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Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/1513481
Installation and Setup Previously I had a setup that was a bit more convoluted. I used a selector by Ugreen–it’s just a KM, not a KVM–to switch the keyboard and mouse back and forth, and I used the joystick on the back of the monitor to switch between the video inputs. This worked perfectly, but it was not very graceful. The KVM switch should be easier and faster. The KVM arrived in a small box, and everything inside was well-protected with cardboard inserts. I removed everything from their plastic bags and then read through the small, five-page manual. The most helpful part for me was the Application image that showed what to connect to which ports. That’s really the key information that I needed to know. Armed with this, I set about connecting everything together. On the back, I connected the MacBook Pro to the USB-C port. I then connected my Mac mini to the USB-C and HDMI ports. Finally, I connected the HDMI out 1 port to my monitor. On the front, I connected my Glorious D mouse and an Apple keyboard. Everything looked great, so the final step was to plug in power to the AV Access KVM. Performance At this point, what should happen is that every time I press the button on the front, it switches from one computer to the other. Press once, and the monitor, keyboard, and mouse all work with my desktop; press again, and they all work with my laptop. Easy peasy. But it didn’t work. Nothing displayed on the monitor, neither from the mini nor the MacBook. I went into debug mode, unplugging and plugging cables, moving things around, swapping things out, connecting computers directly to the monitor. Finally, I found the problem: When using only one monitor, I need to plug my HDMI cable into HDMI out 2, not HDMI out 1. I think AV Access mislabeled their video output ports. With that changed, I got video out from my Mac mini, and it looked great. I was still, however, having trouble getting video from the laptop. It was spotty; sometimes it worked, but sometimes not. As I continued to debug, I found a few things that seem to help: • One, in the Displays panel in System Settings, I set the monitor to mirror the laptop’s display but optimized the resolution for the monitor (not the laptop). • Two, I switched out the USB-C cable that I had been using for the one that AV Access provided. • Three, I wake up the laptop before switching to it. Despite these, this KVM has problems every time I switch to the laptop for the first time in the morning. The video will display fine for two seconds then turn off, despite the fact that it’s displaying find on the laptop’s display. The only resolution is to unplug