Home > Consumer Reviews > Belkin 2port Omniview KVM Switch Soho Series PS2/usb With Audio

Overall the switch works great out of the box, but there are some caveats.

First, it doesn't come with the necessary cables, and not just any cables will do; the VGA cable has to be a special kind with male and female connectors and screws on BOTH ends. This can only be found (as far as I can tell) in a special kit that Belkin sells. And you will need two sets, of course, which adds a hidden cost to the price of your switch.

Then there's the matter of upgrading the firmware. Although you can connect Macs and PCs running just about any OS, the flash upgrades can apparently only be applied from a PC running Windows 98. How lame is that? It wouldn't be so much of an issue, but on the Mac side I am experiencing keyboard issues which require upgrading. Why they couldn't allow installation of the upgrades via USB instead of through an arcane parallel port cable is beyond me.

The last annoyance: on my PC running Win 2000 there is a significant delay after switching before my wireless mouse or Wacom tablet will work - about 10 seconds. No such delay on the Mac, though.

Other than that, the unit looks great and handles well.

Do you use a "plain jane" keyboard and mouse, and never use features such as volume controls, audio mute, etc and other features found on most modern "multimedia" keyboards?

Could you care less about having control over your scrollwheel speed?

Do you need a KVM that will NOT let you switch between a Windows desktop and a Mac OSX desktop, while retaining the functionality of the keyboard and mouse?

If you answered yes to any or all of those questions, then I would wholeheartedly recommend this KVM.

If, however, you are one of those wierdos who expects that your keyboard and mouse will actually *work* when switching between systems, then don't even THINK about buying this product!

Sure, you get basic switching of your keyboard and mouse through this KVM, but it's exactly that...BASIC. With my Logitech Elite keyboard and Microsoft optical Intellimouse Explorer 4.0 mouse, it was impossible to have either my Mac or my WinXP box recognize these devices as anything other than the lowest common denominator, "generic" input devices. This means that every non-alphanumeric key on the keyboard becomes completely non-functional, the Command key is mapped to the wrong key on the Mac, and the scrollwheel on the mouse becomes barely functional.

In other words, this KVM is basically useless with anything but the most basic of keyboard and/or mouse devices.

And while many reviews make a big deal about the fact that this KVM has a flashable firmware update port, in reality it doesn't mean diddley squat, because in nearly 5 years, Belkin has NEVER released a firmware update for this thing.

This is a complete lemon of a KVM.

There are 3 things you need to know before buying a KVM:

1. In addition to the unit, you will have to buy a slew of expensive cables, many of which it is unlikely you already own.

2. KVM switches as a peripheral in general are notorious for not working properly with any given set of machines/OS's/mice/KB/monitors/videocards.

3. This is one of those units described in #2.

4. Although Belkin officially supports Linux with this product, the customer support I rep I emailed wasnt even able to spell Linux correctly, much less help me get it working.

I actually stayed away from the Belkin KVM switches at first due to the terrible reviews I read for them, so I tried Iogear first. It turns out Iogear KVMs are not compatible with my NVIDIA motherboard, so it would not work on one of my computers. So, due to lack of other choices for USB only KVM switches, I tried this one with little hope that it will work. Surprisingly, it works almost perfectly for me. I have a new Microsoft Natural Ergonomic 4000 and a Logitech MX310 mouse, and both computers (one with XP and one with 2000) detect them without any problems. Most of the extra media keys work on both devices as well. The video is still sharp on my LCD monitor. Switching is quick, maybe 3 seconds. The only glitch I have had is that sometimes I get to typing a little too fast and the switch starts beeping and my keyboard will not respond for a moment. But, once I stop typing for a second, it catches up and is fine. But, that only happens once a day or so, and you have to be typing pretty fast! Anyway, a very minor problem in any case. The only down side is that it was quite expensive to buy all the extra cords, but it is worth it if it works. I find it strange that the one switch that has the worst reviews online seems to be the only one that works for me, and works well at that!!

I was very excited to receive my USB KVM. Having a KVM that is also a USB hub comes in handy. I can connect an external USB drive to the KVM and have it "seen" by the other computers when I switch to them. However, that is were my fondness of the product stops.

The keyboard delay is so annoying. Walk away from the computer long enough for the screen saver to come on and you'll have to wait 20-30 seconds before the keyboard returns. It doesn't make sense, it accepts the Ctl-Alt-Del right away but then sits there before it will accept the first keystroke of the password. A workaround I've found is to switch to another PC and switch back, but that doesn't always work. Also, if the USB keyboard is unpluged for any reason an annoying "chirp" begins and will not shut up...even if you unplug the power it. To get the chirp to stop you have to unplug all of the USB cables or plug the keyboard back in.

I've also had instances where the keyboard and mouse loses all connectivity to a machine. I've had to reboot the machine in order to get the pc to recognize them.

I hope Belkin has a firmware update to fix these problems soon.