Aten has been inside the commercial enterprise of producing KVM switches (brief for Keyboard/Video/Mouse) for over twenty years. During this time, they have got placed themselves as the arena’s biggest KVM manufacturer providing employer solutions as well as products for everyday clients.

Today we can be taking a take a look at one in all their more moderen consumer products, the Laptop USB KVM switch (model CS661), which allows the consumer to easily hyperlink computers together the use of a single plug-and-play cable. Once linked, you may remotely manage one machine from the other in addition to seamlessly switch information between the two.

Whereas general KVM switches can help you manipulate a couple of PCs from a unmarried keyboard, reveal and mouse, this "KVM switch" differs on the real functionality and purpose of the tool. In fact, instead of calling it a KVM transfer, this USB device is more of a wired remote desktop solution.

When Aten approached us for this overview, we have been curious to peer how plug-and-play this computer USB KVM transfer clearly became. Because of its obvious small size, we thought it can be well suitable for customers who stay on a computer for all paintings-associated obligations and want a brief connection to their domestic computers.

The retail package deal includes the KVM transfer, person manual, a short begin manual and a wearing case.

The coronary heart of the KVM switch is enclosed interior a black casing between the two USB cables and is barely larger than a popular cigarette lighter. There is an additional USB port on the bottom of the transfer that can be used to proportion a device which includes a printer or scanner.

Each USB plug is labeled (far off or neighborhood) so that you recognize which to plug into which computer. The cable duration varies on every facet, with the shorter cable (zero.9m) at the nearby facet and the longer cable (1.8m) special for the faraway PC.

I tested the USB KVM switch using my desktop and pocket book computer systems. My computing device PC specifications consist of an Intel Q9650 on an Asus P5Q-E board with four GB of memory and a Palit HD 4870 videocard. The notebook is an HP Pavilion TX1119US with a 12.1” widescreen show, 1.8 GHz AMD Turion sixty four X2 CPU strolling 2 GB of reminiscence and GeForce Go 6150 images.

Installation and Usage
Installing the KVM switch became as smooth as plugging in the USB cable to each laptop. You can join any two computers together: two laptops, desktops, or a computer and a desktop. All of the drivers and vital software are built into the switch so there is no want to move hunting for the ones on Aten’s website. You will, but, be triggered to reboot each system as soon as installation is complete.

Once lower back into Windows, you may want to start up the software on each laptop. This will vicinity an icon for the KVM switch on your taskbar.

The remote get admission to window will appear on the nearby computer, giving you complete control of the far flung PC. Anyone that has used a far flung computing device application may be familiar with this. You can control the remote PC just as you will if you were bodily running on the remote system. The window mirrors the display decision at the remote PC; in this example, 1280 x 800. As with all faraway login software, there is a small amount of lag however that is not anything to be worried with.

CPU usage at the far flung pc when using the far flung get right of entry to feature varied from around 7% to as much as 17%. On the local gadget, CPU usage in no way topped 1%.

The faraway access window has five icons at the top-left corner for numerous capability: open document switch, toggle full display screen mode, limit remote screen, send “begin” to faraway and healthy far flung display screen.

The record switch window suggests the nearby device on the left and the far flung machine at the proper. You can navigate every record gadget independently and switch facts via either drag-and-drop or by the use of the Send/Receive buttons within the center of the transfer window. Transfer takes region across USB, so don’t assume blazing rapid report transfers like you'll revel in over a local community.

The in shape faraway screen alternative sets the decision of the remote PC to healthy that of the neighborhood PC. Doing this at the side of going complete display nearly made it as though I become bodily operating at the far off PC. This could be very on hand if you need to make use of a larger show than is available on the faraway system, as an instance, a pocket book.