Re: Whats causing this?

Peter F wrote:

We have just begun a migration of legacy and new PC's. Both the systems are
needed to run in parrallel for at least a year due to SLA etc.

We use a 4 port KVM switch (which has USB and PS2) connections. When we plug
in the new PC's to the USB port there is no problem. When we conntect the old
NT4 legacy PC's to the KVM we can't get the mouse to work. We have attempted
to reboot while connected but still not joy.

By mentioning PS/2 ports and legacy hosts, the assumption is that your
legacy hosts have a BIOS that lacks USB support or lacks support for
"USB legacy devices" (i.e., USB keyboard and USB mouse).

Some KVMs are merely pass-through routers (i.e., just a switch with no
logic to convert between mismatched input and output port types). A USB
mouse connected to a USB input port on the KVM may not go through the
conversion needed to support a PS/2 output port on the KVM connected to
a PS/2 port on the host. It would depend on which KVMs you are using.
Don't expect much from the cheap ones which are often nothing more than
switched splitter boxes (this input goes direct to one of the multiple
outputs). A decent 4-port USB & PS/2 KVM that allows USB-PS2 conversion
costs $200, probably a lot more and hard to find. If they can be daisy
chained, they might have the logic to do the cross-port conversions.

Rather than mix your legacy and new hosts on a KVM, segregate your KVMs.
For each KVM, all hosts connected to it are legacy hosts, or all hosts
connected to it are new hosts, but don't mix them on the same KVM.
Those KVMs are lot cheaper and far more abundant.

Does the manuals for the KVMs say they will convert USB to PS/2 and visa
versa? Might work if you use a PS/2 mouse to the KVM, a PS/2 cable to
the legacy host that only supports PS/2, and a USB cable to the new host
but use a USB-to-PS2 adapter at the end connecting to the USB port in
the new host.
.

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