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Dr. Bott responds to MoniSwitch KVM issues; an Apple issue?

Dr. Bott responds to MoniSwitch KVM issues; an Apple issue?

CNET staff
2 min read

Yesterday we reported a problem with Dr. Bott's KVM switch experienced by several users where after switching back and forth, the switch delivers no throughput and several errors are reported in single-user mode.

We've now received a response from Dr. Bott's technical support team regarding the issue:

"I have no real answer other than an OS issue because we have worked with Apple on our switch in the past and it is a simple pass through device, meaning it works just like unplugging and plugging into a USB port.

"When I was at WWDC a few weeks ago, I talked to many Apple employees who only use Dr. Bott's switch because of this very issue with our competitors KVM switches. It is even used in the keynote by Steve Jobs himself.

"There were many issues with USB in previous versions of Jaguar and 10.2.6 seems to be very reliable for this reason. I have done tech support on the MoniSwitch line for almost four years and I do NOT see this here on my desk everyday nor does our accountant who has the exact setup as James had with a blue and white G3. I understand that it is frustrating but when I can't make the issue happen here I cannot put blame on our product."

UPDATE: One MacFixIt reader further corroborates that this may be a problem with Apple's I/O implementation, as his Dell box does not display the same issues: "Just for the record, I have the 2 port version of this switch, connecting a G4 Cube running OS 9.2.2 and a Dell running Windows 2000. Using the standard Apple keyboard and a Kensington Turbo Mouse Pro trackball, I have seen numerous glitches in the past 2 years, ranging from unresponsive trackball when switching from PC to the Mac to unresponsive keyboard and trackball when rebooting. I was told upon purchase that both the PC and the Mac needed to have the same driver installed, which it is. I have tolerated these quirks, simply because unplugging and re-plugging the trackball often restores functionality, as does flipping back to the PC and then back to the Mac. Personally, I think it is an issue with Apple's USB implementation, as I have had NO problems of this kind on the Dell machine.

Feedback? Late-breakers@macfixit.com.

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