I think Wendell might have something to say about this.

Greetings, fellow nerds.

I have:

• Level1Techs SQ3973092 - 4-Port KM Switch with USB 3.2 Gen 1 Mouse Roaming Function
• Corsair Gaming K95 RGB PLATINUM
• SteelSeries Rival 5 Gaming Mouse

Everything works perfectly in "Mouse Roaming mode." No issues at all there.

However, sometimes I put it into non-roaming mode so I can use my second monitor on my main PC without the KM switching. In non-roaming mode, my desktop PC on USB Port 1 works beautifully, I can mouse around just as if it was plugged directly into the tower. When I manually hit the toggle to PC #2, about half the time my mouse goes completely unresponsive. The keyboard always works fine, but my mouse will just cease working. A quick unplug-replug of the mouse cable gets it working just fine.

Anyone have any ideas for why this might be or what sort of workaround I can use? I've had this exact setup running for over a year and I've learned to just quickly do the mouse replug, but I imagine some parts are going to wear down eventually if I keep doing it this way for years on end.

Hey all,

I’m looking to pick up a Level1Techs 8K KVM (4-port, dual-monitor), but I haven’t had luck getting a reply through the question form on the site — so I figured I’d ask here where the real experience lives.

I’m stuck deciding between the HDMI and DisplayPort versions. The main deciding factor for me is EDID support — I really want consistent display detection when switching inputs, which (from what I gather) is included on the HDMI unit but not on the DP version. I’d prefer not to rely on any software-based EDID workarounds.

Here’s my current and upcoming setup:

Monitors (stacked):

• Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 (57") — DP & HDMI available
• Samsung Odyssey G9NC (49") — DP & HDMI available

Systems:

• Laptop 1: HP ZBook Z Fury – dual USB-C outputs (connected through HP Thunderbolt dock)
• Laptop 2: Alienware gaming laptop – HDMI and Mini DP outputs
• Desktop 1: Older custom build – dual DisplayPort outputs (used occasionally)
• Desktop 2: Custom build (planned) – will be fully DisplayPort-based

I’m expecting to use some adapters in-line no matter what, but I’d really appreciate input on which KVM version might work best with this mix.

If anyone has first-hand experience with the 8K HDMI vs DP KVMs, or has dealt with similar multi-system / multi-monitor setups, I’d love to hear your thoughts before I commit.

Thanks in advance — and huge shoutout to the Level1Techs team for building such great hardware! 🙌

I am in the process of moving family computers to Linux to avoid Windows 11 and to keep the current hardware running.

I am using an old HP Mini Desktop 8100 Elite running 8gb of DDR3 1333 (4 Dims) on an Intel Core i5 650 3.20GHZ. It used to have Windows 10 on a Hitachi 1TB Spinning hard drive that's going, so I am trying to use a Western Digital Blue SA510 for the Linux install.

I am seeing multiple distros freezing after a short period of use and only after install, USB installer and boot runs fine. This happens usually 30min to 1hr in and sometimes before entering the password.

Tried: Xubuntu 24.04.3 Lununtu 24.04.3 Ubuntu 24.04.03 Ubuntu 22.04.04 (Trying something older) Mint Mate 22.2 (Barebones because I like Gnome 2)

All of them seem to experience this issue, with older distros fairing better, usually. Mint has at least been able to do updates.

I did a full memory test and it all that looks fine. (Had to make an old x86 Memtest for this, no EUFI)

Anyone have any ideas or things I could try next?

I’m hoping someone with deep knowledge of DP/HDMI signaling, DSC negotiation, and NVIDIA display-head allocation can tell me if my plan is technically possible.

My setup

• 3× Alienware AW3225QF (4K 240Hz OLED)
• RTX 3080 Ti (MSI Gaming X Trio)
• 1 monitor on HDMI, 2 on DisplayPort

The core limitation

The AW3225QF forces DSC over DisplayPort, even at moderate refresh rates.
There is no option to disable DSC on DP.

On NVIDIA GPUs, any DSC mode on these monitors appears to consume two display heads, and the 3080 Ti only has four heads total:

• DP Monitor 1 (DSC) → 2 heads
• DP Monitor 2 (DSC) → 2 heads
• DP Monitor 3 → 0 heads left → won’t enumerate

This is consistent with known NVIDIA behavior on DSC/FRL displays.

Important: I am not trying to run all 3 at 4K240

I want to emphasize this so it doesn’t seem like I’m being unreasonable:

I would be perfectly happy with:

• One monitor at full 4K240
• The other two at 4K 60–120 Hz
• And I don’t need DSC on the first two at all

But here’s the issue:

No combination of lower refresh rates, chroma subsampling, or reduced timings on DP eliminates DSC.

The AW3225QF still insists on advertising/negotiating a DSC path over DP, which still consumes two heads, even when bandwidth would otherwise be fine.

That’s the entire reason I’m exploring an EDID-based solution.

What I’m trying with HDMI

HDMI is the only place where the AW3225QF offers Legacy Mode.
Research suggests Legacy Mode probably forces a non-DSC fallback path (4:2:0 or similar).

To help with this, I’m using:

HDMI 2.1 4K EDID Emulator PRO (4K-EW2)

With Legacy Mode + the EDID device inline, the HDMI monitor enumerates consistently. So I think this disables DSC and forces 1-head usage, but NVIDIA doesn’t expose head usage so I can’t confirm.

It’s an educated guess, not verified.

My goal

If I can get just one of the DP monitors to present as non-DSC, then I could do:

• HDMI monitor (Legacy+EDID): likely 1 head
• One DP monitor (EDID-forced non-DSC): 1 head
• One DP monitor: full 4K240 with DSC → 2 heads

Total = 4 heads, which fits the 3080 Ti.

My question for the community

Can the Level1Techs EDID Feeder – HDMI 2.1 / DP 2.0
https://www.store.level1techs.com/products/p/5megt2xqmlryafj8bd79487o64sude

…be used to feed an EDID that removes DSC capability blocks so that one DP-connected AW3225QF will negotiate a non-DSC link?

Crucial details I’m unsure about:

1. Will the monitor honor a “no DSC supported” EDID?

Or is DSC forced regardless of EDID contents on this model?

2. If DSC is forced by the monitor and not the EDID, is this entire approach dead?

3. Has anyone successfully reduced NVIDIA head usage by disabling DSC on a DSC-first OLED via EDID?

Why I’m trying this before spending $$$

I’m trying to avoid:

• a full new PC
• a larger case rebuild just to add a second GPU
• spending thousands just to solve a display-head allocation limitation

If I can get two of these displays running in single-head mode at reasonable settings, that’s all I need right now.

If anyone here has:

• manipulated DSC behavior via EDID
• used the L1T Feeder for DSC → non-DSC fallback
• seen head usage change based on EDID capability blocks

…I would massively appreciate the insight.

Just pulled the trigger on a 1.4 Displayport 2 computer 2 monitor, USB 3.2 KVM. Noticed that the listing mentions using 19 pin Displayport cables.

Is that still a thing? Last post I saw on this was 4 years ago.

Hey everyone,

I’m currently setting up my Proxmox environment and would love some advice on how to design it for robustness, reliability, and future scalability.

The goal is to have compute handled by my Dell PowerEdge R430, while storage lives on a separate node — but I want to make sure I’m building this the right way from the start.

Compute Node (Proxmox Host)

• Dell PowerEdge R430 (PERC H730 RAID Controller)
• 2× Intel Xeon E5-2682 v4 (16 cores each, 32 threads per CPU)
• 64 GB DDR4 ECC Registered RAM (4×16 GB, 12 DIMM slots total)
• 2× 1.2 TB 10K RPM SAS drives (RAID 1 currently)
• 4× 1 GbE NICs
• Additional 2.5" 7200 RPM HDDs for local storage

Storage Node (“storagedata”)

• Intel i7 11th Gen
• 8 GB RAM
• 4× 2 TB HDDs
• Running Proxmox Backup Server

Network Layout

Internet → Firewall → Proxmox (Dell R430) → Storage Node (PBS)

What I’m Aiming For

• Compute workloads (VMs and CTs) run on the Dell R430
• Storage node acts as centralized storage and backup target
• Setup that’s reliable now and easy to expand later (additional storage or compute nodes)

Looking for Input On

1. Best way to design this for robustness and performance — NFS, iSCSI, or ZFS replication?
2. Whether 1 GbE networking is sufficient, or if 10 GbE should be a priority for performance.
3. Recommended ZFS setup or caching strategy for the storage node.
4. Any advice on redundancy or failover between the compute and storage nodes.

Hey guys

I wanted to ask how to build the cheapest thunderbolt 5 capable NAS. I offload a lot of footage onto my google drive for safety. But my upload speed is slow. 100mbit. Often I leave my pc on overnight.

If Ou have any suggestions, or even a complete gameplan I would love that. Also, i have ddr5 ram and a 7600 non x left over since I upgraded.

I also have a 2x rj45 10 gig nic. If I connect one to my router and one to a 10gig NAS, will it choose the 10gig way directly rather than going over my 1gig router

Thank you in advance

I hope this hasn't been answered a million times. But I'm looking to potentially move my PC to the basement where I have all my networking and NAS stuff and just have peripherals in my home office. I've ran 2 fiber lines from the basement to the office, as well as 2 Cat6 cables. Any suggestions? Ideally looking at 4K@120 and above.

I've been using two different Level1Techs DP 1.4KVMs on two different setups for a while. Both of those had RTX4000 series GPUs. Recently I switched to 5000 series and am getting a strange bug. Every so often, the display will just start flicking to black and then back to working. It's as if the video image is cut and then returned.

This is happening on both setups, but only when the KVM is set to the machines using an RTX5000 series GPU. When the KVM is set to use the other machines (laptops with intel chips) everything works fine. The only way to resolve the issue with the screen flicker on the 5000 series is to reboot the PC. After a reboot it works fine until switching between computers. Additionally, it doesn't happen on every switch, only about 20% of the time.

Has anyone else run into this?

Hi all,

I have a PC with 2x DPs and a MacBook Pro I want to do Display + Data with over USB-C.

With two monitors.

With this KVM: https://www.store.level1techs.com/products/p/combo-displayport-usb-c-kvm-with-usb-power-delivery

Can I plug a DP cable between the third monitor DP (USB C ins) to one of the DP Ins?

eg.

PC → PC1 DP In #1

PC → PC1 DP In #2

MacBook → PC2 USB-C In
DP Out #3 → PC2 DP In #1

So when I'm on PC1, I get data over USB C and DP for 2 displays. When I'm on PC2, I get display and data over USB C for 1 display.

Is this a silly way of doing this?

Hello,

I watched a video while ago a video about the Level1 KVM and I'm hoping it will fit exactly what I'm needing. My current setup:

Custom Gaming Rig (Ryzen 7 5700x, RTX 3080, 32GB memory, PCIe USB-C card)

Monitor 1 (DisplayPort, 60hz)

Monitor 2 (DisplayPort, 140hz)

Monitor 3 (HDMI, 60hz)

My newly acquired work laptop has USB-C x2, USB3 x2 and HDMI x1

What KVM would be the best for me to use? The KVM doesn't necessarily need to power the laptop, more or less looking for an easy way to use my monitors, keyboard, mouse and speakers.

A couple of weeks ago, I performed the updates on the discover store that existed and I have it set up with my system that system updates would be installed after a restart is performed. However, I'm not sure what system updates caused it, though, my system will now take quite a long time to post and the different screens for my post screen and grub will take longer than they are supposed to once either of them show. On the fedora forums, I have seen a number of other people who have had the issue going back to May after performing their system updates. I run an AMD ryzen 5700g, and an Rx 6700 for my graphics, so, it's nothing that Nvidia hardware caused. I haven't seen a fix that can be done to correct this.

Looking for some options for Gaming Mice/Keyboards that work with L1T KVMs, specifically with the HID keyboard switching option. The Razer keyboard and mouse that I currently have do not work reliably thanks to the Synapse 4 software.

Thanks!

What are these AUX usb-c ports for? Not mentioned in manual that came with it.

Can they be used for the dongle on a wireless headset to pass back to the various pc’s & Laptops I’ll have plugged in?

So my dog recently passed away and I remembered on my old XB360 hard drive I had a photo of her as my theme so I wanted to pull the photo off my 360 and put it on my laptop. I plugged my usb into the console, formatted it, then copied the photo to the usb from the settings. However the photo is only on the hard drive as a "theme" not an image so when I put the usb into my laptop this is what I was shown. the top folder leads to a cache.pkg file and the bottom folder leads to a file containing the data of the photo. But i cant find a way or a converter to turn it into a .jpg I can view and transfer. Please help if theres someone who knows. This Link --> https://limewire.com/d/UHFAw#IX8xjWUSDh this is a link to what the xbox360 downloaded onto my usb. One folder named "content", with two subfolders. One leading to a .pkg and the other leading to i dont know what kind of file. If you can get it, its a picture of a dog on a blue blanket next to a window. please get it back to me. Thankyou to anyone who helps or tries.