with dual monitors. The dock for the PC has a DVI-D and a VGA cable coming out of it, each of which plug into one of the monitors. And the KVM switch has plugs for a DVI and VGA from each computer and then to the two monitors. But my Macbook Pro has two USB ports and a little audio/visual connector port the name of which I’ve forgotten (thinwire? or something?).
The KVM Switch I’m looking at (it’s a Startech model) says it’s also a USB hub, so can I just run one USB cable from the Macbook Pro to the KVM switch and that’ll make everythng go? Another option I’m considering is getting a USB dock for the Macbook Pro–I think that will connect via one USB cable and then have DVI and VGA ports for the connections to the KVM switch. But I’m not sure whether the port’s necessary.
You can’t run video over a USB connection. There are adapters that will go from USB to VGA but they’re not cheap - I’d say around $100 without actually checking.
Most windows laptops will have a vga or dvi port to output video. If you don’t have something like that on your mac, there’s no way to do it with just a simple cable. You’d be talking some kind of hardware and software that would let you output video over firewire or USB and then out to VGA or DVI or possibley HDMI depending on the adapter.
One of the ports however might be a “display port” connection. This will also require an active adapter but you can probably get away with just a hardware solution (no installed software). You’ll have to compare the ports on your machine to a display port.
What you need is a KVM switch that has both USB and VGA inputs/outputs. You’ll also need a mini-displayport-to-VGA adapter cable for the MacBook Pro if you don’t already have one. Once you’ve gotten these pieces, it’s just a matter of hooking things up.
USB connections:
Keyboard and mouse go into the USB inputs.
A USB cord goes from the KVM to each laptop, and carries both mouse and keyboard signals over one wire.
VGA connections:
VGA outs from your Windows and Mac laptops to to the VGA inputs of the KVM. The VGA out from the KVM goes to your monitor.
I don’t think that a MacBook with dual external monitors if going to be easy - even without a KVM in the mix (which adds another layer of complexity).
MacBooks do not come with both VGA and HDMI video ports as found on many PC laptops. Higher end MacBooks do have both Intel and Radeon graphics modes (like having two video cards), but I don’t know if the DisplayPort output carries both signals and can support a monitor for each.
It should be easy to use a single external monitor with your Mac (with or without KVM) and also use the built-in display.
True. I took the OP to mean dual-monitor in the sense of using one external monitor and counting the laptop screen as the other monitor. My previous post explains how to set it up with a single external monitor; I’m not sure how to go about doing it with dual external monitors.